Question
L.I.Gardener, I also live on Long Island and I would like to grow a Dahlia this year that I saw in a store several years ago.  I know this sounds crazy.  Specifically, I was in Tiffany's in Manhattan and there was a beautiful display in the China department. It was supposed to be a patio outdoors, set up for breakfast, and there was of course crystal and some beautiful porcelain and sterling silver.  I wrote all the information down, even the napkins.  I could not afford it all then.  But I bought the breakfast china place setting by place setting, and I am ready to buy the silverware and the glasses, all for this summer.  But no one at Tiffany had any idea what kind of flower was in the big pots.  I eventually found out it was a kind of Dahlia.  Now I know it was probably a cactus Dahlia and it was light, sort of a shell pink.  I have seen small, less impressive Dahlias at the local nursery.  But I want to grow the one that I saw in Tiffany's.  This is probably hopeless but any advice you can give me I would really be so happy to get.  I wish I had a photograph.  Please help me.

Answer
Patricia, There is no time to waste if you want to mail-order Dahlias for the summer of 2006.  It is not yet warm enough to plant Dahlia tubers where I live, but you did not specify where you live; in Georgia or Zone 8 somewhere you can get those in the ground right now.  The trouble is, Most top Dahlia specialists are out of stock on a good number of their offerings.  If you want to match EXACTLY the blooms you saw at Tiffany's you might find them in a color catalog, on the internet, perhaps at www.dahlia.org/guide/color.html, which has many photos of registered Dahlias.  You are looking for C or IC (Cactus or Incurved Cactus) bulbs.  

You can order some very nice Dahlias at Swan Island Dahlias, which has a good website to help you match the pink Cactus Dahlia you remember.  They include good directions in the order and are highly reputable.  

My favorite IC and C Dahlias are called Park's Princess and Curly Que.  

The cost of the fancy designer Dahlias by the way has nothing to do with their quality or size.  New hybrids are the costliest.  Least expensive are the ones that have been around since the 1960s or earlier.  Some Dahlias are easier to breed than others, so these are also cheaper.  This same rule goes for Narcissus (Daffodils) and probably a lot of other hybrid flowers as well.

Now even I am curious as to what they are growing at Tiffany's these days.

Don't worry -- if you can't find the same one, you can always have breakfast at Tiffany's.  

Sorry... I could not resist.

Let me know how it goes.