Dahlia merckii
Dahlia merckii
The frost sensitive Mexican
This dahlia blooms from July to October with simple, pretty purple-pink flowers and a yellow centre. This beautiful garden plant can grow up to 1 m in height. It requires some care as its rhizomes, the dahlia tubers, should be dug up each autumn and stored away from frost.
Dahlia comes from Mexico, here the Aztecs grew it as a food crop - they ate the rhizomes. For a short time it was also used for this purpose in Europe but quickly came to be grown for its flowers instead. Actually cooked dahlia tubers don’t taste too bad.
There are more than 40 species of wild dahlias known but the number of cultivated species or cultivars exceeds 57,000. For growers it is an easy plant to propagate and obtain new varieties from, they occur in many colours and often with double flowers.
Themes
Crown jewel in the Historic Garden of Aalsmeer.
This dahlia is named after the German plant enthusiast, Johannis Merck.
Details
| Description: | Bulbous or tuberous plant, up to 100 cm (tuber); this dahlia from mexico is an ancestor to the current assortment of dahlias and this ancestral form is especially recognisable in the small-flowered dahlias. |
|---|---|
| Distributions: | Mexico |
| Year cycle: | Perennial (trees and shrubs included) |
| Hardiness: | 41 - 50 f (heated glasshouse - warm termperate) |
| Flowering period: | Juli - oktober |
| Flower color: | Pink, purple |
| At its best: | Juli - oktober |