".......rendering it noncompetitive." If the judge sees the scar, the flower may only get blue ribbon if it is really nice otherwise. One spur leaf probably ruins a blooms chance for a higher award. Multiple spur leaves are the equivalent of disqualification. Breeders need to be aware that they are a negative.
General Dahlia Chat - 2025
MissyWeitzel These two just glow together, so pretty!
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I was on a bus trip for a dahlia tour and sat next to Alan Fisher. He is known for his ability to talk for hours at a time with out even taking a breath. The subject was the differences between the East Coast exhibiting and the West coast. I found the differences to be eye opening. One of the most discussed subjects was dahlia stems and leaves. The East coast believes it is a leaf and stem show with a flower at the top. I exaggerate but on the West coast there are almost always one set of leaves and occasionally two and never three. Alan said that two and occasionally three are the norm out East. He said they like long stems and it got so bad when the flowers were in the container, the flower could not be seen easily by the judges who were forced to move entries to a lower position to judge the flowers. He said eventually a limit was placed on stem length. I could write many more paragraphs on this subject as Alan was very thorough in his discussion. 
Teddahlia that east vs. west judging may explain a lot. It seems to me that with so many cut flower growers, and home gardeners, could Dahlia breeding slowly sway away from exhibition as the end goal? With many growers starting to breed, there may be a trend towards the multi purpose cut flower dahlias and garden dahlias which includes growing in pots.
Bessie
I sure hope that both exhibition blooms and cut flower/landscape varieties equally continue to thrive. The cut flower growers' emphasis on smaller blooms and formal/informal decorative forms has always felt too limiting to my liking as an exhibitor, although I understand their perspective and unique needs.
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If there is a real emphasis switch from show flowers to cut and garden flowers,(this is stated nearly every year and little does happen) I have noticed that the show flowers are tested in trial gardens and have to prove that they are healthy enough and productive enough plants to provide flowers for the shows. Cut and garden flowers are not tested as there are no trial gardens for them and all we can rely on is the description and appraisal of the breeder. Many breeders have no idea what is a good cut flower but can call their flower good one.
Swan Island introduces many garden and cut flowers every year and they are experts in producing healthy , good growing varieties. They grow many thousands of seedlings(more than anybody I know that grows seedlings) and also are sellers of cut flowers by the tens of thousands. They know what it takes to be a good cut flower.
So if the emphasis for dahlias is switching to cut and garden flowers, there is a real need for system of appraisal of the potential varieties. Picture is a seedling that looks to be 4 inches in diameter but is actually 2 inches in diameter.
BarryO The cut flower growers' emphasis on smaller blooms and formal/informal decorative forms has always felt too limiting to my liking as an exhibitor, although I understand their perspective and unique needs.
Iām not an exhibitor, but I feel the same way. My favorites tend to be medium - large blooms, cactus (and semi-, and incurved), and bright and bold colors. So, pretty much the opposite of the cut flower growersā preferences.
4 posts were split to 2025 Winter Sowing.
Teddahlia When I first got interested in Dahlias, I sought out all kinds of info. At that time, a few years ago, I found a cut flower score sheet on your website( I think I purchased some of your tubers in 2022). Here's an excerpt from a really old Hollyhill website,
We no longer sell cut flowers but did so for over 20 years. Selling cut flowers has helped us identify new seedlings that have cut flower potential. We specialize in selling the varieties we have originated and occasionally other selected varieties.
Thank you Ted, I trust this evaluation criteria .... Also, because you never know when 2021 websites will disappear, here's @Teddahlia discussing a cut flower rating system:
Ted writes in 2021:
I have my own personal beliefs about the factors that make a dahlia good cut flower. Here is a list of those factors.
Color
20
The most important factor as color is
why we have cut flowers.
Stems
15
Without good stems, you cannot have
a good cut flower
Floriferousness
15
There must be enough flowers to make
it worthwhile to grow. And there must
be good flower production the entire
season not just one flush of flowers
Plant vigor and bloom date
15
Healthy, easy to grow plants are must
as cut flowers growers do not have
time to give them extra care. And they
must bloom early enough to be
profitable.
size of flower
15
Nearly all cut flowers range in size from
2.5 inches to 6.5 inches. Larger and
smaller flowers can be used but are
specialty flowers.
Tuber production
15
A cut flower grower must have enough
tubers to keep growing the flower in
commercial numbers.
Personal preference
5
As they say: " Beauty is in the eye of
the beholder."
Organza bags are the duct tape of my garden!
Saving seeds, protecting blooms, storing random supplies I donāt want to spill everywhere. I heard to cover holes of your pots with a coffee filter or some other fine row/cover-like material because slugs travel up holes of pots through the soil!? Not sure if itās true or not but Iāve made an effort to do that ever since. In the summer instead of row covers for protecting seeds/seedlings I just stuck the entire 4/5 inch pot inside this big organza bag. I am not growing massive amounts of flowers so it works on a small scale for me. Water and sun can get through it, no changes in humidity (or you can use with humidity dome if you are germinating things) protects from slugs, earwigs, birds! You can even hang them off of something vertical with the strings if your short on space. I donāt have a lot growing in ground so nearly everything I am starting will be transplanted into raised beds or pots. At first I would use organza bags to protect young seedlings by opening the organza and turn it upside down and tighten over the top of the pot. BUT it actually works better and easier to open/close and gives the plant more space to grow when you stick the whole pot inside the organza bag. Iām sure a better solution would be to have healthier plants/less pest pressure/better soil/be better at gardening. Iām new at this so for now this is my method for the seedlings that seem to be eaten the mostā¦.Not exactly dahlia specific but the idea could be applied to all plants
Bessie That's a well-thought-out evaluation/rating card. With disregard to math I would also add:
Bloom Quality
20
Includes substance, bloom angle, vase life, and especially the lack of shattering. A variety that drops its back petals within 48 hours after being cut is automatically disqualified. A down-facing variety is automatically disqualified.
