Dahlias Top Flowers for Autumn

Gillian

11 years ago

Dahlias have got to be at the number one spot for flowers for late summer and early autumn colour. I’ve grown quite a lot this year. Some from seed and some from tubers.

These are Pompons, Cactus, and Waterlily types. There are more than 57,000 different Dahlias to choose from so if you prefer flowers with a more open centre for bees and butterflies then there are plenty of those to choose from too. Whilst I was taking these shots a very wet and bedraggled Bumblebee arrived and picked out the only open flower in this bunch. I think it’s important to grow single flowers as well these dramatic blooms. You can choose short varieties for pots and containers or bedding schemes or tall plants to borders and cut flowers. Dahlias come in most colours except blue. There are shades of red, orange, yellow, pink and white. Their foliage is attractive too with strong stems and broad green or chocolatey bronze leaves.

It’s not just the open flowers that are beautiful. Dahlia buds are something special too. They are easy to grow but watch out for earwigs which like to hide inside the folded petals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited for a lovely big fat bud to open only to find that all the tips of the petals have been nibbled by earwigs. Setting earwig traps is the only way to prevent your beautiful blooms being ruined.

Did you know that you can grow Dahlias from seed? If you want to collect seeds from your Dahlias then wait until the seed heads become nice and brown and crispy like these then collect them on a dry day and store them somewhere cool and dry in paper bags or envelopes until next spring. They may not turn out exactly like their parents but that’s half the fun of sowing seed. It’s always exciting to see what pops up.