Dahlia update
320083817243-0001@t-online.de (Tue, 23 Sep 2003 14:17:20 PDT)
Dear All,
After having written the TOW on Dahlia earlier this summer, I promised an
update later in the year.
I did some investigation and tried to find out more about species Dahlia.
Having spoken to several people about the tree dahlias the situation becomes
more confusing the more I know about it: On one hand I was told that the
difference between D. imperialis and D. excelsa is that D.imperialis produces
perennial woody tree-like trunks and branches several meters above soil level
whereas D. excelsa produces annual tree-like shoots from the base that do not
branch. In another garden I saw plants which were labelled exactly the other
way round...... both plants cannot be distinguished by their foliage and it was
too early to have seen flowers. However, I was told that cultivation in large
pots has produced flowers as early as August in a plant that was considered D.
imperialis. There is also the opinion that both D. imperialis and D. excelsa
are varieties of one single species.
As the plants that are cultivated in England and other northern contries are
usually killed by frost before they flower being used as architectural foliage
plants we will perhaps not know which ones they in fact are..... unless they
flower.
I saw a large bed of D. dissecta, the first flowers open and a lot of buds,
light pink flowers over very finely cut leaave, quite attractive. Also D.
merkii and D. sherfii, D. laciniata, D. coccinea in forms, D macdougallii, the
epiphytic Dahlia which flowers in November. I is more a large climber than an
epiphyte and looks like an elder..... (Sambucus)
The trouble with species Dahlias is their tendency to get virus infections that
kill them very quickly and the fact that they hybridize in an uncontrolled way
so that the species itself is easily lost.
Well... hope this was of interest for you, bye for today, Uli