Dahlias

Brookside Garden Centre has been in business since 1968, and there have been many, many changes through the years. In the early days, you could buy fruit and vegetables, sweets and ice cream, and also cigarettes. Dahlias were grown onsite and cut fresh daily, and the flowers were the inspiration for 2 Brookside logos in recent years. These striking, vibrant plants are a favourite with many gardeners – not just the garden centre – and have been popular since they were first introduced to the UK in 1798. Desire for them may have ebbed and flowed over the years, but Dahlias still command attention with their diverse and magnificent blooms.

Mexico’s national flower, the Dahlia originates from Central America, where it grew wild in mountain ranges and higher ground, often in woodland areas. Still used in Oazacan dishes today, the tubers were farmed for food by the Aztecs, who called the plants acocoxochitl; roasting the tubers creates a sweet extract called dacopa that’s used to flavour drinks, and another extract derived from the tubers – inulin – was used to treat diabetes before insulin was successfully isolated in 1921 – not just a pretty face then!

When Spanish scientist, Francisco Hernández, sailed to Mexico in 1570 to study the country’s nature, he reported on more than 3000 plants, and amongst them were Dahlias; it was another 200 years, however, before botanist and priest, Antonio José Cavanilles – Director of the Royal Gardens of Madrid at the time – visited the region to complete Hernández’s research, returning home with Dahlia seeds and tubers that were shared with many European botanists. The Mexicans called the plants acoctili, but upon his return to Spain, Cavanilles named them after Swedish environmentalist and scientist, Andreas Dahl.

Consisting of just three species – Dahlia pinnata, Dahlia rosea and Dahlia coccinea – the original plants were single, open-centred flowers; it wasn’t long, though, before enthusiasts discovered the plants would hybridise naturally when grown from seed, creating new species that varied in both colour and shape. Taxonomists struggled to keep up with the pace, but that didn’t stop growers who continued to  exploit their newfound knowledge to create a myriad of new plants. The Germans led the way with double blooms, but they also insisted the plant be called Georgina after their own botanist, Johann Gottlieb Georgi, and continued to use that name for many years.

Europe was less keen to welcome the Dahlia tubers as food, preferring to revel in the plant’s blooms. In 1831, the Royal Horticultural Society (then the Horticultural Society) held regular flowers shows and as their popularity grew, September’s shows were devoted to Dahlias. Such was the competition, fifty years later, the National Dahlia Society was born.

Today, there are around 14 classification groups, 42 species and 57,000 cultivars in a variety of shapes and sizes. Miniature Dahlias can produce flowers that are no bigger than 1-to-2 inches on plants that grow to around 12 inches; the largest blooms can be as big as a foot in diameter, with the plant potentially reaching 5 feet or more. Colours are just as numerous, but a blue Dahlia is yet to be cultivated. Shades of purple and violet are available but the search for a true blue continues.

Dahlias tend to flower throughout the autumn, until the cold weather arrives. They prefer a sunny spot, dislike the cold and are unlikely to survive a frost, so the general practice is to dig up the tubers and store them where the cold can’t get to them, replanting them when the frosts have finished.

Amongst the flowers’ biggest fans was novelist Agatha Christie, whose Devon holiday home boasted a Dahlia-only border in its garden. The crime writer even managed to incorporate the plant into one of her short stories, The Four Suspects, with Miss Marple solving a riddle and murder with the help of a variety of Dahlia names.

You can’t help but be wowed by the elegance and splendour of Dahlias, the huge array of varieties available and the diversity of blooms, but if you’re not convinced, take a look at the tubers available at Brookside during the spring and the plants in stock in the summer. You could be creating your own varieties next year by growing from seeds harvested from your own plants this year – who doesn’t want to try that?

They may not be as low-maintenance as many other perennials in your borders, but a little TLC, and your garden could be rewarded with the opulence of Dahlia displays for many years to come.