Teddahlia One thing that surprised me when I started selling cut dahlias was that most flower brokers, florists, and newlyweds had no desire to know what the American Dahlia Society considered to be a desirable dahlia - no mark down for green centers, open centers, or some of the other "faults" that are considered "deadly sins" to a dahlia show judge. Instead, color, stem length, vase life and form were considered to be priorities. It didn't take me long to realize that my broker wan't interested in hearing from me that the 100s of bunches of open-centered dahlias he was selling were "faulty blooms" and the show-quality dahlias I was selling were far superior.
Green centers can sometimes be a good thing. One environmental factor that can influence green centers is the length of daylight. Often, varieties that have green centers during the long days of Summer will have perfect centers during the shorter Spring and Fall days when other varieties have open-centers. This can giver me a few more weeks of salable blooms without using supplemental lighting.
