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The new name is Hollyhill Seeing Red. The name came from a suggestion on Facebook and Margaret likes it. I always kid Margaret about her not paying a lot of attention to some flowers that I like. When this one first bloomed, I almost collapsed in the dahlia row from dahlia rhapsody. It was so red I could not believe it and it had excellent form too. Margaret was less enthusiastic as red is not her favorite color. Move forward in time to the Portland show this year. We always pick hundreds of flowers for the arrangement classes with no idea whether Margaret will use them. The garage is literally bursting with flowers on Friday before the show. Margaret has some designs worked out well in advance and has a good idea of what flowers to use. These designs get most of her time and attention. There are always other classes that she needs to finish and they get the leftover time and attention. She surveyed the potential flowers and spotted the red one. It had long stems and she needed a good flower for a vertical design. She put it together rather quickly. At the show we always joke that we are generally unable to predict what arrangement will win a big prize. The red vertical arrangement won best in show. The garden club judge that had judged arrangements came up to Margaret and said that the red flowers in the design were her favorite flowers in the show and wanted to know what it was. After this, Margaret decided she likes the flower.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
While a name is not the first criteria for choosing a dahlia there's something to be said for a catchy name that grabs your attention and makes you take a second look. Hollyhill Seeing Red is a definite pick me name!
I have grown Kenora Wildfire four times and tossed the stock four times. I am told that it is not a very tall grower but I could not be sure in my garden because it never grew worth a darn. Perhaps It is one of those show flowers that is very hard to grow but dedicated show people put in lots of extra effort and the plants reward them with superb show blooms. I have seldom seen tubers donated to our club sale either.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
[quote="teddahlia"]I have grown Kenora Wildfire four times and tossed the stock four times. I am told that it is not a very tall grower
It only goes to 3 - 3 1/2 feet but has nice dark foliage and reddish stems. Takes forever to sprout in the spring but always produced well for me, just never got up to size....
Drew, I was at that National and the Best in Show was a Kenora Wildflower grown by Tony Evangelista. I know he grows organically and maybe he could suggest a source.
Em in NY Dahlias -- the gift that keeps on giving!
The perfect red pom has not yet been bred. Our seedling 1713 is OK but a bit large at 2.5 inches. Pensford Marion is an old timer that no one has anymore. Cut flower people dislike selling poms because people do not want to pay the same price for such small flowers. I say keep the price the same and when they can find nothing like them for the display, they will pay the price.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
