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...

drewtheflorist

Your great, great, great, great grandfather was orange ?

Teddahlia

drewtheflorist
I wish our family tree went back that far including pictures taken with a cell phone. We do not know who our great, great , great grandfather was or where he came from. His kid made onto the family tree and as you would have it, is an orange tree.

calico20hill

Teddahlia Genetic testing for humans can find your missing great greats. It has been a great source of entertainment through the winter months for me, tracing down people on our family trees far into the old times. I have made contact with other distant members of the expanded family and heard a lot of interesting stories. Its not that I want to find someone great and well known, but it does give insight into family relationships and customs. The interesting things that pop up, like finding out I was about 1/3 Scandinavian and not having a clue why....turns out that my mom's family were descended from some of the first settlers along the Delaware River who were a very early settlement from Denmark. I thought we were all English, Scots and Germans so that opened up a whole new interest for me.

Teddahlia

Found another picture of Hollyhill Tarantula.

KitCMC

Teddahlia swoon

Teddahlia

In our color discussion, white can be very difficult. This may or may not be nice white seedling, but I was concerned that it may not have enough white pigment.

.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia I need to get me a keychain measuring tape like that!

JessieC

Juliarugula Too funny—I thought the same thing. Architects can never have too many tape measures and scales 😂

Teddahlia

Breeding goals: Margaret hand crossed two of our waterlilies with the intention of getting a particular color. Neither flower has really good form but both had some nice genetics behind them. When the season was over I counted the saved seedlings from that cross and by far we saved the most than from any other hand cross. Yes, 10 seedlings were kept and there was not any bias as we did not know the parents of the seedling before we selected it.

Now some reality sets in. In order to select 10 seedlings, you need at least 10 sprouted seeds and I just looked at her seed counts and she got 35 seeds from this cross and 22 from the same cross but with a switched pod parent. So 57 seeds that yielded an unknown number of sprouted seeds and 10 kept seedlings. So there are two possibilities: (1) It is a kick butt good cross(2) it is a good cross because you get lots more seeds that sprout. Either way, Margaret says she is repeating the cross.
Later: One of the flowers used for this seed cross was used for other crosses and and some not hand crossed seedlings. It was one of the parents in 17 kept seedlings. The other parent had only a couple more but was not used by itself for seeds. The really good seed parent is a private flower that we have never sold and is about 5 years old now.

Teddahlia

First bloom: A first second year seedling bloom is half ripe. I bent over to see the plant tag and it is a cross between a white flower and purple flower. So far it is both white and purple. Dark blend. I would show the pictures but it is like a young teen ager that has braces on. Not very flattering.

Teddahlia

Here is picture of the first second year flower blooming.

Teddahlia

Not much blooming yet. The second year flower is lonely out there. Another picture of it.

Teddahlia

Margaret hand crossing in 2005. Kristine Albrecht visited our garden in 2012 and and Margaret showed her how she did it.

Teddahlia

DarcyD

Look at this little Micro seedling oddball. I’ve never had one so tiny with this form.

Juliarugula

DarcyD adorable!!

Krista

DarcyD What a cutie!

calico20hill

I love the tiny flower!

BackyardBouquets_17

Are there any dahlias out there with scent ( doubles preferred but not limited to that) I’ve got serveral scented seedlings. 2 faint scented ones and one med strength scented. I’m still trying to place my finger on the exact scent, reminds me of sweet peas but not as strong. I’ll attach a pic of the strongest scented one and i would love to hear opinions.
Cross em between each other ( they r all singles or open centered and I’m hoping to get fully double scented) cross with a fully double and hope the scent carries over?

i do have karma choc that supposedly has scent but as wet as we have been it may not even bloom.

Bessie

BackyardBouquets_17

I’m still trying to place my finger on the exact scent, reminds me of sweet peas but not as strong

I love sweet pea smell, so that's encouraging! I found two distinct fragrances last year, in different dahlia seedlings. It took a while to figure out what the smell compared to. Here's what I decided they smelled like: 1) Yellow trumpet daffodils (not the strong super fragrant narcisus types). 2) Sweet Alyssum

This year during vase testing, I correlated a "so-so" fragrance of one seedling flower to the pollen shedding stage of the bloom.

Laia

BackyardBouquets_17

So fun about your scented seedling!

Both I and another grower have gotten scented collarette seedlings from Wayne Holland’s Hy Whitewings collarette.

A long time ago Wayne worked to hybridize for scent, with some success with open-centered varieties, and while now he focuses on other things like dark foliage, it seems he still has some genes for scent floating among his patch. Hy Whitewings sometimes gives off scent itself.

My best scented seedling from it can give off a lovely rose scent (calling it “2PAW Rosa” for now), while another Hy Whitewing seedling gives off a different mildly pleasant scent.

I’ve since observed scent in some other open centered varieties, and what the scent resembles seems to vary. At the 2024 ADS national show I sniffed most all the open centered entries, and there were a few of Colin Walker’s introductions and one or two of the Boley’s introductions giving off scent. Most of them reminded me a bit of honey or sweet alyssum scent. And one collarette seedling by Elva Sellens was giving off a strong very similar rose scent as my “2PAW Rosa,” which I was very excited to find!

I have since come across Monti Cangiamilla noticing scent on his anemone seedling that made head table at the national show (it was too high up for me to be able to smell while I was there), and a couple of us who have grown a couple of Panat Cherdchu’s collarette seedlings (PC’s Yuth & PC’s Sumetta) have noticed some mild scent coming from them.

I have noted that scent coming even from my “2PAW Rosa” is intermittent. There have been stretches where blooms didn’t seem to be putting out any scent. Often it seems strongest when the pollen center is fully open, though there have been a few times where the scent was strong with only one or two rows of the pollen center open. I have not observed scent from it before any of the pollen center was open. That makes me think it would likely be hard to get a fully double dahlia with a closed pollen center to be giving off scent. Though sometimes you can get a tiny bit of pollen at each ray floret on a dahlia, so maybe it’d be possible for a bit of scent to be produced from each ray floret? I wish you luck with your endeavors!

Here’s a photo of my scented “2PAW Rosa” that 2.5 weeks ago bloomed inside from it’s little 2.7” pot I overwintered a cutting in. This bloom was smelling good at the time the picture was taken.
Beginning of last year the blooms were dark like this, and then at the end of the season it gave me a bunch of light colored blooms. I’ll also attach a picture of one of those light colored blooms.

BackyardBouquets_17

And here’s a pic of the way first bloom it ever gave. A real bobble head but the scent alone is enough to want to work with it an see wat happens

Teddahlia

My smeller does not detect a scent in dahlias. I have not tried recently and if your flowers do have a fragrance that an old geezer like me can smell I would consider trading tubers with you.

BackyardBouquets_17

Bessie
It does seem the scent is the strongest at pollen shed. They were all in 4 inch sink pots and all the others I previously pulled had decent tubers so I’m hoping to save these with scent and see if we can get some stronger scent and double form bred into them.

Ted my husband accuses me of not having a very good smeller so it’s possible you would be able to smell these. Time will tell if they stay scented or if next yr there is no scent to be found.

« Previous Page Next Page »