BETTY ANNE (1928)

P-PK 6204

Form: Pompon  

Size: under 2"

Color: Pink 

Hybridizer: Stanley Johnson 

Introduction Year: 1928

November 27, 2023 Misfit Monday Post: Squeezing in my Misfit Monday post before the day is over!! Last week @missysdahlias posted about BETTY ANNE being a Stanley Johnson introduction and I thought wow I wonder what else Stanley Johnson introduced? Since he has a medal named after him I figured the list must be long! And it is!!! But oddly in the ADS classification guide BETTY ANNE is listed as being introduced in 1928 and all his other introductions are listed 13 years later from 1941-1987 so off I went down a rabbit hole! At 1st I was thinking maybe BETTY ANNE wasn't really a Johnson introduction but then I found an advertisement for it by Stanley in a 1935 ADS Bulletin. The ad claims BETTY ANNE to be a 1936 introduction so I'm not really sure how it got classified as 1928. I also found many other introductions from him in the 1930s that for whatever reason are not classified. Over the years Stanley posted many advertisements for dahlias, with later advertisements using the name Pennypack Gardens. Many of his later introductions were named PENNS... like PENNDAZZLE, PENNSCLASSIC, and PENNSPECIAL. Sadly I wasn't able to find much about who Stanley Johnson actually was other than he was very active in the Dahlia world. At one point was the President of the ADS and he belonged to the Philadelphia Dahlia Society. As for BETTY ANNE it is a petite little pink pompon, that is simply enchanting. In my garden it doesn't have the strongest stems but it definitely pumps out the blooms to make up for it! Can't wait to see her bloom again next year in my heritage garden!! Now off to try to find out more about Mr. Johnson, if I can.