I’m feeling conflicted about dahlias. When they’re perfect they can hit like a sucker punch to the gut and leave me gasping. They’re not the only flower to strike me that way; the Fibonacci spiral of a sunflower, a wrinkly poppy, a stem of sweet peas (or better yet a bunch in hand), roses in every stage from bud to petals on the ground can send me reeling too. But there’s the difference. I have no affection for an imperfect dahlia flower and only tolerate the senescent, blown open ones for bumblebees’ sake. The ones that have been molested by grasshoppers, become weather-beaten, or dropped every petal are disappointment itself. And dahlias are not grown for their foliage, which by now can be a hot mess.

The other day on a walk a front yard dahlia the size of my face stopped me in my tracks and demanded I quit staring and take a picture already. So I did. Dahlia ‘Café au Lait’ has that effect on people like me and brides all over the universe. Its color is variable but generally lands somewhere in the antique blush range between beige and mauve, deeper at the center and graduating to creamy toward flared and twisted outer edges. It clashes with almost everything, which is why I’ve never planted it at home. That, and it’s one of the most expensive tubers to buy. I don’t want to want it.

For the last few weeks I've thought my favorite dahlia was an over 5-footer called ‘Gitts Crazy’. Its folded gold petals have a maroon reverse that make the whole flower read as orange. Today, the clear apricot petals of 'Ginegersnap', unfurling one by one like fingers from a fist, stole my heartbeat for a second and so did the glowing fuchsia ‘Sonic Bloom’. Earlier this summer I fell hard for a single stem of ‘Hugs ’N’ Kisses’ I spotted in a vase. That one is an almost blue lavender with a deeper purple reverse. Honest to goodness, it didn’t look real. That bothers me.

Zinnias, on the other hand, are as real as it gets. Their perfection runs a broad spectrum from crisply outlined bud to full blown and blurry, anthers out, butterfly topped. Flaws are endearing, like when your favorite human has a bad hair day. And it’s easy to forgive them for aging ungracefully. Maybe because they’re so easy come, easy go. Dahlias are not. They require a commitment.
Every year I buy packets of zinnia seeds and think nothing of it if I never get around to sowing them. But I’m wracked with guilt for not replanting the dahlia tubers I so dotingly dug, cleaned, labeled, and bundled for winter storage last fall. While they molder away down cellar and mortify me by growing desperate and anemic shoots through their newspaper wrapping, the zinnia seeds ‘Queen Red Lime’ and ‘Raspberry Limeade’ I poked in my raised bed, have supplied me with endless tiny vases of heartstoppingly imperfect greenish-pinkish flowers.

I have lost more plants than I can count to benign and malignant neglect over the course of my gardening life but I can’t remember ever feeling so sorry. Turns out the most disappointing, least perfect dahlias — the ones that can make me resentful and hypercritical of the entire tribe — are the ones I didn’t get in the ground. Gotta love ‘em.

Kristin Green is the horticulturist at Mount Hope Farm and author of 'Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter'. Follow her blog at trenchmanicure.com.