Dahlias have become so popular in recent years that the phenomenon has been described as dahlia mania. I’m not quite sure why there is suddenly so much fuss about them, because dahlias have been around for ages. Part of the reason why they have suddenly taken off is perhaps because you can get so many more varieties these days, which are even more beautiful and exotic than what was available in the past. The last time mum and I went to our bach (the New Zealand term for holiday home by the seaside), we gave a calendar comprising images of our garden to our neighbour, whose husband used to mow our lawn and keep the property tidy while we weren’t there. Mary is in her 90s and she couldn’t get over the picture of Peaches n’ Cream on the cover, as well as some of the varieties pictured inside. She is actually the one that introduced me to dahlias soon after I discovered gardening. I was very interested to look around their property to see what plants they grew. She always had cactus varieties in her garden. Mary had never seen anything like the dahlias in Floret’s range and was quite amazed by how the plant has evolved over the years. I am nowhere near as old as her, but even when I first started gardening a decade ago, we didn’t have the range we now have, at least not in this country. On one hand, this is a great thing because we have access to so many new, exciting plants. The flipside is that the sharp increase in imported tubers due to dahlia mania has meant that the bacterial disease gall is much more prevalent in New Zealand gardens than it was in the past.
Why dahlias are so fascinating and worth growing
Downsides to growing dahlias
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