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Dahlia 'Alfred Grille'. The Dahlia is a distinctly new world genus of about thirty six or seven
species. When the Spaniards over ran the civilizations in Mexico, the Mayans and the Aztecs, the
Aztecs in particular had Dahlias featured in many of their gardens. It was and still
is an important food crop in Mexico. Oaxacan cuisine especially uses a lot of Dahlia tubers
in their cooking.
Dahlias as we think of them are very ornamental flowers that are great late season plants.
Dahlias are members of the Aster family that include Blotonia, the Soledagos, the Goldenrods,
Asters and many, many more.
They bloom really reliably at the end the summer. Dahlias for us are what we call a
tender bulb. It's an underground tuber system that must be dug in the fall where you get
hard frosts, and you have to store them over winter. But once you have planted them out
next spring they grow vegetatively through the summer, and at the end of the season you
get these wonderful blooms.
There are many, many different varieties of Dahlias. They have been hybridized highly
for many many decades. The French have done a lot of work with Dahlias.
"Dahlia" the genus name comes from Anders Dahl who was a student of Carl Linnaeus. Another
interesting thing about Dahlias is that they are known for hollow stems. In fact they were
used as straws and as water pipes and one of the common names is Mexican water pipe.
All the Dahlias are great cut flowers,they last a long time in the vase. Some of the
colors are almost neon electric in their ability to pull light into them, fantastic cut flowers.
Not many insect or disease problems but there's an aster's yellow that affects Dahlias. There's
also several insects, thrips are a problem, but generally we don't spray ours, they seem
to do well here. We have four or five every year, we don't grow a large plantation of
Dahlias, but we do love a few in the garden for cut flowers.
Dahlia 'Alfred grille'