Isabel

Isabel is a gorgeous small ball dahlia with a beautifully changeable colour palette. Its tightly packed petals shift through dusty rose, orchid-pink, soft lavender and mauve, with warmer coral and bronze tones glowing towards the centre.

No two blooms seem quite the same, with the colouring changing beautifully as the flowers open and mature. Add in its strong, upright dark stems and wonderfully floriferous habit, and Isabel is a seriously useful little dahlia for the cutting garden — especially if you love those moody, muted tones that add depth to a bouquet.

Key Features

• Flower Type: Small Ball

• Flower Size: 7–9 cm (3–4")

• Colour: Dusty rose, orchid-pink, pale lavender and mauve with warm coral and bronze undertones

• Plant Height: 90–110 cm

• Stems: Strong, upright and dark

• Flowering: Midsummer through to the first autumn frost

• Best For: Cutting gardens, bouquets and floral design

Planting & Care

Isabel performs best in full sun with rich, fertile, well-drained soil and consistent moisture throughout the growing season.

• Plant tubers approximately 5–10 cm deep, with the eye facing upwards.

• Allow around 30–45 cm between plants for good airflow and healthy growth.

• Pinch the growing tip once established to encourage branching and more flowering stems.

• Staking is recommended, particularly in exposed gardens or areas prone to strong winds.

• Keep the soil consistently moist during active growth and flowering, particularly during hot or dry periods.

• Harvest flowers regularly and remove spent blooms to encourage continued production.

A sheltered position is ideal, helping protect its strong stems from heavy winds as the plant fills with flowers.

Why You’ll Love It

Isabel is one of those dahlias that keeps you guessing. The colour can move between dusty rose, lavender, mauve and soft coral, creating a gorgeous, almost chameleon-like effect as the blooms develop.

Its smaller ball form is incredibly useful in bouquets too, adding those perfect rounded flower heads that tuck beautifully between larger decorative dahlias and softer garden flowers. With strong dark stems and a long flowering season, Isabel is a little workhorse with plenty of personality.

Tuber Quality

Each of our dahlia tubers is carefully hand-selected and inspected to meet our quality standards. We check for:

• A healthy body

• A strong neck

• At least one visible eye ready to grow

Only when we’re confident it’s ready for your garden do we pack it up and send it on its way.

Please keep in mind that tubers naturally vary in size, shape, colour, and texture. Some may arrive looking a little small or slightly shrivelled — and that’s totally normal! As long as it has a good neck and an eye, it has everything it needs to grow beautifully. We only send tubers we’d be happy to plant ourselves.

Storage & Care

Once your tubers arrive, they’ll need a little care until it’s time to plant. Keep them in the box with the wood shavings in a cool, dry place until planting time. In New Zealand, this is usually around Labour Day weekend, once the risk of frost has passed — but conditions vary, so be sure to consider your local climate and soil.

Pest & Disease Notice

Our tubers come from healthy, disease-free beds and are divided with sanitised tools to keep them that way. While we do everything we can to ensure they’re in top shape when they leave us, we recommend planting them in pots for their first season so you can monitor them closely. Once they’re in your care, we can’t control outside factors like soil conditions, pests or cross-contamination from tool use.

Upon Arrival

Please open your package as soon as it arrives and check everything over. If you have any concerns, contact us within 24 hours, including clear photos, so we can help. If something’s not quite right, we’ll do our best to replace the tuber or offer a refund if we don’t have a suitable replacement.

Because tubers are living things, we’re unable to accept returns or offer refunds due to change of mind. Once the tubers leave our hands, we can’t guarantee how they’re stored or whether they’ve been exposed to garden conditions that might affect their health.

A Note on Variety & Surprise

We take every care to ensure your tubers are correctly labelled - but because this is a hands-on, seasonal process, and a house move at the end of last season, we have taken every car to ensure every tuber has been labelled correctly (you can find lucky dip dahlis for any we are unsure about), However the occasional mix-up can happen. If this small risk isn’t something you’re comfortable with, we completely understand and kindly ask that you don’t proceed with your purchase.

Shipping

Please ensure you select the correct flat rate shipping option for your delivery destination. Incorrect postage and handling means we have to follow up which in turn means your delivery will be delayed. Please bare with us as we work though all orders.