Dahlia Seniors Perfection

Dahlia Seniors Perfection', like all varieties in the Seniors series, is a very beautiful bedding plant that will seduce anyone.  Not very tall, bushy, well-proportioned, it has purple stems emerging from its very dark green foliage which bear round and beautifully shaped flowers in a beehive pattern, evolving from almost white to pinkish mauve. They are certainly not very large, but produced abundantly for 4 months, exceptional for the elegance of their habit and the delicacy of their colour. This brand new Dahlia is also a strong, floriferous, and versatile garden plant, well-suited for container cultivation. Its flowers are also very long-lasting in bouquets. A real favourite!

Dahlias belong to the aster family and are originally from the high plateaus of Mexico. Currently, the few 25000 horticultural varieties obtained by humans have arrived, to our great pleasure, in gardens all over the world.
The brand new variety 'Seniors Perfection' is a semi-dwarf Dahlia, it will not exceed 70 cm (28in) in all directions. It is also classified among the decorative Dahlias, which is a horticultural category defined by the shape of the flower. In this group, the coloured ligules of the head are regularly arranged in a spiral, they can be curved towards the stem or fringed, for example. The 'flowers' or heads of 'Seniors Perfection' are about 7-8 cm (3in) in diameter. The ligules or 'petals' are oval-shaped, concave, and beautifully tubular. Their colour varies from bluish-white to pinkish mauve, from the periphery to the centre. At full bloom, the head displays a fairly uniform mauve-pink colour, slightly darker in the centre. The golden heart of the flower only appears late, just before fading. The flowering takes place from July to October. The habit is bushy and compact. The highly branched stems are hollow and the leaves are opposite, pinnately divided into 3 or 5 very toothed lobes. The leaves are very dark green, somewhat blackish, while the floral stems are a dark purple-violet.

To promote flowering, take care to remove faded flowers, or even better, regularly make large colourful bouquets by combining them with other varieties. 'Seniors Perfection' pairs particularly well with pink, mauve, violet, and white flowers. In flower beds, this Dahlia can be combined with all kinds of plants such as pink Echinaceas, for example, which bloom at the same time, as well as Daylilies or Asters. Japanese Anemones are good companions for late season, as well as grasses (compact Miscanthus, Pennisetum, Stipa, Muhlenbergia capillaris, Eragrostis spectabilis). This modest-sized variety is particularly suitable for container cultivation, to easily decorate the patio or balcony.

As the star plant in ornamental gardens, Dahlias are undoubtedly beautiful flowers. They are perfect in flower beds but can also enhance vegetable gardens. In Mexico, this tuberous plant was first cultivated as a root vegetable for consumption. Its poor taste quickly assigned it the rank of an ornamental plant. Since then, interest in their beautiful exuberance has never waned.