Dahlias Ideas, Tips & Guides

From stunning dahlias to cheerful swamp sunflowers, here are some cheerful Perennials that look like zinnias with their intricate petals and vivid colors!

How to Identify and Manage Dahlia Mosaic Virus Caulimovirus dahliae

With the third series of the hit drama about to start and The Bridgerton Garden coming to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show later this month, now is the ideal time to invest in some new plants to bring a touch of Regency glamour and romance to your garden.

Orange ‘Fire King’ wallflowers and reddish-purple ‘Slawa’, ‘Merlot’ and ‘Rem’s Favourite’ tulips in Sarah Raven's cutting garden.

Summer wouldn’t be summer without dahlias. Their beautiful flowers come in almost every colour imaginable, from pale pastels to hot, vibrant shades. They come in a range of flower shapes, from small tight balls to lily-like blooms the size of dinner plates. They’re perfect for adding late summer colour to borders from July to October and look good in any style of garden, from a cottage-style border to a jungle or exotic scheme. They look especially good with cosmos, grasses, Verbena bonariensis or cannas.

if you’re looking to jazz up a patio or fill a few pots with beautiful blooms, then growing dahlias in a container or two isn’t just a possibility – it's encouraged! You can grow almost any compact to medium-sized dahlia in a well-placed pot! Here’s how to grow your favourite dahlias in a gorgeous pot like a professional, with help from our gardening experts. How to Plant Dahlias in Pots

27 of the Best Dahlia Varieties for Your Garden

Are Dahlia's perennials? We hear this question a lot, and the quick answer is ‘Yes, they are!’. But it also depends on the type of dahlia you’re looking to buy.

Big, bold and brassy – dahlias dazzle in the border and and in a vase. Originating in Mexico, dahlias were first introduced to Europe to be grown for food. However, the unpalatable tubers lead to them instead being grown and bred for their flowers.

2023 has been a top year for Dahlias The garden was disrupted by an impending downsizing house move but the quantity of flowers was excellent even after some neglect. A second plus was the plants I gave away to friends who seemed to appreciate the performance in pots or direct in the ground.

As with fashion, floriculture also has its trends. Dutch botanist Jacqueline van der Kloet signals two color trends.

Starting dahlias from tubers in January and February is a great way to get a head start on the growing season, especially in climates where winters are long and cold. Here are some steps to successfully start dahlias from tubers during these months:

Try Inca 'Husky' Peruvian Lily, Amaryllis, 'Sweet Peach' Bouvardia, Carnation, Zinnia 'Zinderella Peach', 'Peach Finesse' Rose, 'Bolivian Peach' Gladiolus, 'Double Peach' Hibiscus, 'Peach Melba' Tulip, and 'David Austin Juliet' Rose for a peachy garden palette. And don't miss the Coral Charm Peony and Dahlia 'Peach Cobbler'.

Alright, one last wishlist post from me, your GPOD editor… This time I’m looking past flowers to foliage that I want to add to the garden. Everyone knows that foliage is the heart of a well-designed garden as it lasts so much longer than flowers. BUT I’m very guilty of being seduced by pretty flowers, so I need to really focus on stepping up my foliage game this year.

Burgundy flowers bring a rich, deep shade to your garden, making it stand out. In this guide, we’ll share some of the best ones you can easily grow, both indoors and outdoors!

Image: Dahlia Waltzing Mathilda Dahlias are one of our top sellers for the spring season, and it’s easy to see why. They’re big and bountiful, adding colours and textures to the summer garden. And, with the new season finally upon us, we have a brand-NEW selection of impressive dahlias for you to know and grow! Here are just a few picks from our range that we’re loving. But, if you’d like to explore our full range or even pre-order your favourites, then visit our dahlia tubers page here. Dahlia Waltzing Mathilda

Ivory flowers are known for their soft, creamy, and off-white tones. This neutral color brings peace and tranquility to any space. With so many types to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect one for yourself.

You can take an Englishwoman out of England, but you can’t change a deeply ingrained English garden aesthetic. Pom Shillingford has lived in America for 26 years, but she still yearns for the garden she knew as a child — her grandmother’s beloved Arts & Crafts garden in Hampshire, which she remembers always being filled with seasonal flowers. She and her husband David and their three young children moved from Manhattan to the small town of Salisbury in Connecticut in 2013. ‘I had always loved Manhattan, but suddenly I didn’t love it any more and needed to go back to green fields and the outdoors,’ says Pom.

After a few days of clear sunny days and blue skies, even with a hint of warmth in the sun on Thursday, it was almost inevitable that we would soon be seeing our first frost of the season – and so it was, arriving like a thief in the night. Temperatures dipped to -2°C in the early hours, and haven’t risen above 5°C for the rest of the day, finally putting paid to autumn for this year.

It's easy to get in a festive mood when you see your local shops decorated to the nines or watch your favorite holiday movies on repeat. But you don’t necessarily want your home to look like said shops or movies.

Chocolate Flowers – Ideal for creating an air of mystery in your garden with their dark color, these chocolaty wonders not only provide a stunning visual contrast against traditional greens and bright colors but also entice with their often sweet, chocolate-like aroma!

