teddahlia wrote:HH Clowning Around sports to a good looking solid flower at times. We have marked some of the sports in our garden.
Hmmm - I thought the white tips were an illusion based on the tips of the petals twisting to show a white revers. Looking more closely at your pix on your web site, I can see that they are white tips. Mine must be a sport because it has no white tips. It also has a really interesting coral color.
sylviap Oct 14, 2019 12:34 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
(ack! Meant to click the preview button)
Dragonfire has also sported to red: (Just this one bloom)
And for those inquiring minds, of course I offered Ted some Daisy Adair tubers if there are enough. I have promised to two people already. I'm culling it because it only grows to 2.5 - 3 feet in height. I don't like short plants. They get overshadowed and lost in the garden. I've been holding it since it was hard to find hoping someone else would want it and keep it going.
teddahlia Oct 14, 2019 12:44 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
My Margaret really likes the sport for it's color. Bicolors and variegated flower often sport to solid. Phil Mingus used to curse at them and destroy all sports as soon as he saw them in the row. He hated sports but most people seem to like them.
.
This A sized flower sported to red on one plant this year. It is a seedling that could be released in the future.
Sylvia, your" Coral Clown" i s lovely! I like my ones with the white tips too, and the white on them helps to co-ordinate a bouquet that includes both, but your Coral is such a deep bright tone!
sylviap Oct 14, 2019 3:08 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
Noni - when it's fresh it almost looks neon!
melissamaeday Oct 14, 2019 8:50 PM PDT
Name: Melissa Omaha,NE
My season is over (frost Friday night), but I did stick 3 pots in my shed to save them. My boyfriend rescued a tuber from my compost bin in late July, and planted it right next to the west side of my House. It somehow survived the frost! I already knew it was Crazy Legs (they were my tubers), but found it humorous as I decided I didn't have room for it this year. Guess she showed me!
Hy Suntan (always a fave, and made tubers this year, finally!)
Fancy Pants
Barbara B
Clearview Erin
Irish Blackhart- my friend was grumbling that it made no tubers (expected), one of mine is in the pots I sheltered in the shed, the other made 3 tubers!
sylviap Oct 14, 2019 9:14 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
Irish Blackheart doesn't make tubers? Oh no. I loved it this year - definitely in my top ten and such a prolific flower producer. Sometimes dahlias produce more tubers here where it is warmer. Crossing my fingers that will be true for this one, too.
Love the CV Erin.
melissamaeday Oct 14, 2019 9:35 PM PDT
Name: Melissa Omaha,NE
Hopefully Irish Blackhart likes the longer growing season in California, Sylvia! I adored it this year, too. It seems to be notorious for being a terrible tuber maker, but it must make tubers for some people if it is still being sold in tuber form. I know the tubers I received this year were very small, so one went in the ground and the other in a pot, as I was worried about losing it, and I proceeded to overfertilize until mid August. :)
Keep posting your pictures, I am going through dahlia bloom withdrawal here! It appears that we are both big stellar form fans.
DillyDahlia Oct 16, 2019 6:08 AM PDT
Name: Tina NY Zone 5b/6a Flower Power!
thanks for sharing your pics Melissa!
teddahlia Oct 19, 2019 6:56 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
At the Roseburg show. Spartacus sport.
sylviap Oct 19, 2019 12:18 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
Spartacus Sport - Very pretty!
So, a few more coming in to bloom:
Mars
Ayer's White Knight
sylviap Oct 19, 2019 12:22 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
Ugh! All season this is what I got from Fairway Spur. It was so consistently open that I searched the website to see what they had sent in error. It was marked for removal.
This doesn't look like it is just blown-- there aren't enough petals on it. I don't know what is happening to it.
Then two days ago I found this bloom on the plant (there is only one plant)
I'm not sure why I got one good bloom though it makes me want to order from another supplier for 2020. It really is very pretty when it is right.
blown_dry Oct 19, 2019 3:05 PM PDT
Name: Amanda CA Redwood Coast - Zone 9b DahliaAddict.com
How wild that it sported back to single--mostly.
sylviap Oct 19, 2019 9:43 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
So what happened to that dahlia? Would you call it blown? Or is it a sport? I've had about 15 - 20 blooms that looked like the top flower - completely open almost like an anemone. There has been only 1 flower like the bottom one.
melissamaeday Oct 20, 2019 8:30 AM PDT
Name: Melissa Omaha,NE
I would toss it and find new stock. My Ruskin Myra did the same thing. I got 2 perfect blooms at first, then thin petals/blown centers the rest of the season. Right before the frost, it bloomed perfectly again. I just don't have the patience or garden real estate for that kind of behavior, but that's me.
sylviap Oct 20, 2019 10:29 AM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
Well, I'm trying to describe it to the seller. I attached a picture to the email but they said they were unable to view it. So I'm trying explain it but not sure what words to use. To me it doesn't really qualify as blown. I think of blown as a dahlia that immediately opens to show the center but generally has the right form, color, and number of petals. I usually think of sports as changing colors. This seems to have changed form and I don't know what to call that.
Fairway Spur wasn't offered by many sellers last year so I'll have to try and jump right on it.
melissamaeday Oct 20, 2019 10:47 AM PDT
Name: Melissa Omaha,NE
Hmmm...I've had this conversation with a vendor before. I described it as thinly petaled/looks like a daisy.
blown_dry Oct 20, 2019 10:58 AM PDT
Name: Amanda CA Redwood Coast - Zone 9b DahliaAddict.com
The stock you got has gone open center. It sounds like it is not uncommon. Ted has talked about varieties that were popular for a few years and then everyone's stock of it went open center within a year or few. Genetically fragile it seems.
teddahlia Oct 20, 2019 11:37 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Genetically fragile is accurate. Think about all the cosmic rays that have hit these plants since they were seedlings, not to mention ozone and air pollution. Yes, there can be excellent stock of these old timers but sometimes it can be hard to find. People underestimate how important good stock can be. My Show-N-Tell is the best stock we have ever had. It is so much better than the various iterations we had that it is unbelievable. Wayne Shantz wanted an old timer for breeding so he ordered it from 5 vendors. Only one had good stock.
sylviap Oct 20, 2019 1:54 PM PDT
Name: Sylvia West Sacramento, CA Zone 9b
So looking around for info Fairway Spur it says 1996 from the UK. Is that considered old? I don't know much about ages of dahlias.
The topic about dahlia viability is interesting. In my mind I see a chart like a family tree for a dahlia with every single dahlia of a variety - say Fairway Spur - descending from a single tuber from a single seed. No matter how it tubers - cuttings or naturally - they all have the exact same DNA.
When you collect a pod of seeds from a dahlia, will they all produce the same dahlia? Or will different seeds (from the same pod) produce different dahlias?
So my question is - If you have weak stock of Show n Tell, won't all the stock be weak? Or do some tubers produce genetically inferior tubers?
