Susan, I'm not in the UK, I'm on the east coast in Maryland, but I'll be glad to share my experience with this plant. The short story is that it's easy and quick from seed, grows like a weed up to about eight feet the first year - and does not bloom. It does not bloom because we have frosts before the flowers develop. If I grew short-day-length chrysanthemums under tents, I might be tempted to try this one again. Photos I've seen suggest that the flowers look like those of pink Cosmos bipinnatus. For those of you who don't know it, this is not simply another Dahlia. It's a very distinctive foliage plant, with huge compound leaves held at a characteristic angle. It's worth having simply as a foliage plant. The foliage reminds me a bit of that of Melia azedarach. Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where two or three Crocus kotschyanus and C. speciosus are so far all I have to show in the way of autumn crocus.