In a previous post, I mentioned that the lavender sport of Bewitched had sported to white. Here it is on the right. I bet it will be a dependable off white cut flower and we will be growing it to test it out. It may even go with the infamous Cafe' au Lait.
What year seedling is that one, Ted? I would so love to have it for our bride customers! Last year they all wanted Clearview Peachy, but I was getting only about one bloom at a time off of it.
What year seedling is that one, Ted? I would so love to have it for our bride customers! Last year they all wanted Clearview Peachy, but I was getting only about one bloom at a time off of it.
teddahlia Feb 1, 2019 6:02 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Seedling 18-31 has a long way to go and step one is making it to 2019. It is what I would call a first generation seedling as it is from Ryecroft Pixie, a miniature flower that has good form but fades a lot. I assume the pollen that got to Pixie was from a good Hollyhill variety but the bee did not tell me where he gathered the pollen. It may have been from a another UK variety next door and in that case, I bet the plant would not be very tall or very vigorous. I did not like the height of R. Pixie as it was not quite 4 feet tall, but it was one of the better United Kingdom flowers that we imported through Halls of Heddon. So, this seedling could be a "flash in the pan" or the "best thing since sliced bread" or more likely the dahlia that was the right color and then they changed the color of the year to "puce".
I am going to post a picture of another "living coral" colored flower in a few days. It is a 2017 seedling and if things go right I will sell some of it for the 2020 planting season. Or maybe we will hold it back and send it to the trial gardens
DillyDahlia Feb 2, 2019 4:49 PM PDT
Name: Tina NY Zone 5b/6a Flower Power!
Llving Coral should be a popular wedding color this year. Dahlias in shades of coral really catch my eye.
teddahlia Feb 6, 2019 4:43 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
I added the flowers to the hat(it is quite obvious!) In a way it, it is like what a turn of the century designer might do with a postcard. This was a black and white picture that was colorized by a master whose pseudonym is written on the picture. My feeble addition of the flowers is nothing compared to the color job this person did on the black and white picture.
That is an amazing color job..Her complexion has me envious, LOL.. I recognize the ageratum and HH Lemon Chiffon but what is the sweet little pink pom? that looks a more lively color then the Irish D Porter..?
teddahlia Feb 6, 2019 8:22 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Pink one is going to trial gardens this year. Will be in Tacoma.
Yes, indeed you should have kept that one...love how it looks with the others. The silvery reverse on the petals makes it sparkle.
teddahlia Feb 7, 2019 2:18 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
The reason we did not keep it was that it did not have show potential as it was a fairly flat flower. Our value system has changed substantially since then and while show characteristics are still valued, the beauty of the flower is much more important to us. This was a very pretty flower and in a rare color and even rarer with the lighter reverse. I showed the picture to Margaret and we believe it was a seedling of the flower next to it in the bouquet, Geri Scot.
teddahlia Feb 9, 2019 12:23 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Ever since we bred HH Jokers Wild, we have been trying to get a nice yellow and white version. In about 2000 or so we had a miniature ball version that was spectacular. That was the year we discovered that fungus gnats eat tubers. We had dried the clumps in the greenhouse and did not notice the fungus gnats laying eggs on the clumps. In storage the eggs hatch and the hungry larvae eat the eyes from all the tubers. We lost the seedling.
This 2018 seedling was worthy of a picture and we will grow it again.
DillyDahlia Feb 15, 2019 7:17 AM PDT
Name: Tina NY Zone 5b/6a Flower Power!
teddahlia wrote:The reason we did not keep it was that it did not have show potential as it was a fairly flat flower. Our value system has changed substantially since then and while show characteristics are still valued, the beauty of the flower is much more important to us.
This comment resonated with me, as I have seen show standards change over the years in the areas of dog, horse and chicken breeding. The standards evolve based on what is preferred and valued by breeders and competitors. (A good example is the quarter horse, which used to be a stocky muscled animal. Now it resembles a slim, refined thoroughbred.) I think it is wise to breed towards a standard, no matter what you are breeding. But at the same time, keep the variations that you personally like, as they may eventually lead to a new enhanced standard.
teddahlia Feb 15, 2019 10:15 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Another more esoteric point is, that with my show experience and my experience judging, I have determined that there are really two standards used for the judging of the dahlia forms:
(1) the written one, sometimes well written and sometimes terribly written. When you have a committee do it, they first determine what the form is(this can take years)and then try to put it into words. They never agree totally on all of the form characteristics and so the language in the description is full of compromise. And there are two philosophies involving the writing of the standard, one being that there could only be one perfect flower as all the characteristics are exactly defined and the other is that the standard is used to only categorize the flowers into classes. In that case, each of the form signature characteristics are defined into a continuum where anything near the center of the continuum is "perfect". The result being that there could be numerous versions of a perfect flower. All of this is "greek" to most people but when you put variability into a standard, the judges can probably can do a better job.
(2) Judges who use an unwritten standard where the judge does not refer to the written standard and would say something like " I know a good one of this form when I see it". Some of these judges compare the flower being judged to the top winners of that form while others cannot explain how they reach their conclusion. They will value certain form characteristics that must be exaggerated beyond what is said in the standard and much of their decision will be based on these characteristics. Having said this in the negative, these are the same judges who allow beauty to influence their decisions when in fact beauty is not a factor in judging dahlias.
I believe the longer you judge, the more you become a (2) judge. The written standards change over the years and you will still value the old definitions to a degree. You will realize that beauty is a factor even if it is not stated in writing.
