catalog vs. garden

Now I'm just learning about growing dahlias in this climate, so my results may be off. My dahlias certainly don't have much vigor, and they bloom much shorter than they are supposed to, probably from nutritional issues. I'm just noticing how the flowers in the garden are sometimes very different from how they are in the catalog/web. Same goes for roses, but maybe another time.

Brookside Snowball, web (very similar to the catalog):

Brookside Snowball in my garden.
Funny thing is that it's hard to tell the size of the flower on the web. It could be a pompom, but it is actually about 4 inches across.

Grand Finale from the catalog (similar to various sites on the web):

Grand Finale in my garden: can't say I'm very fond of how this one turned out. We'll see how additional blooms turn out.

Ron's Dark Ember in the catalog:

Ron's Dark Ember in my garden: quite similar, and impressive.

Snowbird in the catalog: not actually all that nice, but had nice description.

 Snowbird in my garden: Just lovely.

White Lightning in the catalog:

 White Lightning in my garden: ick. This one is going into the compost pile.

Cultural differences or did they send the wrong thing? Both Grand Finale and White Lightning came from the same supplier, which also sent me the Brookside Snowball. Snowbird and Ron's Dark Ember both came from a different supplier.