New dahlias to try
Dahlias Looking for new ones to grow next year? Here’s a few to whet your appetite
With very few shows this year, the opportunity to view new varieties on the open bench has been very rare. Luckily the breeders have been busy and a good friend of mine, Dave Spencer, still received many new prospects to grow in his trial beds for me to view and access their merits.
Dave only grows two plants of any variety he’s sent and reviews the variety before committing a larger number of plants to the ground with hopes of showing them. Some of the varieties never make the grade for the show bench or garden and, even with careful consideration the following season, they can still fall by the wayside given a different growing season. So my advice is, by all means do try a new variety or two, but don’t throw out the established winners until the new guys have proved their worth. When assessing the shiny new varieties, they’re always considered on the standards of the classifications they best fit and whether or not they offer something different or better than those varieties we already have. So with this in mind, here’s the standout new challengers from the
60 plus on trial I’ve seen.
For me, the number one variety this year is
raised by Phil Godsmark.
This bronze/orange ball dahlia is one of the best value varieties
I’ve seen in a long time, for the garden and show bench. This was a survivor of last year’s trials and I was amazed by the quality of blooms produced on each plant; at least 20 flowers on each. With this number of blooms the plant produced wellformed and full-sized miniatures. The strong and upright habit held them all on good length, straight stems. If grown with 12 to 14 flowers on, the plant will comfortably make a very competitive small ball. This means that with very few plants this variety will provide great value for anyone with a small amount of space available.
Never wanting to disappoint the growing public, Barry Davis will introduce three new Barbarry dahlias. The one that has had most attention on social media is ‘Barbarry Mystery’, a white miniature ball with a lavender flush. This is a pretty dahlia, very similar in colouring to a favourite of mine ‘Dave’s Choice’.