Ted, I’m wondering if you could comment on my Hollyhill Gladiator. It’s been a pretty early and prolific bloomer for me (considering it’s size), and every one of the flowers from it have these rogue pinkish white petals. I love them - they sort of make the flowers sparkle! But when I look for other pictures of HH Gladiator online, I don’t find any other photos with the surprise petals.
I’m curious how common this is on this particular variety and if it’s a trait that I could expect to stick around from year to year. Do you have any insight?
AndreaB Sep 3, 2022 7:50 PM PDT
Name: Andrea SE Michigan
teddahlia wrote:This hand crossed seedling of Pam Howden is still one of Margaret's favorites. She especially like to use it in her water arrangements.
Picture taken a few days go and is the first bloom on the plant.
Funny you should post Hollyhill Leda, Ted. My husband recently showed me a picture of one. He really likes it. However, he stopped short of asking me to order it, since he tries to not fuel my addiction!
AndreaB Sep 3, 2022 7:54 PM PDT
Name: Andrea SE Michigan
Pretties in pink, Emily!
teddahlia Sep 3, 2022 7:58 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
HH Gladiator is about 20 years old now and the solar radiation has worked it over quite a bit over the years. The lighter colored petals have been more common in recent years. I wish it would get it over and just sport to solid pink. Meanwhile if you like the random pink petals it does have some. It is a seedling of Sam Houston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dahlia_Sam_Huston.jpg
edewitt Sep 5, 2022 9:04 AM PDT
Name: Eric DeWitt Mountainair, NM
Hollyhill Margarita is just as lovely as when I grew it about 10 years ago.
Nice, Eric! I have not been able to get it going well here in Oregon. All my tries have come up open centered or poor plants. I guess I just need a really good tuber or rooted cutting to go with.
teddahlia Sep 5, 2022 10:58 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
The older varieties can vary a lot in vigor even if they may not have a specific disease. However, one can usually find good stock of most of them. Sometimes all the stock goes bad.and I can remember one popular variety(name escapes me) went open center just about everywhere at the same time. L'ancresse, the white ball, had a very tight center the first couple of years and after that nearly everybody had slightly open center stock. Some varieties that were introduced were really prone to virus and they declined immediately. I am a believer in "stock rejuvenation" in that a large grower can grow many plants from their best stock and in a couple of years get lots of good stock. One would think that they would mark the best stock every year so they did not have to do this. When you find good stock of an older dahlia that has declined for most people it can be wonderful. We used to occasionally be able to find good stock of Jessica and it is one of the most attractive flowers we have ever grown when healthy.
edewitt Sep 7, 2022 1:25 PM PDT
Name: Eric DeWitt Mountainair, NM
Hollyhill Dungeness got about 6" big and 6' tall (about 2' was a week and a half of growth before it snapped in a storm).
Korb's Yellow Hy-Lite is just as nice as I remember it aside from the white tips immediately browning up.
Hollyhill Tempest is the biggest of all my plants. It shot up right away and just keeps firing off laterals like crazy.
Yesm HH Dungeness is making me happy here in Columbia County, Oregon. It is NOT open centered, Hallelujah!
teddahlia Sep 7, 2022 1:58 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
HH Tempest may be even more than an Octoploid dahlia plant. It grows like a whale in sea of minnows.
edewitt Sep 7, 2022 2:37 PM PDT
Name: Eric DeWitt Mountainair, NM
HH Tempest reminds me a little of the pictures I saw Aaron Ridling's creation that was part waterlily/part tree dahlia (but way tamer).
ksc Sep 7, 2022 5:13 PM PDT
Name: kevin MA South Shore
Our HH Dungeness was over 10' this year.
Juliarugula Sep 7, 2022 6:47 PM PDT
Name: Julia NW Indiana
Love that photo Kevin! I keep trying and failing to take a photo that shows how tall my HH Dungeness is. Your photo really captures it!
My HH Tempest was the only one of my plants that took a tumble in our recent windstorm. Kind of ironic, really. Now it’s growing sideways - still waiting for that first bloom!
teddahlia Sep 7, 2022 7:01 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
What is all this that Dungeness grows so tall? I believe 7 or 8 feet was max here.
edewitt Sep 8, 2022 7:11 AM PDT
Name: Eric DeWitt Mountainair, NM
ksc wrote:Our HH Dungeness was over 10' this year.
Perfect for the florist that needs 3' tall stems!
Snapped a quick photo of Hollyhill Electra at sunrise this morning.
teddahlia Sep 8, 2022 8:05 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
Noni had Twilight Girl as her first really good dahlia and our first one was HH Electra. It went on to win best large dahlia at a National show and many other awards. Twilight Girl has won in the popularity department where people bid insane amounts of money to buy it when supplies are scarce. Nice picture of Electra!
I hope Twilight Girl will lead the cut flower growers to others that I am working on...Its been a very interesting ride with introducing Salish Twilight Girl. I am surprised how many people don't know how to pronounce Salish. I grew up hearing about "The Salish Sea" habitat, and the Salish People who were here before the Europeans arrived. (But then, I am a cultural anthropologist by college degree... I did check the pronunciation on the internet before I named it just to be sure about it. And yes, it is a long vowel, A as in ailing....
teddahlia Sep 8, 2022 8:55 AM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
From Wikipedia: " The term “Salish” originated in the modern era as an exonym created for linguistic research."
Now we use that word "exonym" every day in our formal and informal conversations.
And as I try to pretend I can use that word in an intelligible sentence, I am having a definite problem.
Wait a second, I can name a seedling "Hollyhill Exonym" and when people ask, What does "exonym" mean? , I can quote that easy to understand definition: An external name for a place, people or language used by foreigners instead of the native-language version. And if they ask me where I got such an exotic name for a dahlia, I will blame Noni.
The official use of the term Salish Sea, came about after the oil tanker, Valdez, leaked oil all over the Straits. It was an attempt to put together a concept of the uniqueness of this inland sea area and how it relates to our people, our climate and the biology of the region. It also honors the Salish people whose lives are entwined with the region. They had, and have, a unique culture from their conical cedar rain hats to their long houses where they spent the winter time together as a community, sharing cooking fires and food, and stories. Although I can never be part of that culture I honor it, and ways the people adapted to the climate. So that is what the name "Salish" means to me....And it is about the volcanic peaks covered year round in snow, and the sea food cooked right on the beach where it was harvested...Its about picking huckleberries in the mountains in early autumn, and the scent of cedar trees. It is also about Vashon Island where I spent so many year, where my dad was born and my Grand dad worked at setting up a sawmill...where the family would have starved except for the clams they could gather off the beach (Times were tough and Grand dad was injured falling out of the loft at the mill), so the kids were sent down to the beach to dig clams and and to fish. My Dad's family has lived in that area for over 100 years now
and we lived on the Island for 45 of those years. Only the term, "Salish Sea" is a new construct....the Salish People have been around since time began and people walked on two legs....