The garden may be in the thrall of autumn, but there is still a fair bit of colour around in patches, with the promise of more to come. Colour is concentrated most in the dahlia beds, where the blooms show little sign of stopping – we, and Jack Frost, know better! There are still roses in bloom, with ‘Strawberry Hill’ the main contender, continuing to delight:

Q: Now that it’s late autumn, my dahlias are starting to die back. Can I leave the plants in the ground or do I need I lift the tubers and store them in my shed for the winter? I’d much prefer the first option if possible! MD, Kilkenny

I have no doubt mentioned a number of times that I have been very lax in supporting my dahlias this year, inevitably resulting in a number of casualties. By way of excuse, I have been awaiting a supply of stakes from a friend whose husband coppices for a local farmer, stakes cut a number of months ago apparently, waiting in their garage and on the point of being dropped off here any time now – or at least that was my friend’s intention! At least if I receive them soon they will be ready for next year and I can have them in place when the tubers are first planted out again, as is probably recommended by professional growers!

Succumbing to the urge to move unusually lanky aster Symphyotrichum‘Little Carlow’ today instead of waiting till it was dormant, I also moved the sanguisorba I featured in a vase a few weeks ago, and again today, a little nearer the fence. Whilst doing so, I realised the label read Sanguisorba dodecandra and not S canadensis as I had thought. Googling doesn’t tell me a lot about the former, and illustrations suggest it looks more like the latter, so it remains a bit of a puzzle. The aster looks all the better with something behind it and, having dug it out with a large rootball, doesn’t look any the worse for its experience; the sanguisorba, however, is now glowering at me and I cut a few flowering stems for today’s vase rather than leave them to a potentially slow demise on the plant.

Red Flowers With Yellow Center —a stunning, yet often overlooked phenomenon in the floral world. These unique blooms offer more than just striking visuals; they are a dance of colors and meanings!

Maroon Flowers – where deep, rich color meets timeless elegance. These luxurious blooms, often overlooked in favor of brighter shades, are the unsung heroes of the garden, offering a depth of color and emotion that can elevate any floral arrangement or landscape to an art form!

Last week I chose random blooms for my Monday vase, blooms that had missed out on being featured; this week I am choosing (mostly) blooms with shorter stems, blooms that have missed out to others such as dahlias, which could otherwise easily dominate vases from June to October.

It has been a mixed week weatherwise, but although windy at times it has not been too bad and certainly not bad enough to prevent gardening; nevertheless, I seem to have flitted about and not done a lot outside, probably subconsciously putting off fitting the new liner to the stream reservoir. It won’t install itself though, so shouldn’t really be put off much longer…

If your garden is looking lacklustre, a container bursting with vibrant autumnal plants is the quickest and easiest way to give it a boost. There’s a host of beautiful plants that are looking their best right now, that will thrive in a container. Here, we share some of our favourite plants for autumn pots. There are options to suit every colour scheme, and plants that will thrive in sun or shade. Our choices include recommendations from the Gardeners’ World team and familiar faces from across the gardening industry.

Autumn has officially arrived which means honey coloured leaves have been shed from their trees, dew sparkles on the morning grass, and gardeners can take a deep breath — the hardest work of the year has been done, and now we have to consider how best to protect the garden for the arrival of frosts. There is still much to enjoy in golden interest, stems of Stipa gigantea, the rich burgundy reds of Panicum ‘Hänse Herms’, the dainty blues of Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, and the dahlias will continue if you’re regimented about deadheading.

As the seasons start to change, now is the perfect time to take a trip to your nearest garden. Enjoy a long walk and catch the very last of late summer, while watching leaves turn amber and gold. Make sure to use your 2-for-1 Gardens card on your visit to ensure you’re making savings on your day out.

I may have been critical of Symphyotrichum ‘Little Carlow’ yesterday, bemoaning its height and slowness to flower, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the flowers – because I do. It’s as if all the buds have opened at once, the froth of small lavender blooms creating an appealing haze of colour, accentuated by the addition of miscanthus plumes. Grasses seemed to be the ideal choice to complement the single stem of aster, and inspecting the two or three miscanthus in the garden I was pleased to find at least three flowering stems on Miscanthus ‘Kleine Silberspinne’ (Little Silver Spider).

Salvias (ornamental sage) are a must in the summer garden. They come in a vast range of forms and colours and their nectar-rich flowers are a magnet for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects. They flower for months on end, often from midsummer until the first frosts, and many have aromatic foliage, too. The name ‘salvia’ derives from the Latin salveo, meaning ‘I heal’ or ‘I save’. The culinary herb, Salvia officinalis, was used as a healing plant by Greeks and Romans and is part of part of the huge Salvia genus.

The starting point for today’s Monday vase was the tall spires of Sanguisorba canadensis. I am rather puzzled by them and can’t remember where and when I got the original plant, which was in the main blue & white border. It must have been over five years ago and I recall it flowering just once, but not leaving me impressed, especially as it began to spread without earning its keep. Last autumn, when I lifted all the contents of the border, I composted most of it, but planted a small section in an adjacent border, where it is now flowering generously. I have no idea why I wasn’t impressed before, because the flowers are gorgeous, six inches (15cms) plus of greenish-white fluffiness on each spike; the plant is exceedingly tall, I know,  more than its supposed five feet (1.5m), and thereby taller than me. I am not intimidated by tall people these days, but I do avoid the tallest of plants in my garden. However, I will overlook this failing on the strength of its blooms, albeit not literally!

When not in flower, it’s fair to say dahlia plants rarely command a second glance. In fact, to the uninitiated, they could be easily mistaken for potatoes, not that surprising when you consider that these two fast-growing, frost-tender tuberous species share a surprising amount of common ground regarding their geographical range in the wild and their fondness for a certain set of growing conditions that includes a rich, moist but free-draining soil in full sun or light shade. But the comparison ends there. Unlike potatoes, which are valued solely as a tasty food crop, dahlias are generally prized for the otherworldly beauty of their often large and vividly colourful flowers.