Dahlia Garden Show

The  Dahlia 'Garden Show' is a variety of decorative Dahlia with anemone-like flowers that is not widely known, but it possesses a baroque elegance that creates a sensation in flowerbeds. It is also an excellent cut flower, producing moderately-sized double flowers with a unique pattern. The flowers consist of a quadruple pale pink collar striped with raspberry, with a beautiful cushion of small fringed ligules mixed with purple and creamy orange in the centre. It blooms from summer to autumn and has a rather compact growth habit. These qualities make it an excellent plant for flowerbeds, as well as suitable for container gardening and stunning in bouquets.

Dahlias are tuberous plants from the large aster family, originally native to the high plateaus of Mexico. Currently, the approximately 25,000 horticultural varieties created by humans have spread to gardens all over the world, much to our delight. Dahlias are classified based on the shape of their flowers. 'Garden Show' is classified as a decorative Dahlia with anemone-like flowers. In this group, the colourful ligules of the head are arranged in fringed pompoms and surrounded by a collar of broader petals. In this particular variety, the heads are 7 to 10 cm (3 to 4in) in diameter, with the outermost ligules almost flat, a pale pink striped with red-pink-violet, lighter at their tips, while those in the centre are short and fringed, purplish at the base, and pointed with a soft orange, tightly packed together like a cushion. The flowering period is from July to October. The plant will not exceed 90 cm (35in) (on average 75 cm (30in)) in height, and it has a bushy and dense habit. The highly branched stems are hollow, and the leaves are divided into 3 or 5 finely toothed leaflets. The leaves are of medium green colour, and the stems are sometimes tinged with purple.

To encourage continuous flowering and extend the blooming period, make sure to remove faded flowers. Even better, regularly create charming colourful bouquets by combining various varieties. The vibrant flowering of this variety deserves to be enhanced by the delicate foliage of grasses such as Panicum, Molinia, and Calamagrostis, to accentuate the contrast between the delicacy of the tall grasses and the boldness of its flower. The flowering of cannas and echinaceas is perfect to accompany that of dahlias, as they occur simultaneously, as well as the flowering of cosmos or perennial salvias, for example. 

The dahlias are undoubtedly beautiful flowers and are a highlight in ornamental gardens, but they can also enhance vegetable gardens. In Mexico, this tuberous plant was initially cultivated as a root vegetable for consumption. Its poor taste quickly relegated it to the status of an ornamental plant. Since then, the interest in their beautiful exuberance has never waned.