The nights are drawing in, and getting cold, the courgettes are about to die back, but my late summer favourites, dahlia, and still going strong. Here are 6 wonderful dahlias for my #SixOnSaturday. Regular visitors to this blog may spot some familiar faces, but who cares, these plants look so great at this time of year.

First up, a simple red bloom, still caught after by the slowing bees and the odd hoverfly. This one is probably Bishop of Llangdaff.

Despite their uselessness for foraging insects, I’ve grown to be quite excited by cactus dahlia. I have a few this year. Love the orange-red of the petals and the spiky appearance.

This plant is a biggy, and so are her blooms. A wonderful pastel peachy colour.

Another huge blooms comes from this plant, delivering one flower at a time, but has been doing so for 5 weeks or so now.

A few plants are still hanging on in pots in the courtyard, although the house wall now occludes the sun for too much of the day. This one has still managed a lovely pink flower. These colours are almost metallic.

Last, but not least, flowering, flowering and then some more. This is my favourite dahlia for the 2024 season.

My discovery of the loveliness of dahlias for the end of summer, a few years ago, still makes me happy every season. Hope you’ve enjoyed them too. And thanks to those leaving comments on the blog – sorry if I don’t always get back to you on time! The blog is going well, but it would be great if more folk on Mastodon, or other parts of the Fediverse got into tooting a Six! Go on, its a much kinder form of social media, not controlled by crazy billionaires. All you need to do is find 6 things in your garden to show us. Then post on social, or add a link at Jim’s blog below. For regulars, our organiser is Jim at https://gardenruminations.co.uk/. And I’m on mastodon @julie3dharris@mastodon.scot