July Plant of the Month
Most years I treat myself to a new dahlia and so it was that this beauty caught my eye at a nursery last month. I potted it up into a generous terracotta pot and kept it at home, rather than on my allotment where most dahlias end up. This one grows to 90cm maximum in height, so not as tall as most of my plants.
It’s a single flower, known as a star or cartwheel dahlia, and it’s a hit with the bees. Most dahlia flowers are quite complex in composition and not particularly bee-friendly, but this one has a startling yellow centre that lures them in. This burst of yellow contrasts well with its deep red, almost black petals. The petals look like they’ve been cut from velvet, curl inwards towards their tips and have a sultry beauty all of their own.
The dahlias at the allotment get lifted after the first frost has made their leaves collapse. I usually store them over the winter under my work bench in the garage. I might just leave this one in its pot tucked against the house wall, which I have done successfully with another short growing dahlia over the past couple of years (‘Totally Tangerine’) and that’s doing well again this summer.
I’ll keep dead-heading ‘Verrone’s Obsidian’, give it liquid feed once a week and I should be getting blooms right through until October.
