Tree Dahlia (Dahlia imperialis)

I got 2 long flower stem which I have no idea what it was from Barbra when I joined our local fruit and vegetable swap for the second time last year. She tried very hard to explain what it is and how to propagate it but I still can’t imagine what the flower will look like. So she told me it look daisy like? I even misunderstood how to propagate it. You are supposed to propagate this stem horizontally but this novice gardener did it vertically. No easy task digging in clay soil for 50cm depth to stick in these stem which Lenay had to help as I was busy in school. Shhh…she does not know yet that it is suppose to be horizontal as I just read about it today. Lenay thought I brought back sugar cane at first. Well I thought the same thing too when I saw this stem at first. The stem is bamboo like but look similar to sugar cane if you spend your childhood in the tropics that will be first thing on your mind. How nice will it be to bite and munch on sugar cane.

So for future reference, here is a link on how to propagate tree dahlia. But we were lucky even we propagated it totally in the wrong direction, the plant did sprouted new shoots.

New shoots sprouted from the nodes.

If we had grown the stem horizontally, we probably have a clump of tree dahlia now. Oh well, there is next time.

The plants grow very slowly at first. This is how they look last March since grown from September last year.

A month later in April, it shoot up very fast.

Early May we see the first batches of buds appearing.

The first bloom in middle of May. I was so excited because it is mauve my favourite colour like the colour of my wedding dress. However, I can’t really see how the bloom actually look like since it is facing my neighbour backyard. Coincidently, that week we have local fruit and vegetable swap meetings and I had the chance to tell Barbra about her wonderful gifts blooming in our garden now. How I finally know that this is tree dahlia blooming in my garden? I borrowed some last year May gardening magazine publication from our local library and it had an article what kind of flowers usually bloom at different region in Australia in May. The tree dahlia photo in the magazine is very familiar to my eyes now.

This tree dahlia is facing our kitchen window, so we have a nice view while cooking. Notice why I am cooking more lately. A very tall plant more than 3 metre tall. Glad that the fence will help protect from the winds.  I read it continuously bloom in winter, I dearly hope so. A very nice colour to have in the garden during winter even on cloudy days.

We are not the only admirer of this tree dahlia. Bees love them too. We have so many bees busy buzzing around this tree dahlia to sips its nectar before the weather gets really cold. We are so delighted that we still see so many bees buzzing in early winter. We don’t see any bees last year in end autumn or early winter when we did not have this tree yet growing in our garden.

I hope this week I have convinced you more thinking about local swap group in you area. See what wonderful gifts that I had received and learn so many new plants from so many generous gardeners.

Linking with Tracie Cottage Floral Thursday at Fishtail Cottage.

Ewa likes purple so linking with Flowers on Saturday for this week.