New Dahlia Varieties For 2026
Hello friends,
Today I wanted to share with you the dahlia varieties I purchased this past autumn and winter. As you know, I'm completely obsessed with dahlias, and I've even started breeding my own dahlia varieties. This year I decided to only buy anemone and collarette varieties, as they're my favourite types to grow.
But as always, life happened, and I bought a few other varieties as well. They include some wish list varieties, a few replacements for dahlias that rotted last year, and even some varieties I've purchased for an experiment I want to try this summer.
So, here is the full list of dahlias I've added to my collection this year.
First up we have the anemone dahlia varieties:
- Antonia Prebble (NZ)
- Blue Bayou
- Inca
- Jive
- Josie
- Lifestyle
- Octopus Sparkle
- Platinum Blonde (replacement)
- Poodle Skirt
- Que Sera
- Richard's Fortune
- Rural Goldfinch (NZ)
- Soulman
- The Phantom (replacement)
- Toto
There are quite a few red and purple anemone varieties included, as I don't have many of these in my garden right now.
Next, we have the collarette dahlia varieties I've bought this year:
- April Heather
- Bumble Rumble (replacement for one with gall)
- Gore Blimey
- Liquid Desire
- Pooh
- Rural Jenny (NZ)
- Rural Lady (NZ)
- Sarah Raven
- Teesbrook Audrey
Most of these varieties are red collarettes that I don't currently have in my garden. The dahlia I'm most excited about growing this year is April Heather. Last year her tubers were selling for over $350 a tuber, and this year I did a targeted strike at an online store pre-order, and bought a tuber for $50. She hasn't arrived yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting to see her flower in my garden this summer.
I also bought three miniature ball dahlia varieties for my garden, which I'll be using for an experiment in my garden for this summer.
- Koko Puff
- Rocco
- Small World
- Daisy Duke
- Night Silence
- Sharnis Suprise
Night Silence has been on my wish list for years, but I always seemed to miss out whenever Mount Mera held a sale. Daisy Duke came into my collection as a replacement for an anemone dahlia that one of my suppliers couldn't provide this spring. Fortunately, she's in a colour range I love, so I was happy to accept the substitution.
Sharni's Surprise was a last-minute purchase from our local garden centre. Released by Fiesta Bulbs this spring, she's an unusual ombré dahlia, and I haven't been able to find any information about this variety online. The current theory among New Zealand dahlia growers is that she may be a sport or mutation of another variety that Fiesta Bulbs grows each year, although this hasn't been confirmed yet.
And finally, I bought one dinner-plate dahlia, 'Café au Lait'. Every year I've tried growing her, she has rotted in my garden, but I'm giving her one last chance. I love her beautiful creamy shades and would really like to add her to the other 'Café au Lait' varieties growing in my garden. Fingers crossed I have better luck this time.
I'm really looking forward to growing all these new dahlias this season, and especially the anemone and collarette varieties that I've added to my collection. I'm also excited to see how the new additions perform in the garden and whether any of them turn out to be promising candidates for my dahlia breeding program.
Now I just need to get them all planted and wait for summer to see them in flower...
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
From A Lilac Tree to More Dahlias in the Backyard
Hello friends,
Over the winter months I've been busy in the back left-hand side of our garden, in the area where our lilac tree used to stand. After the tree died after the big spring storm last year, and once we'd taken it down, it gave me an opportunity to rethink and rearrange that side of the garden.
The first thing I did was set up some space along the fence line for growing sweet peas, which is already underway. The sweet peas are now growing happily up the wire netting.
As for the rest of the space, there was now a large area that could fit many more dahlias than I currently had. I decided to lay it out in rows so I could fit in as many as possible. I've become obsessed with anemone and collarette dahlias recently, so I wanted to add more of these to my collection, and also include them in my fledgling breeding program.
The first step was to dig out the lilac tree stump, and it turned out to be much easier than we'd expected. Hubby got the job done in less than half an hour, as the stump was completely rotten. I suspect this may have been the main reason why the lilac tree may have died in the first place...
