Val Bourne reminisces about her first memories of the flower and gives tips on how best to grow them

When I was a child, my Uncle Bill used to keep his dahlia tubers underneath his brass bedstead in his terraced house right in the middle of ‘Bend it like Beckham’ territory.

The giant gas container loomed over his garden, rising and falling with the demands of the weather. A chatty child, when I visited them they normally got me to walk the dog on a Sunday afternoon. I can still hear Auntie Ethel’s Ipswich drawl as she exclaimed “Oh it’s Val’ree” with a note of trepidation in her voice.

One January day I popped round and found some potato-like objects spread on their kitchen table. Uncle Bill was frisking his dahlias ready for planting in spring. I knew what a dahlia was, to his surprise. There were rows of giants on the allotment at the top of my road and I began to ask about their names. I remember ‘Edinburgh’ being discussed, a purple and white small decorative introduced by Dobbies in 1950. It was one of his favourites and it’s still around today — although a bit funereal. That afternoon I escaped walking the dog and Uncle Bill and I entered a new phase because I could talk plants.

When January arrives I always think of them, because I am inevitably waiting for new tubers to arrive. I always get the same lecture from the Best Beloved about not buying more, but it’s like butter sliding off hot potatoes — none of it sticks.

One of my favourite suppliers, Rose Cottage Garden Plants (www.rose cottage plants.co.uk/01992 573 775), lay their varieties out by colour on their website because Anne Barnard, a fellow member of the dahlia committee, is a keen gardener. She recommends the following new ones, all admired on her regular trips to Holland.

‘Labyrinth’ is “large, romantic and pretty” and a peachy decorative with pink overtones. ‘Veronne’s Obsidian’ is a sultry black star and these starry ‘Honka’ types look good in borders. ‘Happy Halloween’ is a deep-orange decorative and ‘Jowey Winnie’ is a soft-peach to pink ball dahlia with a hint of lavender. Newer varieties cost more, £7 on average, because suppliers have to fight for them! Others are more modestly priced.

The more traditional Halls of Heddon (www.hallsofheddon.co.uk/01661 852445), has been trading since 1921 and supplies cuttings and tubers to dahlia enthusiasts, many of whom exhibit. They have several of my favourites including the dark red-black ‘Sam Hopkins’, the dark-eyed red collerette ‘Hootenanny’ and the rich-purple cactus ‘Hillcrest Royal’. I also buy more common-or-garden dahlia tubers from Peter Nyssen (www.peternyssen.com/ 01617 474000).

Most suppliers send their tubers out in mid-February, but this depends on the weather because frost-tender tubers can’t be posted in cold conditions. I stick to buying tubers rather than cuttings because I don’t have warm enough glasshouse facilities to grow the cuttings on quickly. Once they arrive, wait for the weather before you plant them between mid-May and mid-April, once spring arrives. Dahlias need warm temperatures to grow and if you plant too early they sit there. Black plastic pots are ideal and most bought-in tubers are small enough to get in a pot.

The plants should be hardened off in late May, in a sheltered position, and put outside in June because cold nights check them and late frost kills the top growth off. I stake as I plant, three canes capped with protectors and string, and most of mine go on my allotment because they are easier to grow in their own space. Water in dry springs and protect from slugs in the early stages. Dark-leaved ones are especially prone to damage.

Lift your tubers after frost has blackened them — unless you have a frost-free garden! Houses are too warm for the ‘under the bed’ treatment, and mine go into dry compost in plastic boxes as soon as they are lifted. They go under the greenhouse bench with a frost-free heater and a prayer. Most come through well, but not all. In spring, as they begin into growth, it’s possible to tease large clumps apart and have more!

Planting out the dahlias is a magical time for they seldom fail. We pick bunches of them and our harvest festival is always a brighter affair with our dahlias. Nothing cuts better than a dahlia and I’m so glad that gardeners are growing a full range of shapes and colours and not just singles and ‘sultries’.