Discussion of Colors, Forms or Varieties forum: Best Miniature ball and Pom dahlias
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| I grew Miss Kennedy this year and fell in love with it. I'm looking for more great miniature ball or pom varieties of all colors, that are good for cutting. Any suggestions? |
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| Miniature ball dahlias are more popular for bouquets than they were 20 years ago. I still remember putting together about 15 nice MBs in a bouquet and challenging my wife to a "whose bouquets will sell first" contest. She had about 20 nice mixed bouquets but my one MB would certainly sell before hers. My MB bouquet was the last one to sell and the buyer was obviously disappointed that that was all there was left. Times have changed and balls and MBs are now popular cut flowers.  In the 1800s the ball shapes were the show flowers and all the other closed center ones were called "decorative" types. There were no cactus or semi cactus flowers then. I want to try Caitlin's Joy. We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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| I fell in love with HH Snowdrop for a small white cut. Ted, is it considered a pom? It doesn't matter to me. It's great. Betty Ann is adorable. It has very small tubers but stores OK. Odyssey is a fun cut. I think I like HH Pixie more than others but I always find a way to use it in bouquets. |
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| HH Snowdrop: Ted, is it considered a pom? It is probably a quarter of an inch too large to be a show pom. In the UK they have a class called large poms that goes to 2.5 inches. The long stems are one of it's virtues. It makes very few seeds but i am going to grow lots of Snowdrop seeds in case I can get another 7 foot tall pom. HH Pixie is one I need to replace as our stock went bad.  odd ball seedling We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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| I don't grow a lot of poms because I grow organically and have to bag nearly all of my blooms as bug pressure is quite high in this sea of conventional corn fields. Bagging is slow and little blooms sell for less, so I am inclined to grow larger ones. That said, poms are adorable and I cannot resist. If bugs are disinterested in the blooms, I keep growing them, especially if I don't have to stoop down to harvest them. Hollyhill Miss White might be my favorite MB/pom. It's cute - white with a lavender blush, productive and has great stems. I too like Ms Kennedy. It has good stems and the bugs leave it alone. Irish Spice is a nice early red MB. It was quite heavy early on and slowed with shortening days. This was another that I did not need to bag. Small World is okay. The plant is bushy with heaps of wiry stems, and digging into the bush, feeling for the right stems to cut is not my favorite thing. HH Snowdrop sounds promising. I also tried HH Pixie, but the stock I had was bad. Ted, I really love the tension between perfectly symmetrical petals and perfectly asymmetrical coloring in that oddball seedling. |
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| "tension" is a new term for dahlia seedlings. Why not?. The trait of random white on a solid background is one of the oldest as York and Lancaster, the oldest dahlia still grown(from the 1830s) has that trait. I was unaware of that when I called the trait the Joker's Wild trait. It is strange that the British named a flower after one of their civil wars that lasted 32 years and killed over 28,000 combatants. However it is appropriate as the opposing forces used roses in their heraldry and the white rose of York was pitted against the red rose of Lancaster. https://www.flickr.com/photos/debs21/48746141037/in/photolis... We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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 Just to remind you that they have not improved poms much since about 1940. We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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| Rich Gibson has been coming up with some nice ones with his 20th Ave ( Twentieth Avenue) moniker |
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| Rich Gibson has bred some very nice flowers. In a Facebook post he alluded to using Dikara Superb as a seed producer for several years. I am a step behind him on that one. Netherton Cindy produced some of the most vigorous cuttings from the tuber I acquired. It appears to be a strong grower with deep green leaves. Even the leaf cuttings grew vigorously. We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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teddahlia wrote: Netherton Cindy is out of Bob Romano's (of Windhaven) Windhaven Blush. Not crazy about the color of W B - yellow with a lavender blush --- but one of the toughest, most vigorous dahlias I have ever grown, and makes a lot of good keeping tubers . |
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| This thread is about to age off the first page. There are probably more really nice miniature balls out there than "Carter has Pills". The best pom dahlia that I have ever seen: Pensford Marion. I took this picture several years ago. This variety may be about as rare as any. and I have never seen it again. I would love to grow it.  We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden. |
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