The next step was to transplant my two damask rose bushes to the back fence line of our backyard. Last year, I had grown a dahlia between my dogwood and feijoa bushes, but it had struggled to survive in that position. Although the area gets sun for most of the day, the soil isn't in the best condition. My two damask roses (Duc De Cambridge and Isapahan), on the other hand, are very hardy, and don't mind what soil type they are in, so I thought they would be much better suited to the space, while also freeing up more room in my new dahlia area.
It didn't take very long to prune the damask roses back to a size more easier to transport, before carefully digging them up, while keeping as much of their root systems intact as possible. Then came the tricky part, walking them across the backyard without getting stabbed by their many sharp thorns. Once they had safely reached their new home, the roses were planted and watered in well. Now, in spring, they are very happily growing in their new position.
By now it was the middle of winter, and in between the frosts, rain, and a snow storm, it was time to tackle the dahlias that remained in the ground in this area. One by one, they were carefully dug up and transplanted into an empty vegetable garden bed nearby to overwinter while I prepared their new permanent home.
The task after this was a big one. Weeding the entire side of the garden took many weeks as I worked my way along the bed, laying out plant tags, and placing schist rocks to create paths between the rows where the dahlias would go. My plan was to plant the anemone and collarette dahlias two abreast, with the shortest varieties at the front and the tallest ones at the back.
I'd really let this side of the garden go in late summer and autumn, and I was paying for it now, dealing with a large number of weeds. The weeding continued into spring, and I even had to go back over some of the areas I'd already cleared as new weeds began popping up.
But finally, after many weeks of planning and weeding the space, my new dahlia bed is now ready. There's now a large, clear area waiting for all my anemone and collarette variety dahlias, along with a bunch of new ones. It has been a much bigger job than I expected, but I'm really pleased with how the space has come together.
And my new dahlias have already arrived, and are in storage in our garage. I'm impatiently waiting to plant them, along with all my other anemone and collarette dahlia varieties. After all those months of planning and weeding, I'm looking forward to seeing this space finally filled with dahlias this summer.
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
My Favorite Dahlia Varieties Of This Past Summer
Hello friends,
Today I thought I'd share with you my ten favorite named dahlia varieties of the 2025/2026 growing season. This list is in no particular order, but no doubt you'll probably see a pattern emerging...
First up we have the Polka variety, which is an anemone dahlia with white and cranberry outer leaves, and golden fluffy inner leaves. Honesty, she is probably my new favorite dahlia of all time. Her colouring is just so unusual and happy, that she'll always have a space in my garden.
Number two is my second favorite new dahlia variety of all time, Bumble Rumble, a collarette dahlia with bright pink and white and gold flowers. She's a stunner in the garden with her frilly petals, and the bumble bees do indeed rumble over her all summer long.
Dahlia variety number three is Misses Amy, another anemone dahlia, with cranberry and light pink colouring. She has a huge pincushion top which makes her another favorite of bees and butterflies in our garden.
The next variety, Mambo, is another stunning anemone dahlia in my garden. She has magenta and red and peachy toned flowers, and her inner anemone petals are very unusual, as they lie flat with serrated gold tips.
Dahlia variety number five is Dream Seeker, a collarette dahlia bred by Dr Keith Hammett in New Zealand. This bright orange dahlia also attracts bees and butterflies all summer long, and her florescent colouring brightens our front garden for months and months over summer and autumn.
Cafe Au Lait Rosé is the only dinner plate dahlia to make it into to my favorite dahlia list for the 2025/2026 season. Her flowers are huge, and the deep magenta flower petals are stunning against the green backdrop of the garden. If I were to only keep one dinner plate dahlia CAL Rosé would be the one.
Princess Nadine is another eye catching collarette dahlia I love, and her cranberry shades fading to golden yellow petals are just so pretty. She's probably my third favorite dahlia overall in the garden.
Sweet Sanne is one of the two decorative dahlias which made it onto my favorite dahlias list. Her ombré dark peach colouring is gorgeous against her dark green leaves.
Joal Kaitlyn, is another decorative dahlia which made it onto the list. She was an expensive buy for me, but she is completely worth it in my opinion. Her smoky peach/apricot colouring is just so unusual that she stands out in my front garden. This was hubby's favorite dahlia last season, and that's a big thing for him since he doesn't really care that much about plants.
