'Jomanda' Ball Dahlia Plants & Tubers

Dahlia Jomanda

Jomanda is a must for the cottage garden border. This warm, terracotta coloured ball dahlia has fabulous flowers up to 10cm in diameter, which top tall, straight stems. This makes it brilliant for cutting and arranging in vases, so make sure you grow more than you need for a continuous supply of cut flowers from July to November. If you're after dahlias in pink, yellow, white or deep maroon, take a look at the rest of our Dahlia range.

The colour of Jomanda is striking and unusual, a soft burnt orange with more than a hint of pink. And that gorgeous tactile ball shape is always a winner, perfectly spherical with each petal turned in at the tip to form an open tube, like the flowers of a foxglove packed tightly into a globe. The stems are straight and long, and a rich mahogany colour. The foliage is mid-green and lush.

In the garden

Jomanda reaches around 1m in height, so is best grown towards the middle or back of a border. Like all dahlias, it thrives in rich soil in full sun, so wise gardeners will dig in generous quantities of well-rotted manure or garden compost when planting. It will need staking with canes or brushwood in early summer to avoid the dreaded flop later on. Do it while the plants are still relatively small and it's a much easier job than rummaging around among lush, tall foliage.

It's a classic cottage garden plant and looks great with other later-summer perennials, such as heleniums, penstemons, rudbeckias, achilleas and red-hot pokers. For an incandescent combination that will set borders alight until the first frosts, plant drifts of rusty pink-orange Jomanda with pale orange Kniphofia (red hot poker) Alcazar, rich burnt orange Achillea Walter Funcke and blood-red Dahlia Arabian Night .

Features

• Colour: burnt orange-pink/terracotta
• Flower size: 8-10cm
• Type: ball dahlia
• Cutting: yes
• Height/spread: 1m x 50cm
• Flowering: July to November
• Planting months: end Feb to July
• RHS Award of Garden Merit