'Moonfire' is back!

Dahlia 'Moonfire'

Regular readers know my fondness for Dahlia 'Moonfire', but not that it's been absent from my garden for the past couple of years. I'd managed to successfully overwinter it in the ground for over 20 years, but that's always a risk which eventually found me out. Oh, how I've missed her.

How could I resist those firecracker blooms when they winked at me from the plant stall at Chippenham's market last week? Not I - a small exchange of cash ensued and I bore her triumphantly home. I was so pleased with my purchase I even stopped on the way to take the above photo in the Donkey Field!

I've always known this dahlia as 'Moonfire', so I was surprised to see her called 'Sunshine' in some of the plant catalogues earlier this year. It turns out that this was the name given by the original breeders in the Netherlands in 1993, but a stray seedling made its way to the UK before commercial release, where it was named 'Moonfire' by Chris Sanders at Bridgemere Garden Centre. When I looked up 'Moonfire' on the RHS website, it now says 'Sunshine' is a synonym (i.e. an additional name to the given correct one) of 'Moonfire', even though the original breeder had named it as 'Sunshine'. I guess it's the commercial launch that garners the acknowledged naming. Plant names can be such a minefield!

Personally I think 'Moonfire' is a much better name as it hints at this plant's dramatic foliage and flowers. I would expect something called 'Sunshine' to have all yellow flowers, what do you think?

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