Dahlias Ideas, Tips & Guides

…well, one bee, although there were several on the echinops above, E Arctic Glow’, when I was trying to take a photograph, but they wouldn’t stand still or long enough! The garden, is, however, currently swarming with bees and butterflies, which is good to see.

There’s an ugly truth behind those beautiful alstroemeria, dahlias, and roses we adore—80 percent of them are grown overseas and imported on gas-guzzling jets—often soaked in pesticides—despite the fact that they can be grown right here in the U.S. These blooms are often called “fresh” cut flowers, but they’re anything but. 

Lovely climbing rose on the front of this house

Great big flowering Dahlias need some good support early in the season. A walled garden helps but these 4 by 4 canes with string every 12″-18″ add that bit extra. When the plants leaf-up and start to flower they will be heavy and liable to damage without support.

Dahlias may still be out of fashion in many gardening circles but I am an affectionado and think they are well worth growing.

The hot subject for discussion this Autumn seems to be the renaissance of Dahlias. For me they have never been far from my garden but I understand how fashions come and go then return.

‘Fiery’ hardly does justice to this cactus Dahlia.

It will soon be April and I need to check my over wintered tubers and buy some new varieties. The I can start my Dahlias in to growth. It is too cold to plant them out in the garden in April in the north so I start to get them going in pots in the greenhouse.

Reliable flowering can be expected from summer bulbs and tubers.Early Summer Flowering Alliums flower May-July, I like those that look like a burst of stars Anemone start in April with the woodland varieties then come the blousy De Caen and larger corm types through summer

Dahlias are having a good year due to the summer rain. Slugs permitting my Cactus Dahlias will have given one of the best shows for several years by November when they get cut down and stored. As I expect the flower power will still be present until the first frosts in November I am going to give them a foutnightly tonic of liquid fertiliser and a further mulch.

These little breeders have been having a banquet on some of my Dahlias. They go for the soft new shoots and nascent flower stems which must be easy to get their teeth into. For some reason they have been quite selective on the plants they choose (As has been the spray I have used in a prophylactic manner). I hope the rest of the summer is black fly free but you never know.

The cast in order of appearance: Cactus Dahlia; Rosa Rugosa; Lenten Rose Helleborus orientalis; Moth Orchid Phalaenopsis; Water Lily Nymphaea alba; etc.

Carnations defy the single flower rule attracting as many insects as the dahlias, poppies and blackberries

Where has all the rain gone? In winter there were floods aplenty so I was predicting water rationing by summer. Now it is mid May and the ground is parched and rock hard.

Up North we have the benefit of many keen dahlia growers and exhibitors. Better than that we have the national dahlia society (NDS) trials at Golden Acre park in Leeds and here is the video from this year.

There are a lot of earwigs around this year or so it seems. Typical in a year when I had decided to grow more dahlias than usual but I guess the earwigs must have known that and got on with early breeding.

Bought as Melody Dora but looks like Bantling

The last week or two has seen an influx of butterflies in the garden, which may or may not be the norm at this time of year; some have even paused long enough for me to photograph them, which is certainly not the norm! I hadn’t planned to seek them out for Six on Saturday, the meme hosted by Jim of Garden Ruminations, but nevertheless they still wangled themselves into the photographs. Above is a meadow brown.

Native to Mexico and Central America, the dahlia (Family asteraceae) is a bushy and beautiful flowering perennial. The dahlia is Mexico's national flower, and its tuberous roots were eaten by Aztecs before the Spanish Conquest. Following Central America's colonisation, the dahlia was exported to European nations, where it thrived even in countries with harsh or cold winters. Since the 18th century, botanists, taxonomists and gardeners have held a certain fascination for the flower, identifying over 850 different species each with unique petal or stem structures (this number includes the plant's hybrids, too). Since dahlias are extraordinarily varied in appearance, they also tend to be categorised by the shape of the flower, with 10 categories that include anemone, peony, pompom, ball, decorative, cactus, single and waterlily.

If you want your garden to keep looking good throughout the months ahead, then these fabulous plants are sure to bring a boost of colour throughout late summer and autumn. There are options to suit every colour scheme, and plants that will thrive in pots as well as your borders. Our choices include recommendations from the Gardeners’ World team and familiar faces from across the gardening industry.

Spring bulbs will soon fade, and the foliage of hardy summer bulbs will start to emerge. Even though it may be tempting, do not remove foliage from the faded spring bulbs that have past their prime. These leaves are necessary for photosynthesis to occur which will produce carbohydrates to be stored in the bulb for next year’s flower production. Do, however, remove old blooms from the spring bulbs; this will allow the plant to send energy toward rebuilding the bulb instead of producing seeds.