SteveM I actually had a couple flowers this year that the back petals would be fading/drooping within 48 hours! They would sit on my kitchen counter looking pretty for a day, and thatās about all I could do with them. I didnāt even want to give my family members vases of flowers with that variety in it. Maybe this dahlia was meant to be a garden/landscaping plant vs one for cutting. I didnāt pay attention to how the blooms lasted on the plant uncut.
Some of these cut flower criteria you could judge in a āshowā setting like bloom angle and stem length, and bloom attachment.
However, some of the other valued/important good qualities in cut flowers such as: vigor, productivity, bloom time, bloom consistency over the season, etc. would need to be evaluated over a season/period of time. I think this is where a ātrial gardenā for cut flowers could make a lot of sense. I am not sure how much data and record keeping goes on for the current trial gardens. But I could see a cut flower trial garden being more demanding with its data collection.
Iād also add bonus points to vase life. It has to be a minimum of some number of days but bonus points if itās over some number of days. I know bonus points is not a real category but maybe it could be or should be for cut flower judging? 
I would also wonder do leaves need to be scored for cut flower judging? I donāt sell cut flowers so maybe Iām totally wrong on this. I have pulled off damaged leaves and used a flower in an arrangement and the flower still looks great in a vase. I have never felt foliage is a must have on dahlias after it is cut and intended to be used as a cut flowerā¦.but like I said Iām not in the cut flower industry so idk
Say a new variety was advertised or presented as āscoring 91 at cut flower trial garden.ā If the public was aware on what that score meant it could be a selling point. Maybe Iām over here thinking Iām doing great with my 10 blooms of small world per plant in a season but then I see a cut flower trial garden report of a white pom that made 20 blooms in a season! So then I think if Iām using space, spending money on fertilizer, water and time that is much more bang for my buck! I want to try that variety out! Or maybe something new in the cut flower trials blooms 2 weeks earlier than what Iām currently growing. This could push cut flower hybridizes to meet or exceed the ādahlia cut flower scorecard standardsā. If your growing on a big scale extra time with flowers to sell or more flowers per plant can really add up to overall profit.
I feel like a lot of gardeners are constantly doing our own ātrialsā and experiments. That is half the fun for me! I also love to collect stats on when did something first bloom, how many blooms did I cut from it, vase life. I was keeping track of how many blooms I cut from each variety. But then stopped cutting to try to collect seed/pollen and all the record keeping went to crap!
LoriDee Sorry for the delayed response. I have been super sick for the last 2.5 weeks. Let's get you using it! She should have added you to her Facebook group called "Dahlia Dorks". There is a lot of good info there and you can ask for help. She is really good to respond. The SmartSuite database is very customizable. You can add notes to your general dahlia catalogue OR you can add them specific to your Field module for each year you grow. Are you an apple user? If so, we could find some time to walk you through the set up. I still love excel, but Smart Suites has been great for label printing and being able to capture notes in the field. Let me know!
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Cut flower trial gardens: I read an article years ago about a cut flower trial garden(not dahlias) in Holland. The data collection was gruesomely detailed. No one would want to judge at such a garden.
Years ago, I read that one species of flowers had an interesting method of trialing new varieties. They had the people who sell cut flowers agree to trial a limited number of varieties in their garden and fill out a questionnaire on each variety. I would imagine that could work for dahlias and an eager cut flower grower would probably not mind growing about 10 plants of several prospects and of course being able to sell the flowers too. I bet the breeder would be challenged to provide 30 tubers to go ten each to three gardens but that rather covers the issue of adequate tuber making.
Justafewdahlias Iād also add bonus points to vase life. It has to be a minimum of some number of days but bonus points if itās over some number of days
Vase life - if the blooms look OK for 4-5 days at room temp that is good enough. "super long vase life" might be a case of "be careful what you wish for". The only reason dahlias are still grown locally for cut flowers is because their vase life is too short to be shipped from Mexico and they are too fragile to be flown in from South America.
I believe that most of the "vase life" stuff is rather irrelevant unless the flower looks like crap in a vase after a day or two. If the evaluators were cut flower growers, I would tend to listen to what they would say about it. Carnations have a long vase life but remember they are carnations(plain flowers) and smell like a funeral to me.
Time out @Teddahlia! I just saw that Hollyhill Ruby Rose is being released. For some reason I thought it was going to be held another year. Was I dreaming that? Forgive me if youāve already covered it. Iāve been a bit out of the loop the last couple of week. Itās stunning! Of course, this means I have a sleepless night in my future because Mr. Spanenberg likes to open his sale at undisclosed times, usually around 2:30am my time (maybe), but Iām here for it. I was shocked (in a good way) when I saw it.
Teddahlia Sorry about that 