Have you become confused when choosing a Dianella cultivar to use?
Have you become confused when choosing a Dianella cultivar to use?
In recent years the number of Dianella caerulea cultivars that have entered the market place has been staggering. With so many varieties to choose from how do you cut through all that noise and choose one that will truly work? To help you in your choice lets firstly consider why there are so many cultivars out there.
Dianella caerulea, as a species, is a highly variable plant that currently has seven naturally occurring varieties identified in NSW alone (as recorded in Flora of New South Wales, volume 4). These natural varieties range in form from; plants with tufted foliage and no canes - growing to 600mm tall, through to varieties that produce a leaf-less elongated cane with leaf foliage emanating from the top of the cane which may grow to 1m+ in height. Every year Bluedale produces, (from seed), many tens of thousands of Dianella and we see variation in the species all the time, but not every variation is worth cultivating as many of them are simply weak mutant runts that wouldn’t survive in the real world.
Unfortunately many breeders of Dianella have done simply that, they have isolated an interesting form, cultivated it and put it out into the real world without real world testing and those plants have failed in the landscape.
After many years of growing Dianella cultivars Bluedale now only stands behind 2 cultivars for general landscaping and 2 for specific applications.
These are:
For General Landscaping:
‘Lucia’ Dianella caerulea DC101 (PBR)
‘Little Jess’ Dianella caerulea DCMP01 (PBR)
For Specific Applications
‘Aranda’ Dianella caerulea DC150 (PBR)
‘Cassa Blue’ Dianella caerulea DBB03 (PBR)