How to Keep Your Head in the Hunger Games

Selecting the Best Dahlias for your Garden

Jun 28, 2024

Dahlias are a workhorse for many flower farmers as well as being beloved by many home gardeners for the way they generously flower for months.

After spending some time being seen as terribly unfashionable, dahlias have had a resurgence in popularity in a big way. Tuber sales have been likened to Tulip Mania of the 17th century or the Hunger Games.

Along with the surge in popularity has been an increase in the number of cultivars that are becoming more easily available than ever before as more growers step into the dahlia breeding and tuber selling space.

With so many different colours and forms to choose from, and only finite space, time, and money, how can one ever make a decision of what to add to their collection, and what to avoid?

Here are some tips.

What is the Purpose of the Dahlia?

As ever, in the first instance, we should be first guided by where we want out dahlia to end up, or what we want to do with it.

If you want to sell cut flowers to retail outlets or retail your own flowers (bouquets, posies, special occasion arrangements) you will want to choose flowers that fit into your wider cut flower garden, or bouquet garden, plans especially when selecting colours. Does bright purple suit, or would a soft pink be better?

Another key consideration will be vase life. Typically smaller dahlias, and especially pompon and ball forms, will have a longer vase life than large, or dinner-plate, and collarette blooms.

If you want to exhibit your dahlias then you will want to make selections based on the cultivars that most closely align with the judging criteria/exhibition standards. A tip is to look at old show results, especially from the state shows, and see which cultivars are consistently named as being award worthy. If you wish to enter certain championships you will also need to be aware of selecting a spread of forms to suit the criteria - you might need a variety of cactus, semi-decorative, and waterlily types instead of choosing just one.

If you are growing for weddings then you might be drawn to softer colours - and don’t forget white - in a range of sizes. Here a selection of larger blooms could be advantageous for larger installs, but a word of caution: on very hot days smaller dahlias tend to do better standing up to the sun and heat without melting than blousier blooms.

If you are growing for your own pleasure then allow your own likes and dislikes to guide you. Even if I were not growing for cut flowers, I still wouldn’t choose to put cactus dahlias in my garden. They don’t bring me as much joy as balls and decoratives.

Winkie Truffle was a new addition this year and I instantly fell in love with its muted pink tone.

Do You Want to Baby Your Dahlias?

While dahlias can have a bad reputation for being divas, the reality is that some have earned the reputation - but not all.

Some dahlias are not as productive as others when it comes to flower output, some don’t store as well, some are more likely to show symptoms of virus, and many other little niggles that come along with being a high maintenance plant.

Others will sprout from a sliver of a tuber, laugh in the face of floods - and rototillers - outcompete the weeds, and never beg for a scrap of attention. Some make me think they thrive on the neglect, becoming almost likes weeds in my patch.

My Love and Formby Art are two such blooms. I no longer choose to grow either of these because they no longer serve my growing aims. I say choose because inevitably they pop up somewhere from a scrap of tuber left in the ground. They even flowered for two years on top of the soil after being left under some gumtrees at digging time. No water, no sun, no cover. The only thing that took them out was when dad was tired of mowing around them and took them out.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to know what varieties are more robust and which are needy.

Here’s a tip:

if you find it in a lot of sales, for reasonably cheap comparatively to the other cultivars, and it doesn’t sell out, it’s probably a good do-er; and
if something has been in high demand for 2+ years, and it is still attracting a higher price, and selling out very quickly, it probably either doesn’t make many tubers or doesn’t store well because otherwise demand would start to decrease over time.

What is a Unicorn?

A ‘Unicorn’ is an elusive item that is much sought after.

In this case, it refers to a dahlia tuber that sits on your wishlist that you are seeking out.

Sometimes there are Universal Unicorns. These are the cultivars that sell out in moments, where you have to be super speedy fast on your keyboard and with your payment details to secure it. Notable Unicorns from past years include: Carlos Watermelon, Formby Duke, Formby Monarch, Holland Festival, and Kelgai Ann.

However a cultivar can also be your Unicorn without all of the hoopla. It simply signifies the dahlia that you most want to add to your collection. Despite not being particularly popular L’ancresse was a Unicorn for me last season as I desperately wanted better white cultivars.

