Delightful Dahlias - a must for exotic gardens
It was the hottest day of the year yesterday - 30c and very humid. One plant that is thriving in this tropical weather and blooming much earlier is the wonderful Dahlia - a key component for any exotic garden in the UK. There are around 50,000 different flowers - except blue apparently - which should mean that you can find something to suit your garden.http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plantprofile_dahlia.shtml
Dahlias definitely do better with plenty of sunlight but they also need from one to two inches of rain every week - today’s showers will certainly be welcomed by Dahlias everywhere!
The key to their success is a really good rich soil with plenty of organic material, a regular pruning, possibly staking as the plants grow ever taller and the occasional feed.
Dahlias are actually grown from a tuber, a bulb like structure, and are classified as bulb plants. Plant them near the beginning of June and they will provide wonderful colour late into the warm Autumns that we seem to experience every year with the onset of climate change.
They look simply wonderful in exotic borders with one of the most popular being The Bishop of Llandaff, a tall elegant plant with intense dark purple foliage and a generous amount of large peony- flowered, semi-double intense bright red flower heads, each two or three inches across on long, tall stems. This was introduced to the UK in 1927 and was a favourite of the late Chrisopher Lloyd in his legendary garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex.http://www.greatdixter.co.uk/
Below are some photos of The Bishop of Llandaff growing in a delightful garden in South London. This beautiful oasis has a definite feel of the countryside and has been created by Rosie Catherwood, a film-maker, art collector and avid gardener. Rosie uses her creative talents to position her many plants in just the right places.Wherever you look there is something unusual to appreciate. My daughter Amy and I soaked up the atmosphere when we went for tea last Sunday afternoon . These flowers caught my eye as we were tucking into cucumber sandwiches and carrot cake - you just can’t beat afternoon tea on a glorious sunny day in a beautiful English garden!
The flowers look simply stunning as the sunlight catches the deep purple foliage and bold flowers. Rosie cleverly combines sculpture within her planting - notice the imposing black piece from Zimbabwe which creates a great contrast to the vivid red flowers.
Many gardeners dig up dahlia tubas for the winter to be re-planted the following year. If your garden is sheltered from frost, try leaving them in and covering them with straw as many will do better this way as long as the ground does not become frozen or water-logged.
Or, if you fancy growing these delectable plants from seed, read the interesting piece about propogating dahlias on the BBC Gardeners World web-site: http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/dahlias-from-seed/index.jsp
Filed in Climate Change, Climate Change Plants, Exotics 2 Comments so far
Shala on 02 Jul 2008 at 8:31 pm #
Those are beautiful! It’s so nice to see what grows well in other parts of the world. Those poor things wouldn’t last a week here since we are lucky to get an inch of rain every month or so. I would spend all my time watering.
Rosie Catherwood on 12 Jul 2008 at 8:37 pm #
Love your blog and thanks for the kind words about my garden. I must add though that I use no chemicals on my dahlias. As you know my garden has a pond and resulting insects, frogs and toads and birds so I try to keep it as chemical free as possible. The only guilty exception is an early spray on the roses but really I have so many ladybirds, ladybird larvae and blue tits that greenfly is not the problem. Also the plot is small enough for me to hand remove slugs and snails on night manoeuvres and I use nematodes as well. Incidentally, I find crushing greenfly and blackfly on the stem by hand (well, gloved hand) and smearing the resulting mush around on the plant stem seems to deter others for a long time. I think the smell of dead compatriots must be a real turn off for them.
The reason the dahlias are flowering early is because I over-winter them in the shed in newspaper and then pot them up in Feb/March in the greenhouse . The ones that are too big for even huge pots I put in large seed trays and semi cover them with compost and these seem to do just as well. If you don’t bring them on in the greenhouse you have to wait until the last frosts to put the tubers out. This could have been early June this year so they would be much later into flower.
I know they are supposed to be greedy for food and water but honestly, even if you don’t submit to their needs, they still deliver great flowers regularly as long as you keep picking and dead-heading. I think this is one instance where my clay helps, like with roses, because the water and nutrients are quite well held around their root systems. They get no special favours in my garden.
Rosie