Season 6: Garden Flowers- Dahlias: The Floral Jewel of Central America

Dahlias are often revered for their great beauty.  With their tall stocks and shockingly beautiful flowers, they are well known for being a very popular wedding and garden flower.  Finding their exact history proves to be a little bit more of a challenge.

Initially hailing from Central America, the Dahlia was a popular flower for native populations of the area for many years.  Although it is difficult to decern it's exact origins, as the flower was not called Dahlias by native Central American populations, we do know that it was used both ornamentally and medicinally by these peoples for many years.  It was later one of the first plants brought back to Europe, and were bred to have many varities and colors that we now see on our shelves today.  We'll talk a little bit about this, some modern references to Dahlias, and dabble into their care on today's episode of Plantstories.

Music Clips by Kevin Macleod at Incompetech https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/