Dahlia season is a beautiful time of year with garden displays blooming with bright balls of colour, including in the Dahlia Garden at the Adelaide Botanic Garden. Every year throughout summer and autumn the garden puts on a floriferous display with help from The Dahlia Society of South Australia Inc. which we had the pleasure of featuring in out April 2024 newsletter.

Healthy soil is key to achieving such a display of strong blooms with dahlias being susceptible to mosaic viral diseases that are transmitted between sap sucking insects resulting in yellowing, spotting and deformation of the leaves. In the past this has been a known issue in the dahlia beds at the Adelaide Botanic Garden.

“Once a dahlia has the virus there is not getting rid of it, no matter what you do,” says Andy Hart, Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium Senior Horticultural Curator.

“What you can do though, with good horticultural and cultural practices, is have a dahlia plant growing as happy and as healthy as possible, which will help combat the virus and lessen its effects. A stressed and unhealthy plant will show the effects of dahlia mosaic virus a lot more than a healthy, vigorous plant.

Whoflungdung is part of our good practices to have happy and healthy plants.”

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