Dahlia 'Emperor Franz-Joseph' — Bushy, clump-forming, tuberous perennial

Overview

Dahlia 'Emperor Franz-Joseph' is a bushy, clump-forming, tuberous perennial bedding in the genus Dahlia, part of the Asteraceae family, with green, occasionally dark-leaved foliage. Dahlia 'Emperor Franz-Joseph' grows best in full sun, and tolerates loam soils and neutral pH. Its UK hardiness is rated H4. Suggested uses include borders, containers and cut flowers.

About

Dahlia 'Emperor Franz-Joseph' is a cultivar of Dahlia, a genus of perennial plants with tuberous roots and finely dissected leaves, known for their prominent flowerheads. This herbaceous perennial forms bushy, clump-forming growth and thrives in full sun on moist but well-drained, neutral loam soil. Suitable for borders, containers, and cut flowers, it flowers during summer and autumn. It is hardy to UK zone H4 and benefits from a sheltered, south-facing aspect with fertile, humus-rich soil. Taller plants may require staking, and tubers should be lifted and stored in colder areas over winter.

About the genus

Dahlias come from the high meadows of Mexico, and somewhere in that heritage is the explanation for how they behave here: tender to frost, hungry, generous beyond all reason. No other plant gives you quite so much for so little. One tuber, planted after the last frost, becomes a shrub's worth of flowers by August — and the more you cut, the more they come.The range is faintly ridiculous. Tight pompoms, spiky cactus types, singles the bees adore, dinner-plates the size of your face. Whatever your garden's mood, there is a dahlia that agrees with it, which is probably why every generation falls out of love with them and then, a decade later, falls straight back in.They're at their best when much of the garden is winding down — late summer into autumn, flowering hard until the first frost calls time. I think of them as the encore. And they always play it.

Written by Henry