Garden Centre

Monday, August 13, 2007

Dahlias

Funnily enough, dahlias have been on my mind for any number of reasons, recently:

1 – a friend who recreates old recipes is trying to make dahlia flour – yes, flour, not flower! The first dahlia tubers arrived here late in the eighteenth century, from Mexico and were viewed as vegetables rather than flowers. So she’s been drying, grinding and baking dahlia tubers as part of her research project and I’ve been steadfastly refusing to eat anything she produces. By 1815, the Belgians had produced double dahlia flowers and the plant had become a herbaceous rather than vegetable border resident. By Victoria’s reign, thousands of varieties of dahlia had been created.

2 – I’m reviewing the novel Black Dahlia, for a magazine. Not the best bedtime reading, unless you like going to sleep with dismembered women on your mind. That, of course, led to finding a copy of the 1946 film, The Blue Dahlia, because it was possible that the victim Elizabeth Short, who became known as the Black Dahlia, got her name after the film was released. And that, in turn, led to a quick peruse of Red Dahlia, a book based on the case of the Black Dahlia but updated as a kind of copycat case. Phew!

3 – and the garden is full of … yes, you’ve guessed – dahlias! They are a late summer showstopper and will thrive in almost any location and in almost any soil, but for really good flowers dahlia roots need a sunny location – this means at least a half-day of sun every day, more is better, and you need to shelter them from wind. Even so you’ll end up staking them because they are surface feeders with a mat of light surface roots which means the plant can easily blown over by even moderate wind – and even if they don’t get blown down, breezes break the roots and stop the plant feeding.

For big blooms you also need to remove the two little buds either side of the main bud (called the crown bud) and remove the side buds/shoots at the next lower pair of leafs and again at the next lower pair. This will force the plant to concentrate all its energy into the remaining crown bud which gives you a whopper flower.

Finally, once the first heavy frost blackens their leaves, you need to dig up the tubers and set them upside down in a dry airy space for about two weeks to drain moisture from the remaining stem(s). After that, store the tubers in trays of dry sand or peat moss in a cool, dry cellar or storage area – don’t let them desiccate or they won’t flower next year.

Labels: dahlia, garden flowers, garden research

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:49 AM

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