The Spanish introduced many new foods into Asia and Europe from the Americas. Some, like peppers, immediately shot to the top of the culinary hit parade. Both potatoes and sweet potatoes became important dietary staples.
That being said, some edible ideas did not travel well. Naturalist Fransisco Hernandez told Europeans about a tuber the Aztecs grew for food. (We commonly say that dahlias grow from tubers, but botanists would call these storage organs tuberous roots. Tubers are modified stem tissue while the dahlia like the sweet potato stores food in root tissue.)
In 1789, the plant was sent to the Royal Gardens in Madrid for experimentation. Not only did the Spanish find it unpalatable, even the cattle would not eat it. Named after a student of our old pal Linnaeus, Anders Dahl, dahlias were off to an unpromising debut on the European stage. Fortunately, the genus contains 30 species so the 1804 Berlin encore featuring other members of the family was far more successful and the dahlia became a star in the flower garden if not on the dinner table. In only four years the Germans hybridized 55 cultivars.
By 1815, all the colors and most of the flower forms we know and love were available. The flower forms are ball, waterlily, anemone, single and cactus. The last did not appear until 1872. In England dahlias were an immediate hit as florists’ flowers and so were grown as cut flowers from the start.
Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, is said to have loved dahlias as much as her fabled garden of Gallica roses. She collected dahlias at Malmaison until a lady in waiting smuggled some out to share with her friends. This so angered the empress that she destroyed her entire dahlia stock.
Dahlias are great garden flowers. They bloom from late summer into autumn, making great cut flowers and reblooming freely as old blooms are removed. Most are winter hardy to zone 7. I have had one for many years in a raised bed but have rather spotty survival in areas where clay soil and poor drainage cause the tubers to rot. Some have striking dark foliage which is visually interesting whether or not the plant is blooming.
Cactus-style dahlia flowers
The classic dinner plate dahlias require staking because the flowers are so large that the stems cannot support their weight. I prefer the much shorter ones which sport the same variety of colors and flower forms on user-friendly plants that are 12 to 18 inches tall and wide. Use them as you would other annuals as colorful accents in the landscape. I have not tried the “bush” type dahlias which grow three to five feet tall, require no staking and bloom freely. I do have a couple of these on order and will report back in a future article.
I have seen loads of dahlias in the big-box garden centers this spring. Just plant the
tuberous roots where you want them to grow. Since they bloom in August, there is plenty of time for the plants to mature adding fresh color just when other flowers are fading.
Master gardener Ann Bartlett never lets lack of familiarity with a plant keep her from trying it in the ornamental beds around her home. You can email Ann at arose56@hamilton.net.
