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Speaking of Ice Cube..I received one in a trade and it has not bloomed yet. Does Ice Cube have dark foliage or is this a mislabel? I grew it once and didn't remember it having Dark Foliage, but it was a few years ago.
John Spangenburg has a new seedling that is an M IC and I am not sure of the color. I believe it is lighter than the picture and would make a nice vase flower. I have difficult time looking at his attempt at a basket. I did talk to him about improving his basket skills. He calls his dahlias Crazy 4 or just Crazy and some name. This one is very nice. Remember that miniature incurved cactus flowers are very rare.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
That looks really nice. Hard to tell from the photo if there is some fading going on. It looks "coral" to me and that seems to be very popular at the moment.
Classic light dahlia Kidd's Climax. I lost all my stock last winter and was only able to get three from Hamilton this spring. Fortunately, it tubers well, so will have more for next year. Makes a lot of flowers for a large dahlia.
Kidd's Climax is almost never seen at show in the PNW. It deserves to be there. A real survivor from long ago and still very nice. At the ADS National show there were several nice blooms. Phil Mingus used it in his breeding program and very many of his cultivars were seedlings of it.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
At the National show I had an extended conversation with two young ladies who recently graduated from college and instead of going for a traditional job like "finance"(her major), have started up a cut flower farm. Last year they grew the required 200 Cafe au Lait plants and made considerable money from the flowers. They were there to get suggestions for other varieties and other tips. I tried my best to help them. They were scheduled to attend the seminar being taught by Don Dramstad the president of the ADS and premier cut flower seller(Monday night and not an ADS function?) I understand there are supposed to be over 100 cut flower attendees. Cut flowers are getting to be big business. I did not get a list of what these people sell but peonies were mentioned and the method of refrigerating peony buds for later sale discussed. Enthusiasm abounds when talking to young people and they thoroughly enjoyed seeing the dahlia cultivars there.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
Its great to see young people getting into the cut flower business! I would like to find someone who would apprentice with me then eventually buy me out (And let me come back to play in the garden )...or move into the "big house" and let me finish off the garage apt and add an elevator). They might want more then 4 half-forested acres though...
I find that very strange, Ted, and would have enjoyed hearing Don's talk if it had been made a part of the ADS weekend. Bet I'm not the only one, either. A lot of dahlia people I know grow both.
Em in NY Dahlias -- the gift that keeps on giving!
I had a phone call Friday from one of our club members who was 200+ miles away, getting ready for a dahlia show in Wenatchee. She wanted to know if I grew Cafe Au Lait because another dahlia person there (she didn't name any names) who does weddings needed them for a wedding on Saturday. Oh dear, all I had was 2 of them with funky 'end of the season' centers. I don't know how many he needed or how he would have gotten them from me...would have been a 6-8 hour round trip plus 2 ferry rides to collect them. That said, I sold both mine quite easily at market.
Maybe it was this funky year but I only get about one a week from my 3 plants., and the plants only grew about 30" tall.My old ones were a good 5 feet...I used to have 2 or 3 plants and they kept churning out until I was tired of dealing with them! I lost that stock though and was able to replace mine from another grower but I don't know if the plants have changed or our weather has. My Garden Pal says the same thing...hers used to maket several nice blooms a week, and they would be the last one standing even after mine had been killed by frost. She often had them through the first week in December!!! (Her garden is a half zone warmer then mine, even though its only a few miles away). I had ordered her a rooted cutting from Corralitos gardens and grew it in a pot in my greenhouse until I felt that is was sturdy enough for her to plant out. Since our plants from different sources behaved much the same even in very different gardens I am guessing the weather had something to do with it. Hopefully I will have tubers from my plants for next year. And yes, If people are liking it that much I will grow it, but I am sure looking forward to trying HH Cafe Rose!
The 'seminar' that Don gave was part of the ASCFG conference that happened last week, the american society of cut flower growers, and I was there, it was last Monday in Virginia and it was on Don's property. His wife and he were so amazing and welcoming, made a special sign, the gardens were immaculate, had wine and cheese etc. It was wonderful to wander through his plants for a good few hours and just make notes, take pictures, and talk to him about things like fertilizing, watering etc.
Along with visiting Don's property, we visited 2 other extremely large cut flower operations in the area, one of which grows 9k dahlias specifically for cuts, and has experience overwintering in the ground (3 years of doing it, each year trying various things, all of which worked), so this year I will try it as well. They only dig 400 tubers of the 9k dahlias, and do heavy cutting propagation all winter long, which is why they don't bother digging most of the tubers. This year they lost a large amt in spring rains so were glad they had 4k cuttings to supplement the holes with.
It was such a 'data dump' of information to be able to visit Don and hear what he does (pot tubers) and then visit with Wollams to see what they did as well--everyone has their own thing that works for them. I came home overflowing with knowledge. I am also so happy to see that dahlias are finally getting their own 'heyday', having a big part of the focus of the conference on dahlias is really one of the first times it has happened and I was thrilled to be able to attend.
She is orange and yellow and quite bright. Your Maggie is a "bleached blond"!
Lakeview Blush for a"textural" (ahem, slightly messy) flower
)...or move into the "big house" and let me finish off the garage apt and add an elevator). They might want more then 4 half-forested acres though...
