Have a Nice Dahlia!
August 9, 2011
Came upon a pretty yellow posy this morning in downtown Davis. Botanist that I am (not), I didn’t know what it was. Sally said, “oh, that’s a dahlia.”
And so it is.
This is what I learned about them from this flower site:
- Dahlia plants bloom best in full sun and will tolerate most soil types, but prefer a sandy, well draining.
- Dahlias are summer blooming tubers that grow hardily in our USDA zone.
- There are literally thousands of varieties and hybrids.
- They range in height from as low as 12 inches to as tall as 6-8 feet.
- The flowers can be as small as 2 inches or up to a foot in diameter (the yellow one above was about 8″ in diameter, thus my astonishment).
- Some specimens may provide an abundance of cut flowers for the home, while others give you the opportunity to make a bold statement in your landscape by pruning, disbudding and ultimately forcing the plant to create a few single, gigantic blooms (again, that one above).
Here’s a professionally shot (that is, not shot upside-down in low light with a cell phone) picture of a pink one :
Life of Wry 