2025 - Dahlia Blooms

SteveM · 2025-05-09T21:01:41+00:00

First bloom from a vendor tuber this year - just in time for Mother's Day. A not-quite-fully-open Hollyhill Amethyst grown in a one-gallon nursery containe...

Teddahlia

River's Rosebud: Very tall grower and tubers hard to keep. I saw it from 50 feet away and made a bee line to see it and was not disappointed. It made it through two years here.

calico20hill

Teddahlia I had River's Rosebud for maybe 3 years...and loved it. Now I know what happened to it....

Bessie

Teddahlia that's interesting to hear about River's Rosebud tubers not keeping. Last year I grew it after rave reviews, perhaps from you. It was planted in the gopher buffet bed, and apparently I was able to deter the gophers from demolishing the entire tuber clump. I remember stuffing peppermint cuttings down the hole. In January, I think, I dug to see what remained, and found a few small tubers. and they are now small plants. I'll have to take special care this year knowing they are hard tubers to keep.

JessieC

SteveM Lilibet looks great! I’ve got a few of them in my 2025 garden. Is it a short plant? Looks that way from your pic.

SteveM

JessieC Is it a short plant?

She is 4-4.5 feet tall for me. Slightly taller than Peaches-N-Cream and slightly shorter than Blizzard. HH Lilibet's strong point (for my needs) is her ability to be prolific for 5 months on stems that remain strong, even when grown under 30-40% shade cloth.

MissyWeitzel

I'm really sad to report I lost my River's Rosebud this winter too. Somehow it makes me feel better knowing others found it hard to keep, though.

BarryO

Lilibet does indeed look great in your garden! Looking forward to see how it performs in my Northeast garden.

SteveM

Hollyhill Ambiance. Grown in a one-gallon nursery container. Miniature Cactus Dark Pink (In the real world this color would be called purple). Beautiful color on dark stems. Excellent show form, I would expect her to win Best in Class often and make occasional appearance on the head table. Bloom in photo is probably a day or two from peak form.

Teddahlia

HH Ambiance: As a breeder you often use genetic material provided to you by another breeder. I wish I could say I knew the pollen parent of Ambiance but I would bet it was HH Jitterbug. But I do know the pod parent of Ambiance and it is a British variety that I will reveal if bribed. Now I should continue along this breeding line and use Ambiance for breeding. However, it and it's pod sister HH Maisie are not seed makers. I will have to bribe Margaret to use her magic hand crossing techniques and use Ambiance pollen to pollinate a good candidate and that may well be it's British parent that I still have. Nothing like inbreeding to bring out the best in dahlias.

Teddahlia

"...they are hard tubers to keep."
Rivers Rosebud is on my huge list of dahlias that I really liked but growing is either impossible or impractical or we would not use it for breeding. It is tall(I like tall) and a very nice shade of pure red(I like nice reds). Maybe I will grow it again some time.
Speaking of seeds, we have bred a a min red formal decorative flower that is much like( sort of) R. Rosebud that I use for breeding. Not good enough to sell but it is a good seed maker and has good breeding lines.

SteveM

Market bunch of LeeAnn's Coseytown Mason. This might be the most productive variety I have seen this early in the season, it will be interesting to see how she fares after a few months of heavy production. Not a super tall variety but plenty of stem length for market. Does not shatter and has good vase life. I really like the brick-red color and it should be popular with florists.

Bessie

SteveM I'm trying Coseytown Mason too. I liked the shape and color and thought it would be good for breeding.

Teddahlia

What is up with Coseytown? Are there strings attached to her varieties?

SteveM

As far as I know, there are no restrictions on selling cut flowers of CT varieties. I think everything is good except for selling cuttings or tubers. But, I am not up-to-date on all the trademark stuff so I could be wrong.🙂

SteveM

Bessie thought it would be good for breeding

I would like to have a CT Mason bloom on the plant of your 23049 seedling (if you are taking requests).

Bessie

SteveM I'll take any and all requests. 🙂 Just last night I was thinking about what might be good breeding pairs. My main problem is I get distracted very easily, and go into mad scientist mode. I keep coming up with more and more ideas.

bloomhjelm

I appreciate that Leeann Huber has tuber storage as something she selects for, as well as the cut flower characteristics. I think her varieties would be good to try as parents for that quality.

Bessie

bloomhjelm I agree about tuber storage is a good attribute. In addition, I prefer tubers that wake up quickly. Between the gophers and the fungus gnats, any tubers I keep must be pretty tough. Natural selection (the toughest survive) has come into play this year with my seedlings. This year I've had almost a complete crop failure of my seedlings. Of 300+, I now have maybe 40 or 50. Whatever attacked them, killed them very slowly. I've got many lessons learned from the ordeal, and I'll be doing several things differently next year! The problem appeared to be some type of root rot.

JessieC

bloomhjelm
Oddly enough, every Coseytown tuber that I’ve tried has been a storage failure. They’ve all succumbed to some kind of mold, even when stored with other tubers that don’t get moldy. Could have been bad luck. I gave up.
Pity, because I like what I hear about her breeding goals, and she’s shared a lot of good growing and storage tips too.

MissyWeitzel

Bessie do you have any remaining plant material like mini tubers from the seedlings that kicked the bucket (if they were old enough)? I had some rot issues last season and sent a sample in to Michigan State University extension for testing and it came back as positive for pythium. I'm applying Actinovate at planting and will do it again in August. I also am using a product called Piranha which contains beneficial fungi and bacteria to help expand and protect the roots. It also contains the active ingredient of Rootshield and isn't marketed as a replacement for Rootshield or anything, but it costs way less. Rootshield is pretty expensive and has a really short shelf life.

Bessie

MissyWeitzel thank you for the details of some remedies that will help the issues I encountered. I really appreciate your thoughts. Almost all of the dahlia seedlings were in distress and were rotting well before they went into the ground. I successfully treated for fungus gnats, but I had these tiny black flies that jumped around almost like fleas. No tubers were produced since the plants were very small. I definitely waited way too long to transplant, and the weather was chilly. Last year I had none of these issues. This year I also had issues with growing my vegetable seeds.
Next year I will sterilize the soil I use for seedlings, like I did last year.

Juliarugula

Bessie ground. I successfully treated for fungus gnats, but I had these tiny black flies that jumped around almost like fleas

Was this when they were still indoors, or after you planted out. If it was outside, they sound like springtails, which (as far as I know) are not harmful. They tend to be a pretty common early spring phenomenon.