I have become increasingly interested in pollinator gardening over the years. And while the beauty the flowers bring to my life should be enough, in reality, I am more entertained by the birds, bees, and butterflies they attract.

Did you know dahlias can be grown from seed? Many gardeners are only familiar with growing dahlias from tubers. Still, growing dahlias from seed is how new varieties are first created. Then they are sold commercially as tubers to produce true-to-type varieties for consumers. Home gardeners can do this too! This year in my flower garden, I grew several dahlia forms (different flower shapes or sizes). I grew varieties ranging from open-centered to pompon and anemone flowered blooms and relied on open pollination from the bees to do the breeding work for me. Once the blooms dry up, and the seed heads are mature, I will collect the seeds and wait until spring to plant them and see what new and exciting varieties come up.

…to displaying flowers and foliage in a vase, but that art could be anything from utilising learned floristry techniques to basically plonking them in a receptacle. Perhaps after plonking we might then rearrange them slightly to achieve something we see as more satisfactory, without necessarily recognising why we want to tweak things, or perhaps we might place them a stem at a time to achieve some perceived kind of balance, without having any formal or even informal training in floristry.

Q: Can you tell me what this insect is? It’s feasting on my dahlia leaves. I don’t use insecticides in the garden so can handpick and squash them if I have to. If they’re not going to do too much harm I’m happy to leave them alone. DK, Co Waterford

Visit Margaret Roach’s garden, Copake Falls NY (& shop Broken Arrow garden plant sale; see more on that below) from 10-4, no reservations needed. Directions.lunch pre-ordersBox lunch from our favorite local chefs at CrossRoads Food Shop and Copake General Store will make your day run smoothly. Picnic in Margaret Roach’s garden or one of our parks. Get the menu and order.broken arrow garden plant pre-orders (5/9 cutoff)Does your garden crave something extra-special? Adam Wheeler and Broken Arrow Nursery at your service! Call ahead for help/garden advice, (203) 288-1026. They’ll put your purchase on the truck for pickup at Margaret’s garden if you order by May 9. Browse their website. Those are a few of Adam’s favorite things of the moment above to consider: left to right, Acer palmatum ‘Geisha Gone Wild,’ Uvularia sessilifolia ‘Blizzard,’ and Cornus alternifolia ‘Golden Shadows.’giant organic seedling sale:veggies, unusual annuals,

NORTHERN GARDENERS KNOW ABOUT FINALITY. Its name is hard frost, and it will be here any day now…having sent an advance guard of light frosts three or four nights already to visit and survey the premises.

AFTER WINTER SPENT UNCEREMONIOUSLY IN HEFTY BAGS IN THE BASEMENT, the non-hardy bulbs at my place are striking up a chorus of Elvis’s “Love Me Tender,” trying to get through to me that they want a kinder, gentler life than the one I offer here at A Way to Garden.

…lovin’ the abundance of the garden and the opportunity to cut generously for my Monday vase!

Have you ever noticed how the best summer gardens seem to shimmer, a quality that’s almost impossible to define but is inextricably linked to the kinds of plants used? Like the gilt on a beautiful picture frame, they give a burnished, almost luminous air to the planting so that it softly glows.

Dahlias kind of blow my mind. Some of them look absolutely fake. There’s no way a flower that intricate and colorful could possibly be real, right?We link to vendors to help you find relevant products

For Lee Hemmings Carlton, it was love at first sight with dahlias. Although the flower farmer had studied horticulture in college, it wasn’t until she moved to the mountains of North Carolina in 2008 that she discovered country dahlias. “I saw them in a vase and thought, ‘What are those?’” she recalls. “I was hooked.” 

For the last few days I have been envisagingthe creation of a vase of red blooms for today, which we duly have, although I am far from satisfied with the end result. Sadly, there weren’t as many of the small decorative Dahlia ‘William Kent’ fully open as I would have liked, and seeing the photographs I regret not cutting the stems shorter, to allow the blooms to hug the rim of the vase more. But at least it is a bountiful vase of red blooms, which was my overall aim, so that’s a positive!

Like dear friends, sometimes the dahlias that stretch towards the sky to lofty heights in our gardens could use a little support.We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from

Dahlias are beloved by gardeners and florists for their large array of glorious colors and delightful flowers that range from miniature pompoms to giant dinnerplates!Flowering from midsummer until the arrival of frost, th

When the late season garden starts to fade from summer’s heat, dahlias are one of the best choices to add delightful months-long displays of brilliantly colored blooms.The timing of these flowers is perfect!From July until t