Dahlia ‘Cafe Au Lait Royal’

Dahlia ‘Cafe Au Lait Royal’ makes quite an impression on onlookers with its profuse and magnificent cream blossoms kissed with dusty pink overtones. The fully double flowers, up to 8-10 in. wide (20-25 cm), are shockingly gorgeous. Blooming massively from midsummer until frost, this dahlia grows up to 36-48 in. tall (90-120 cm) and is an excellent choice to create a lovely garden display or for bouquets.

• A great pick for borders or as cut flowers thanks to its superb vase life. Did you know that the more you cut Dahlia flowers, the more flowers you get? This makes Dahlias twice as nice: pretty in a vase, pretty in the garden. A great big flower in a vase or floating in a shallow bowl makes the perfect eye-catcher.
• Best flowering occurs in full sun, but light shade will be welcomed in hot summer areas.
• Provide consistent moisture during the growing season and do not allow soils to dry out. Plant in a sheltered location to protect your dahlias from strong winds.
• Best in groups of 5 for best visual effect. Deadhead spent flowers to promote the growth of additional flower buds.
• Toxic to dogs, toxic to cats, toxic to horses.
• If you live in a cool area (hardiness zones 3-7) and you want to save your dahlia bulbs, or more precisely, your dahlia tubers for next spring, you may dig them up before the first frost and store them over winter before replanting them next spring. Store them in boxes, covered with moistened sand in a cool, dark, frost-free place where the temperature remains between 45-50 °F (7-10°C).
• This Dahlia is a member of the Decorative Dahlias. These are double dahlias with broad, flat-tipped petals that are sometimes wavy. The flowers are normally large and the plants easily top 40 inches tall, although there are even taller varieties. They can be formal with flat petals evenly and regularly placed throughout the flowers, or informal with generally flat petals, sometimes slightly rolled at the tips, but with irregular arrangement of formation. They are all real eye-catchers!

Dahlias come originally from Central and South America, particularly Mexico where they are the national flower. In their homeland, their natural habitats are cool moist mountain slopes. Their flowers were prized for their beauty early on, and the Aztecs used the tubers as a food crop as well as for medicinal purposes. Botanists who boarded the ships of the Spanish conquistadores discovered the imposing flower in the 17th century. Europeans first tested them as a food crop but soon admired them for their beautiful flowers. The plant was named in honor of A. Dahl, a Swedish botanist. This scientific name became so established that a common name for dahlias never took hold.
During the nineteenth century, the dahlia began stealing the hearts of people all over the world; today there are 20,000 different varieties. And everyone is a descendant of one of the original species such as Dahlia rosea.