![]() It was a massive organizational feat, but I’m so happy we gave these varieties the focused attention that they deserve. So Jill, Nina, Chris, and I spent the season organizing, observing, documenting, photographing, and cataloging all of the varieties in this project. Up until that point, I had been working on the project in the fringe hours mostly by myself, but with close to 500 varieties to manage, I needed to call in reinforcements. Each row was numbered, every variety labeled at eye level and then detailed maps were drawn up. We hunkered down and mapped everything out with a ton of detail. This past season it became really clear that the dahlia breeding project had ballooned to the point that it was in serious need of some focused attention and thoughtful organization. None of the varieties that are in my breeding patch will likely ever win a blue ribbon at a dahlia show, but I think flower arrangers, farmers, and gardeners will love them, and that is who these magical varieties are intended for. When it comes to variety selection, I’ve found that I’m drawn to the oddballs with muted coloring, unusual forms, and stems that sway in the breeze. She also shares wonderful short video tutorials over on Instagram and has a great website. ![]() If you don’t already have Kristine’s wonderful book, Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener, it’s a must-add to your library if you’re interested in dahlia breeding. ![]() Traditionally, dahlia breeders have mainly focused their breeding efforts on varieties that will rank high in competition, with the exception of Kristine Albrecht at Santa Cruz Dahlias who has bred some incredible varieties perfect for arranging. I know that sounds harsh, but if I kept every variety (and they all are beautiful in their own way), there’s just no way that we could ever manage that volume of work, so I find that it’s important to be very selective and try and stay as true as possible to my breeding goals each season. Good stem length is also very important along with vigorous growth and good plant health.įinding all of these qualities in one single variety is nearly impossible so tens of thousands of seedlings have ended up in the compost pile because they don’t meet all of my criteria. To me, color is the most important quality and then form or shape is the second. I’m looking for varieties that have unusual colors and forms, making them ideal for flower arranging and design work. ![]() Over the last few years, as I’ve gotten deeper into the process, I’ve really tried to focus my efforts. Most of the dahlia breeders I’ve talked to only save one out of every hundred seedlings they grow, often even less. No matter how much you try to guide them in a direction (hand crossing, isolating breeding pairs, bagging individual blooms) in the end you don’t really know what you’re going to get. I approach dahlia breeding like one giant treasure hunt. Out of those 13,000 seedlings I ended up with about 500 promising varieties that I flagged, dug, divided, and saved to observe the following year. If you want to learn how to collect seeds off of your dahlias and breed new varieties, we dedicated an entire chapter to the subject in Discovering Dahlias, starting on page 88. It is probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever grown! That season I collected as many seeds as I possibly could, and the following season we had enough to plant out a patch of 13,000 seedlings-an entire field block. Waiting for each new flower to open to see what emerged became addicting and I just couldn’t get enough. My first dahlia seedling patch consisted of a single bed (a few hundred plants) tucked in my backyard, and of all the things I grew that season that one little row was by far the most exciting. The first year I learned about how to breed new varieties, I collected some seed pods from my favorite varieties in the field and the hoop houses (‘Caf é au Lait’, ‘Appleblossom’, ‘Peaches N’ Cream’, and ‘Waltzing Mathilda’) and saved them aside to grow out the following season. And dahlia breeding certainly falls into that camp. It’s funny how my little side weekend projects inevitably become the next big thing we’re working on. breeding), I got completely swept up in the process and it has since become a huge part of my life. Once I dipped a toe into growing dahlias from seed (i.e. It was actually a good 10 years into my journey with them that I learned that there was a difference between growing dahlias from tubers or cuttings, which is how you clone a variety, and growing them from seed, which is how you create or breed a brand new variety. When I started growing dahlias I had no idea that you could grow them from seed.
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