And finally we have Zahra, a creamy white anemone dahlia. Her poofy flowers may be small, but they stand out against all the other brighter dahlias in the garden. She reminds me a lot of the double white daffodil varieties flowering in my garden each spring.
As you will have probably noticed by now, this list is mainly made up of anemone and collarette dahlia varieties. As the years go on, I seem to be attracted more and more to these fluffy and bright and unusual dahlia varieties.
Already in this coming year, the only dahlias I've bought in pre-sales are collarette and anemone varieties. And I've already made some space for them in the garden by digging out some dahlia varieties which no longer interest me...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky, and now also Facebook.
November Dahlia Update
Hello friends,
Yes, I did buy more dahlias after I said my garden was completely full and I couldn't fit any more in, but I promise this time I had good reasons to do so...
First of all, I lost a number of dahlias this spring due to tubers rotting/eyes not forming, including:
- Arthur Hambley (DP)
- Cafe Au Lait (DP)
- Islander (DP)
- Muchacha (Dec)
- Salmon Runner (Dec)
- Tranquility (Col)
- Impression Fomoso (Col)
- The Phantom (Ane)
From my observations over the past couple of years, dinner plate dahlias seem more prone to rotting, and for this reason I am not planning on buying anymore dinner plate dahlias in the future, they're just not worth spending all that money on, just to end up rotting in spring.
Secondly, when my NZ Bulbs dahlia order arrived in early October, one of my collarette dahlias, Dark Tiger, was not in the package due to them being out of stock, and they replaced it with the waterlily dahlia, Twiggy. The dahlias in this order weren't in the best condition, and two of them (Tranquility and Impression Fomoso) are actually in the lost dahlias list. They didn't form any eyes at all, and then they rotted. I don't think I'll buy from NZ Bulbs ever again when it comes to dahlias.
Twiggy is a waterlily dahlia with warm pink suffused petals and a light yellow center.
And thirdly, I got rid of our small plastic pond in the back garden. When hubby installed it three years ago, he promised he would take care of it, and keep it clean, and that just didn't happen. So after I cleaned it out this spring (again), I talked with hubby, and he agreed with me that it was time for the pond to go. This freed up a large space in the right part of the back garden, and after some rearranging of dahlias in that area, it gave me more space for dahlias to go into the ground.
And fourthly, during the big North West storm in October my Avalanche camellia snapped off at ground level, and it left an open space in the garden which I could fill with another dahlia.
Luckily this all happened around the time that Bulbs Direct and Mount Mera Botanical restocked their dahlia varieties on their websites, so I bought some dahlias I missed out on earlier in the year, and with discounts too.
From Bulbs Direct I picked up Purple Haze, an anemone dahlia with deep plum-coloured blooms, darker in the centre, and rich dark green foliage.
From Mount Mera Botanical I picked up the following dahlia varieties:
Muchacha a small decorative dahlia with shades of rose pink, violet, and white, to replace the one I lost this spring.
Bacardi, a decorative dahlia with muddy-rose colouring and dark raspberry tips and centers. I lost this dahlia last spring due to it rotting, and I really wanted to replace it.
Platinum Blonde, an anemone dahlia with a fuzzy butter cream center and white petals.
Rockstar, an anemone dahlia with beautiful deep cranberry petals and fuzzy cushion centers.
Take Off, another anemone dahlia with soft, orchid-toned petals which encircle a lighter, fluffy center.
Princess Nadine, a collarette dahlia with double ruff of pink and plum petals and an apricot center.
And lastly, Skyfall, a collarette dahlia with luscious crimson petals and a gold heart.
As soon as these dahlias arrived by courier they all went straight into the ground, and they have already sprouted and begun to grow.
And finally just when I thought all my dahlia buying was done for the year, an opportunity came up that I just couldn't turn down. Emerden Flower Farm had Floret Petite dahlia seedlings for sale, and I couldn't miss out on buying some after I missed out on buying their Floret Petite Dahlia seeds last year. I bought 8 Floret Petite dahlia seedlings, and when they arrived by courier a couple of days later I planted them into a small section of our vegetable garden (bad of me I know, but I was desperate), and gave them a good watering. I'm excited to see what flower types and colours I'll get from them.
With summer fast approaching now, I can't wait to see all these new dahlia varieties flowering in my garden.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky, and now also Facebook.
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