Blaze of colour
Dahlias bring beautiful bold flowers into the garden during summer. They come in a gorgeous range of colours from whites, buttery cream, yellow and salmon through to bright pink, rich red and multi-toned flowers.
It’s hard to believe one type of plant can have so many flower shapes, which include pompoms, anenomones, cactus, single and collarette. Flowers can be small or grow to the size of a dinner plate.
Dahlias can be grown from tubers and take around two months to flower.
Dahlias can also be grown from seed, such as Yates Dahlia Cinderella, which is a compact dahlia that produces a long-lasting display of bold and bright blooms. It’s ideal for massed garden colour, borders and pots and the plants can continue to perform for years.
Before planting dahlia tubers or sowing seed into a sun drenched spot in the garden, enrich the area first with some soil improver and plant fertiliser, which will provide the new plants with gentle, slow release organic nutrients as they establish.
It’s also time to sow cosmos, which fill the summer garden with beautiful bee attracting flowers. Yates Cosmos
Sensation has very pretty flowers in white, rose and crimson. Growing to almost a metre tall, it has feathery foliage and makes a lovely backdrop in a garden bed.
To promote lots of stunning dahlia and cosmos flowers, feed plants each week with Thrive Flower & Fruit Soluble Fertiliser, which provides a complete and balanced diet of nutrients as well as additional potassium to encourage flowering. Keep the soil moist and regularly trim spent flowers or cut them for a vase — both dahlias and cosmos make lovely cut flowers.
Pest control tip: Aphids can be common on tender fresh new seedlings. Look out for tiny green, black, brown or grey insects hiding in amongst the leaves. A quick spray with Yates Rose Gun will easily control damaging aphids.