Dahlia Seedling Pictures - 2024

Bessie

First to bloom seedlings May 21st to May 25th.
I don't think there are any keepers here, but I'll wait and observe for a while. I do like the ruffled petals on the yellow flower( as seen on blooms left on the plant). White flower has seed parent Hollyhill Daydream, orange flower has seed parent Ferncliff Copper. The rest are from seed parent seedling 23029. I have decided to do a vase test on most every seedling, just to get data. Some of these I picked a bit too far along because I was away for four days. My first to bloom seedling I think was over fertilized, so it was dug up and it's not pictured here. The cucumber beetles have been ravaging the flowers!

SteveM

Bessie Something you already know: Those blooms were formed about 6 weeks ago (or more) when the day-lengths were (borderline) too short to produce fully double blooms. At our latitude I alway wait until the next flush to judge bloom quality, including vase life and shattering. I am still getting some open centers on named varieties that I know will look great next month..

Bessie

SteveM, yes, thanks! Your advice from last year keeps rolling through my head, and keeps me encouaged.

Bessie

Today is a fun day! There's twenty one seedling blooms in my kitchen, all undergoing a vase test. There's a slight sweet alyssum fragrance coming from at least one bloom. The seedlings in the photo below we're picked on May 28th in the morning. I'm not afraid to pick the blooms in a bud stage to see if they'll open in a vase. Last year I didn't do vase tests till July, but I'm hearing all the feedback to focus on your goals. My number one hybridizing goal is for good cut flowers, and the blossoms need to have a decent vase life.

SteveM

Bessie You have some great possibilities in that collection. I predict you will save 10 first-year seedlings this year.🙂

Bessie

I should be outside planting! But find myself mesmerized by the seedling vase test. This white seedling from seed parent Hollyhill Daydream captures my attention. Will it get a better center? I doubt it. Maybe would be a possible seed parent? The flower has strong cupping at night, but shows significant cupping even during the day.

Bessie

Seedling that is hard to photograph. Mustard yellow(my least favorite color) 5" flower with light orange picotee. Waterlily type with "too many petals", but I personally like this form. Note the slight petal lascination, that I also don't mind. HH Daydream is the seed parent. Flower sits on top of a strong stiff stem, at this point Picked 24 hours ago.

Juliarugula

Bessie I love the picotee edges, and I’m partial to the color. Very pretty!

blown_dry

Bessie I think that yellow can be good as part of a blend. I like this bloom.

Bessie

Juliarugula thanks, that's good feedback.

BackyardBouquets_17

I like it. Not a big fan of the mustard yellow color either but those colors together are pretty.

Teddahlia

Scintillating yellow not mustard yellow. Yellow has not been popular in recent years. Another negative term is "school bus yellow" . I prefer golden yellow. I like yellow as it is a pure color . Purple is not a real color. No purple in the rainbow.

Bessie

Purple not a real color? Well, this Dahlia beauty is mesmerizing me tonight, stopped me in my tracks as I walked past it.. The color is spectacular, a warm raspberry. I tried to capture the true color by adjusting the white balance. Last evening, on the plant, the bloom looked like some type of purple/violet. In the collage below, the warmer colored blooms were taken a few minutes ago, after athe bloom has spent 14 hours in the vase, with no additives to the water. Seed parent is Ferncliff Copper. About 42/180 seedlings have bloomed thus far.

Teddahlia

If these two are the same seedling, that is a huge color change after picking. I wonder what is the cause?

Bessie

Teddahlia maybe I'm just crazy! This morning the flower looks more purple again. Maybe the incandescent light was playing tricks on me. This morning the flower looks colored less "warm" in the cool morning daylight.

SteveM

Bessie Maybe the incandescent light was playing tricks on me.

My broker lit his coolers with florescent lights with a color temperature that was supposed to display the flower colors as true to daylight as possible. Even then, there were some varieties of dahlias I did not recognize as mine when I viewed them in his cooler. I imagine the color shift would/could be even greater with warm incandescent lighting. In the "old film-days" used different colored filters over the lens to compensate for different films and source lighting.

Teddahlia

Ferncliff Copper is not a waterlily and blurry picture shows its form and somewhat it's color. So where did the waterlily genes come from?

Bessie

Teddahlia off the top of my head .. I had HH Pandora, HH Serenity, HH Daydream, HH Lilibet, HH Black Widow, 23061 white seedling, Calin , Karma Amour, Wildwood Marie, My Forever, Kelgai Anne, Sandia Joy, Angels of 7a, Gingersnap, noid that may be Passionate or HH Pandora, and Pam Howden in the garden. My guess the pollen parent was HH Pandora, which just loves my garden.

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia my WL seedling from last season had Ferncliff Copper as seed parent too. Also was planted in a bed next to my waterlily bed, so it could also be a coincidence. Every pic I have is terrible. It was crowded and bloomed late and it's clock faced, but I saved it to see what it looks like this year.

blown_dry

I have corrective lenses that darken in sun, but I usually don't notice until I take them off and my purchases are a different color. Ooops.

Teddahlia

Using the chemical basis for color: F. Copper has a yellow towards orange base pigment that is overlaid with some version of red to give it the so called copper color. Your F. Copper seeding is lavender and some would say light purple. In order to be that color , a flower cannot have the base pigment of F. Copper and it needs to get a different lighter white pigment that allows purple to appear. Pandora, Daydream, and Lilibet are the hollyhill varieties that could work and Kelgai Ann could too. So then, one could guess which has florets in the same shape as your seedling. Pandora has slightly pointed tips and your has round petals. Lilibet has pointed tips too. Now it is between Daydream and Kelgai Ann. I would select Daydream as the most likely candidate. This analysis is total conjecture. Hand crossing takes the guessing out of the equation and then you can repeat a cross that works.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia it’s fun to hear you break down the pollen parent possibilities - thanks for that!

Bessie

Teddahlia also, after your question regarding pollen parent, it got me thinking... Possible user error labeling seed or seedling?
This is a group of currently blooming flowers that are all labeled as F. Cooper as the seed parent:

Here is a photo of F. Copper from last summer, exhibiting some rosy tones:

Bessie

Picking up the conversation from Dahlia Seedling Pictures 2024

Teddahlia Using the chemical basis for color: F. Copper has a yellow towards orange base pigment that is overlaid with some version of red to give it the so called copper color. Your F. Copper seeding is lavender and some would say light purple. In order to be that color , a flower cannot have the base pigment of F. Copper and it needs to get a different lighter white pigment that allows purple to appear.

I was curious and did a tiny bit of online research. Based on the theory of orange pigment inheritance in dahlias, do the color of the seedlings produced by SB's Fiesta dahlia follow the orange rules you describe? Birch Bay website information:

Another example of an orange seed parent: