Garden designers choose their favourite dahlia
Three garden designers and landscape architects – Arabella Lennox-Boyd, Ula Maria and Jo Thompson – choose their favourite dahlias for late-season colour.
Arabella Lennox-Boyd
Internationally renowned designer with more than 40 years experience chooses her favourite dahlias.
Dahlia ‘Bishop of Auckland’
A most elegant, single-flowered dahlia, very prolific and adored by bees and butterflies. I plant it through Anemanthele lessoniana, Agapanthus ‘Midnight Star’ and Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Heavenly Blue’ as if in a meadow. One of the best of the Bishop Series. Flowers: July – September. Height: 1m.
Dahlia ‘Arabian Night’
This dahlia's large, double, velvety dark, burgundy blooms are perfect for mixing in a border. In my own it’s surrounded by Succisa pratensis, Deschampsia and Phlox paniculata ‘Düsterlohe’. The almost black heads add a rich texture to the border. Flowers: June – September. Height: 1.2m.
Ula Maria
Garden designer, landscape architect and illustrator with a deep connection to nature chooses her favourite dahlias.
Dahlia ‘Honka Fragile’
This distinctive star-shaped dahlia with radiating petals that roll inwards at their tips is really striking both in a border and a cut-flower display. The white flowers are delicately edged in pink-red. Never fails to draw attention. Flowers: July – November. Height: 80cm.
Dahlia ‘Waltzing Mathilda’
A semi-double dahlia with ever so slightly twisting petals that lend it a more relaxed appeal. Flowers are a wash of orangey coral pink, set off against dark purple brown stems and foliage. I love it nestled among large clumps of airy ornamental grasses. AGM. Flowers: July – November. Height: 70cm.
Jo Thompson
Award-winning garden designer, and plantswoman with a love of romantic planting chooses her favourite dahlias below.
Dahlia ‘Lilac Time’
A magnificent yet neat dinner-plate dahlia in shades of pinkish-lilac-blue. It is quite restrained and exudes self-control – I like to grow it with unruly Gaura to create a yin and yang contrast that relaxes the whole feel. Flowers: June – October. Height: 1.1m.
Dahlia ‘Purple Gem’
A regal dahlia, cactus in form and looking at home in many colour combinations in the border. Hints of deep lilac-blue at the centre of the flowers, becoming lighter along the petals, make this a very useful cultivar both in the border and in a vase. Flowers: July – September. Height: 1m.
Dahlia merckii
So restrained, so elegant – single flowers of palest mother-of -pearl pink with muted yellow centres. The flowers sit high atop the tall stems and nod gently, a very lovely punctuation in the border. Unlike most dahlias, it is fairly hardy in the UK. Flowers: July – September. Height: 1.5m.
Where to buy dahlias
Halls of Heddon
West Heddon Nursery,
Heddon on the Wall,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE15 0JS. Tel 01661 852445,
hallsofheddon.com
J Parkers
16 Hadfield Street, Stretford,
Manchester M16 9FG. Tel 0161 848 1100,
jparkers.co.uk
Peter Nyssen
124 Flixton Road, Urmston,
Manchester M41 5BG. Tel 0161 747 4000,
peternyssen.com
Sarah Raven
1 Woodstock Court, Blenheim Road,
Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 4AN. Tel 0345 092 0283,
sarahraven.com
Authors
Ula Maria is a designer and landscape architect with a particular interest in creating emotive garden spaces that evoke connections to nature through memories, senses, and experiences.
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