Cafe au Lait Dahlia
Dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’ · a dinnerplate dahlia with blush flowers
The famous dinnerplate dahlia: huge blush-cream to pale peach blooms from midsummer to frost, a favourite for cutting and wedding flowers. Give it full sun, rich moist soil and a stake, and where the ground freezes, dig the tubers after frost and store them for winter.
- Mature size
- 4 × 1.5 ft
- 1.2 × 0.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 8a–10b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Medium
- Blooms
- Jul–Oct
Cafe au Lait Dahlia at its mature size
A mature Cafe au Lait Dahlia grows to about 4 ft tall and 1.5 ft wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: Swan Island Dahlias, Longfield Gardens, Eden Brothers, NC State Extension, Chicago Botanic Garden.
Through the year
What Cafe au Lait Dahlia looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Feb
Cut down by frost; the tubers wait below ground until spring.
New growth · Mar–Apr
Young leafy shoots, no buds yet.
In leaf · May–Jun
The leafy plant growing up, flower buds forming.
In flower · Jul–Oct
In full bloom.
Growing Cafe au Lait Dahlia
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and California.
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Good for
- Fast growing
- Leaves
- Dies back in winter
- Native to
- Garden hybrid (Mexican species)
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Cafe au Lait Dahlia, that’s about 1.5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Cafe au Lait Dahlia in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other dahlias
Gallery Art Deco DahliaCafe au Lait DahliaAll drawn to the same scale.