What About Growing for Tuber Sales

Growing for tuber sales will look a little different to growing for cut flowers.

When growing for cut flowers, often the cheaper/easier to find cultivars make for good, and reliable, cut flowers. Some exhibition favourites are also great cut flowers because they typically have long stems, and point up at a 45 degree angle per the standards.

However, you will have to assess if that is enough for your collection if you want to grow for tuber sales.

That’s where tracking down the ‘Unicorn’ dahlias can be useful.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that this year’s Unicorn will still be in high demand a few years from now when you have more stock to sell.

You do have options.

You might like to curate a broad collection of difficult to find dahlias. You might curate a smaller collection and look for like-minded buyers. You might grow whatever you like and whoever buys, buys.

Something to keep in mind is that if someone buys one dahlia from you, they are likely to buy more than one to make the shipping costs worthwhile. So they might come for the Unicorn, and pick up a few others while there.

That’s why Unicorns can be handy to the tuber seller, besides being popular and valuable in their own right.

Something to consider is that your collection might need to shift and change each year to encourage repeat customers and attract new customers.

My Favourite Cut-Flower Dahlias

When deciding what to grow, and what to add, to my collection for cut flowers I typically think in colours.

I like to have enough of a spread of colours that I can fulfill most customer orders.

I supply several wedding florists and so I tend to put emphasis on pink, white, peach, and pastel. These colours also fit the types of bouquets that I most enjoy designing.

Ball dahlias are always high priority on any list for the beauty and versatility. However I like to make sure I have a ball, small decorative, and potentially a larger decorative in each colour.

Pompons are a little harder to come by because they are difficult to breed, and I’ve found many that I have tried to show virus and thus are culled from the quarantine patch before making it into production.

Here’s my list of current must-grows for my cutting patch.

Ivanetti (purple ball)
Cornel (red ball)
Sheila (orange ball)
Jomanda (orange ball)
L’ancresse (white ball)
Isabella (pink/purple ball)
Florelie Dandelion (yellow fimbriated ball)
Hillier Tanunda (coral decorative)1
Bracken Sequel (pink decorative)
Florelie Pirouette (pale pink decorative)
Coorabell Jessie (pale pink decorative)2
Hot shot (orange/red decorative)
Florelie Ponyo (orange/red ball)
Glenmarc Devine (pale purple ball)
Winkie Truffle (dusty pink ball/dec)
Breannon (brown ball)

These are the cultivars that take priority in my planning and I make sure that I can plant them in high enough numbers for consistent production because they make up the backbone of my collection.

None of these cultivars are particularly rare, with the exception of perhaps Hillier Tanunda for reasons noted below. I’ve also found them to store well and multiply solidly. I don’t want to be babying my workhorses more than necessary - especially not when there are other cultivars that are similar enough in form or colour that they could be replaced.

You will also see that, despite growing many whites, I am yet to find many that make it onto the ‘must grow’ list. For one reason or another I am yet to find a reliable, crisp, white that I feel I can rely on.

The only real way to get through the Tuber Buying season unscathed is with lightning quick fingers and an iron will to purchase only what you came for.

However, being clear in growing goals, and making purchases that align with those goals, can only help.

It can take years to grow a dahlia collection that you are proud of and that brings you only happiness when you look at it.

I’ve certainly grown cultivars that were good on paper but didn’t suit my goals for my collection. Each year I trial new cultivars, and each year I refine my collection.

It was only last season that I finally felt like I had a good spread of colours and sizes without any noticeable gaps that needed to be filled.

I would still like to find better whites, though.

Take your time. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Always ask if you are chasing that Unicorn because you actually want it, or because you have FOMO. And don’t discard the common varieties when building your collection. Often they are common and widely grown for a reason and that reason is reliability.

If you would like to see what cultivars I hope to have in my tuber sale this year you can pop over to my website www.quitecontraryflowerfarm.com

Be sure to sign up to the mailing list when you are there. The people on that list will be the first to hear the details of the tuber sale.

Do you have a favourite cultivar? A unicorn you are hunting for? Something you think I should add to my list?

Let me know!