I drove a 220 mile round trip this morning to Station House Nurseries on the Wirrel to collect some dahlia plants I'd had my eye on since Malvern Show last September. The variety is Emma's Coronet and it stuck out on the bench at Malvern like a beacon. I thought it was the most stunning looking vase in the show.......a cracking pink with white blends.
As well as this variety I'm also growing my tried and tested varities taken from cuttings from the best of last years tubers.
They are:
Kenora Sunset
Jomanda
Lismore Moonlight
I keep my selected tubers over winter in buckets of dried peat (labelled - most important!!!) after cutting off the foliage and dusting any cut ends with yellow sulphur to protect against rot. This usually happens in November after the first frost has blackened the foliage.
The buckets are carefully watered during April and eventually the tubers will send up cutting material which is severed as close to the legion with the tuber as possible. They are put into compost around a small pot, labelled and covered with an old plastic half bottle to act as a mini-greenhouse. Roots should start to form withing 2 or 3 weeks at which point they are potted on singly before planting out during mid-June. More on that then.
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