Growing & Care

The Dahlia is a perennial plant native to Mexico. They are related to the sunflower, daisy, chrysanthemum, and zinnia. They are octoploids—that is, they have eight sets of chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two. In addition, dahlias also contain many transposons—genetic pieces that move from place to place which contributes to their diversity. The majority of species do not produce scented flowers. Like most plants that do not attract pollinating insects through scent, their pollinator attraction, other than the nectar from the center disk, is that they are brightly colored, displaying most hues, with the exception of blue.

The dahlia was declared the national flower of Mexico in 1963. The dahlia is named after a Swedish 18th-century botanist named Anders Dahl that discovered it growing wild on the sandy hillsides of Mexico. The tubers were grown as a food crop by the Aztecs, but this use largely died out after the Spanish Conquest. Andreas Dahl regarded it as a vegetable rather than a garden flower, but interest switched from the edible tubers to the blooms.

About 200 years passed before dahlia seeds, roots, and plants found their way to from Mexico to Europe. From the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid, Spain, dahlia seeds and tubers were soon sent throughout western Europe. In 1872 a box of dahlia roots were sent from Mexico to Holland. The impact of this long journey was devastating in that all but one tuber failed to make the crossing. This singular root, however, proved quite astonishing in that it produced a brilliant red bloom with petals that were rolled back and pointed! Immediately dahlias regained their place on the benches of plant breeders who began to successfully combine this new variety, D. Juarezii, with parents of early varieties and their progenies that have served as the parents of today’s hybrids.