Festival of Dahlias 2008-Preview

Festival of Dahlias 2008-Preview

Over the next several days this site is going to be featuring Dahlia photos. Since many of the photographs are from Long Island the first Dahlia is appropriately named ‘Long Island Lil’. Dahlias seem to grow so well on the Island (along with everything else). Many of the flower pictures are from the Mid-Island Dahlia Society’s Eastern Trial Garden so you will be seeing a lot of seedlings and varieties that are under evaluation. The seedlings were amazing and most will probably go on to be cultivated varieties.


The Dahlias at work have done very well. A profusion of blooms and not too many fungus or insect problems. They all were unnamed varieties (no tags) but it turned out to be a pretty good mix. So the Festival of Dahlias will have some homegrown flowers also.

Decorative Dahlia
Dahlia 'Long Island Lil'

My impression of ‘Long Island Lil’ is the color is superb and at 40 inches the plant is stout and good size. The flower almost looks like a Ball Dahlia but is a little more open.


This is another Dahlia from the test garden. It is named ‘Islander’ and I am not sure if it originates from Long Island or not. The color here again was superb and not one that you see commonly. The flowers were absolutely huge (guessing 8-10 inches across).


This is how I kept track of the different varieties.



Last night I went to private concert in Manhattan by Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Susan Tedeschi. It was great show and I was able to get right up to the front. Some of the dancers were almost pushing me into the keyboards. She is extremely talented and very attractive.