Color story
Orange & Bronze dahlias
Pumpkin, terracotta, and rust. The autumn-market heroes.
These palettes are our editorial groupings. The ADS classifies color separately with 15 formal classes; profiles note both where verified.
Brown Sugar
Deep rusty copper, a red-brown with an orange glow that vendors reach for words like burnt sienna to describe. Fleur Farm notes perfectly cupped rusty petals.
Cornel Bronze
Muted bronze, recorded under ADS color code BR3. A soft metallic shade that designers use where red or orange would be too loud.
Terracotta
Warm amber and butterscotch tones with a bronzy peach cast, described by sellers as dusty light orange. The color is the whole calling card.
Crichton Honey
Classed bronze, in the garden it reads warm apricot and peachy bronze. One farm describes its stock as cream to pale pink, a minority report worth noting.
Jomanda
Rusty red-orange, a saturated burnt sienna that deepens as nights cool, carried on notably dark stems that flatter the bloom color in arrangements.
Maarn
Honey apricot deepening to tangerine orange, a saturated warm tone.
Gitts Crazy
A swirling dark blend of golden bronze with a rosy-purple reverse, so the bloom reads differently as the petals catch light. The Cincinnati Dahlia Society classes it B ST DB, a medium stellar.
Ferncliff Copper
Warm peachy copper, a fall tone that arrangers reach for from late summer on.
Lark's Ebbe
A bronze-peach that shifts through the season, ADS class 3011, never quite the same color twice.
Valley Rust Bucket
Classed bronze: an amber two-tone with orange petals over a strawberry-red reverse, so the ball shifts color with viewing angle.
Totally Tangerine
Tangerine orange petals with a rose pink reverse around a rust to golden orange pincushion center.
Sandia Brocade
Warm golden orange shading to cantaloupe, with reflexed outer petals around a tubular, fringed center, all carried on dark stems.
Bloomquist Jean
A clear orange on a medium informal decorative, ADS class B ID, clean enough to win and useful enough to cut.
Lake Hills Creamsicle
An orange-and-cream blend on an open peony form, named for the frozen treat it resembles.
Coseytown Oriole
Fiery red-orange with uncommonly dark centers, set off by glossy dark foliage and near-black stems. The dark eye and dark plant make the hot color read even hotter.