Dahlia Watch 2026

[Blingismything]

A few pictures of some of my dahlias, these are Tahiti Sunrise, Cafe au Lait Royal, Sissinghurst, Franz Kafka and Perch Hill. Anyone else have any pics to show of theirs?

Lovely!

I didn’t grow any this year, but last year I had an orange and pinky orange theme.

It's trying... not quite as easy as I was expecting!

My DH used to show dahlias, but moved on to a new enthusiasm. We still have circa twenty different plants in raised beds, and around 10 dotted about. Only 3 varieties have properly flowered, the rest spindly. We are on greensand, so watering has been difficult. I hope they survive the winter.

I am jealous! Last year I had amazing dahlias especially cafe au lait in the pic.

This year has been a flop, some just starting to flower. Not sure why as we didn’t suffer the drought so much nor did we have hose ban.

I grew just one type, it was meant to be a lovely peachy colour but it's bloody yellow. Really annoying!

I’ve found my people! I’ve been complaining all summer that my dahlias aren’t flowering and they are just starting to bloom now. I presume it’s because we had a really hot summer?

Glad I’ve found you too!!! 😂

And yet someone at the allotment near me has gazillions of the most gorgeous dahlias.

I thought maybe it was bcos most of mine were lifted and overwintered inside and perhaps they weren’t in good shape. But I had bought a ‘new’ one (Labyrinth) from M&S and that’s just opening up now.

Last year they were in full force by end of July.

Haha! I bought one last weekend that had yellow flowers, and planted it earlier this week and it's turning peach! Will post a pic later but I wanted yellow!

I have a dahlia, Fire Pot, which I have had blooming in a tub for the third year now. It's the only success I have had and I've tried around six or seven other varieties over the past five or so years. This year, I split the tubers and put into a separate pot to see how it would do and was pleased to see both doing well.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the dahlias has really burst into bloom, far better than during the hot weather we had and the other one is making new flower buds.

I will keep them for next year as I have more success with this variety but I am giving up buying any others as they are so disappointing.

@Maggiethecatinteresting what you said about lifting them out of the ground. I had lifted one plant out (both the exact same type) and left one in the garden over winter just to see what would happen and I got the same result with both and both are flowering now. The one I lifted out is smaller because I left it in the garage until late spring but that’s it! I wonder if the one you bought from M&S had been grown in a cooler environment so it’s flowered better?

Possibly but I’m thinking that summer here this year was very similar to last year, we’re in Scotland. It wasn’t a scorcher here although warm.

We leave our dahlias in the ground. Those planted to grow for showing are in one and a half raised beds, but as autumn approaches we put a 3ft high mess fence around them (borrowed from a veg border - we have a rabbit problem) which provides winter protection. We don’t cut the tops down either, not until we see the first signs of growth in the spring. This has worked for 20+ years. Occasionally we might spilt a large tuber but generally it’s not a problem. Sometimes we might replace one or two that haven’t made the winter but that’s easier that the sheer toil of lifting and storing.
Those in flower border are planted where there’s sone natural protection. Never grow jn
pots, getting the watering right is so difficult.
As said earlier we’ve lots, albeit this year flowering has been poor. I went and counted and there are 29 varieties and two of some variety.

The new M&S one, Labyrinth, is the peachy coloured one.

The purple one is from Lidl, tuber bought this year that I had forgotten about.

Both just coming into bloom.

The overwintered Liquid Desire from Farmer Gracy has been in bloom for a couple of weeks but most of my other overwintered ones are stunted in growth and struggling to flower it seems.

@Blingismything beautiful, that hot pink one is stunning

I've read that they really haven't liked the heat because they are mountain plants, and so have just stopped. Certainly my mango madness in the group put out one bloom in July and I'm only getting a second couple now. The ones in pota seem to have done a bit better.

None of mine have flowered yet. Most got eaten by slugs but there is a decent sized cafe au lait. My cosmos hasn’t flowered yet either.

Same, my cosmos haven’t flowered either!

Absolutely rubbish isn’t it !