Hybridizing Dahlias

Bessie · 2023-09-14T03:43:02+00:00

Krista to discover if seeds are growing in the seed pod, after there are no remaining anthers on the pod, gently squeeze the pods between your thumb and fing...

Teddahlia

Breeding is always giving some thing(s) to get another. If the poor center prospect came from a line of flowers with good centers, you can breed it with ones with good centers and the majority of the seedlings should be good. If it instead came from some open center variety, it would be like putting Humpty Dumpty together again and not worth it.

BackyardBouquets_17

Seniors Hope is the dahlia I’m looking at but haven’t been able to find much info on it. Anyone know its origin or lineage?

bloomhjelm

BackyardBouquets_17 Seniors Hope was introduced by Jan (J.J.) Vleut of Hillegom, Netherlands. J.J. Vleut Sr./Jr. also introduced the Jill dahlias and many others.

I don't think there will be any info online on its parentage.

BackyardBouquets_17

Night silence would be close enough the same and probably a better starting base but I haven’t managed to get that one yet an I have seniors hope in my garden is why I was curious about how that works.

Probably just need to trial and error it to see wat happens but a question is always worth asking in case someone else knows the answer.

I like to check Jess dahlia listings as she often has the year introduced and the hybridizer ( if known) but there wasn’t any info there for Seniors Hope and a google search didn’t yield me any luck.

Juliarugula

I think I remember saying on this forum sometime last year that I had decided not to try growing seedlings because I didn’t have room.

So of course I made a new bed and started some seedlings. You guys are right - it’s pretty fun! The best part for me (so far) is how much earlier they’re blooming than any of the tuber or cutting grown plants - I guess I hadn’t realized that would be the case.

Anyhow, I’ve had five of my 30+ seedlings bloom. 2 got pulled immediately, 2 I’ll wait and see how subsequent blooms do, and this one I actually think is nice. The color is a little difficult to capture in a photo - it’s got a nice subtle duskiness to the lavender. It’s not super deep but maybe later blooms will deepen. The stems are long and the angle of the bloom is good - I think it will make a nice cut flower.
I have it labelled as an AC Twisp seedling, which surprises me. But AC Twisp was right up against all my Ferncliff FDs, so maybe it’s taking a lot from the pollen parent.

Juliarugula

I meant to put that in the dahlia seedling pictures thread. Oops!

Teddahlia

Senior Ball was introduced by Almand(of California). Spartacus was introduced by Mick Senior. And as you say the other Senior flowers are Dutch and of more recent introduction. Mick Senior died a few weeks after I met him. He crossed Edna C. with Zorro and got one seed and it was Spartacus. Later, Spartacus sported to bicolor and before any could be sold, it went back to solid.

Teddahlia

Seedling looks pink to me but trending towards lavender.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia it’s definitely pinkish, maybe somewhere between the two. The photo looks a bit pinker than in real life. (I’m also not particularly well educated on where the official dahlia color lines are drawn - sometimes the ADS color of a dahlia doesn’t match what my mind would call that color…)

Staring at it and scratching my head a bit…

Juliarugula

Kind of a weird photo, but here it is next to some truer pinks.

Teddahlia

The naming of colors is quite different from person to person. That is why they invented color swatches at the paint stores and of course the ADS has their color swatches too. At the paint store they specialize in naming their colors some oddball name . Different brands of paint have their own color swatches and different names. The ADS while not a paint store, has decided what color groups are what color. A bunch of swatches(they call them color chips) are grouped together and called an overall color. White and yellow are pretty straightforward while some of the groups are ridiculous. Bronze is a color to the ADS. This is all complicated by the fact the original swatches were done in the United Kingdom. Yes, they do speak English there but as you all know the words are not an exact match to our American words. And it is even worse when it come to color names. Pink is not USA pink. And this also complicated by another "color" that is called lavender. The average person on the street does not use the word lavender to indicate a color. They are much more likely to call lavender "light purple" . However, if you are into flowers, we know the word very well. It is a flower word.
Back to your flower that is either pink or lavender but actually according to the ADS it is either dark pink or lavender. Yes, they had too many pink colors and have designated dark pink as different color.

I could drag out the ADS color charts and classify your flower by color. I am just going to guess that since the second picture has more blue in it, that it is probably lavender. To average person on the street there is no such color as lavender and it is light purple.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia Thanks for the breakdown! Yes, I find the “light”s and “dark”s of ADS color classifications particularly non-intuitive. In my mind this color isn’t “dark” at all! 🤣

I probably should sit down one of these days and try to get ADS colors straight in my head - it would be a useful thing to learn. I keep meaning to go through that judging certification course that ADS offers, just as a learning exercise. I’m assuming color classification is part of it.

Teddahlia

My old website still has the ADS color chips on it.
https://hollyhilldahlias.aroundbeantown.com/ADSColor/ADSColor.html
I used a good scannner to do the files. Every computer screen is slightly different but they are probably at least 90% accurate.
The ADS does not want to re-do them as the committee that created them went through many meetings and disagreements to create them. And then the printing company that printed them said in no uncertain terms, "We will not do this again!" . If you know much about the printing process, they use presses that make little color dots on the paper . The printing of the swatches uses an old fashioned press that puts down just solid ink. Ink must be matched to the exact color and most runs are failures as you must mix inks to get the color. "Never again " they said.

drewtheflorist

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According to my monitor, it codes out as ADS Color chip LV-21

Bessie

drewtheflorist I'm glad you brought up the ADS color cards. In the past few weeks I have been frustrated trying to capture accurate color(especially purple/lavender/dark red) in a photograph for a few blooms. So, yesterday I put the ADS color cards in the photo, and the color showed up much better.

If you want to zoom in on the photo, click on image and "open in a new tab".

Juliarugula

drewtheflorist I’m not sure if this was in reference to the seedling I posted, or a previous post (for some reason your post kind of looks like a “quote” to me), but I’m getting closer to LV-6 for my seedling when I look at the flower itself next to Ted’s color chips (on my iPad).

Teddahlia

A couple of years ago, I too was frustrated by color rendition by digital cameras and would carry a second flower to put next to my target flower. I used an orange flower. I always thought the results were better as far as color but what chore to do. Cell phones do better in the color department for me.

Teddahlia

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Photoshop believes LV6 is very close.

Teddahlia

Planting cuttings.
Margaret "stole" two cuttings of this one to put in one of her large pots and will dress it up with some leafy foliage plants.

Teddahlia

Margaret likes this one. I hope it turns out nice again.

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