Dinner Plate – Who Dun It
Setting aside the obvious spelling catastrophe, this is a rather special Dahlia, with 6″ blooms of white shaded with red/purple.
Though not this beauty, I filled my garden last year with so many different dahlias after an enthusiastic late-night shopping spree, online, with Rose Cottage Plants, a nursery specialising in Dahlias (an extensive listing but a basic marketing error here I think).
Actually, I overwhelmed my garden with dahlias, in more than a dozen great pots, and having overwintered the tubers packed in crates with scrunched up newspapers and fleece, I gave them all away (in exchange for some delicious chocolate orange brownies). One can get carried away with dahlias. An allotment perhaps would be a good idea, where they can be staked out in long multi-coloured rows. That and maybe not placing any order after 11pm.
The whole dahlia episode started after a trip to Great Dixter and searching thereafter for a huge-flowered variety called Emory Paul that I saw there – truly enormous serving platter sized blooms of cerise pink, held on strong short stems. While I ordered and paid for three of these, none came up as expected so the whole thing was a bit of a misadventure. Delicious brownies though.
I shall admire Dahlias, this year, from afar.
The Teddington Gardener 