One of the great plant revivals of recent years has been the comeback of the dahlia. With their dazzling colours, dahlias are vibrant in the border and dramatic in the vase. But those referred to as “dinner plate” dahlias – such a cliché, and not remotely descriptive – must be among the most difficult to meld into appealing planting combinations. When just one exploding 12in (30cm) flower comes in three contrasting, no-hope-of-harmony colours, then we yearn for a little natural elegance.
Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter, where Christopher Lloyd did so much to revive dahlias’ fortunes, agrees: “The dahlia has come back with a vengeance,” he says. “Colour is considered cool and all of a sudden gardeners have become more adventurous. Single dahlias, elegant in flower and with graceful foliage, seem to be the most acceptable of all, especially to the fainthearted good-taste brigade. Single-flowered dahlias are graceful and are good blenders, integrating well into most borders, giving colour from midsummer until the first frost.”
The comeback
And so it was that in the Eighties 'Bishop of Llandaff’, first raised back in 1924, began to swing enthusiasts for perennial plants in the direction of dahlias. After all, it looked more like a perennial than a dahlia, so the legions of hardy planters felt comfortable with it and could proudly say: “This is not like other dahlias, this is special.” Essentially a single-flowered dahlia, albeit with a few extra rows of petals providing more impact, and reaching a very manageable 3ft-4ft (90cm-120cm), the flowers are not too big, the colour has a rich subtlety to its scarlet, and all set – unusually for a dahlia, at least in 1924 – against sharply toothed leaves in dark bronze.
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