The bouquet pictured here is created in our classic style! The blooms in this one are from dahlias Cream Diane, Skeena Posh, Hamari Rose, Skeena Hope, Small World, Carl Chilson, Silver Years and Skeena Harmonies.
With so many choices, which varieties and styles should you grow? What qualities should you consider?
Our five main considerations for choosing a dahlia variety suitable for bouquets are Stem Length, Style of Bloom, Colour of Bloom, Size of Bloom, and Floriferosity.
1. Stem Length – nice long stems are preferred – it can mean less time spent disbudding.
The variety pictured here is Skeena Easy Breezy with her very long stems!
2. Style of bloom – we prefer a blend of styles. Balls, poms, decorative, waterlily, cactus… Using a blend of bloom styles can add lovely variety and texture to bouquets.
An example of a bouquet including Pompon accent blooms (Small World), Formal Decorative Blooms (Lupin Chris and Jowey Veronique), Stellar style blooms (purple Skeena seedling 23-037 and Sandy Couzens an imperfect stellar form with lovely purple picotee edging on its white petals).
3. Colour of bloom – blending colours in bouquets is a bit of an art. One of the reasons we grow so many varieties is that it affords us an extensive array of colours to choose from for building our dahlia bouquets. If you’re limited on space, or just getting started growing dahlias for bouquets, give some thought to the colour palettes that you and your customers are looking for.
A fall colour toned bouquet with gorgeous warm and golden yellow, orange and burgundy tones. Dahlias in this bouquet include Day Dreamer (waterlily style), WD Aunty Dor (Stellar style), Skeena Shan (Formal Decorative style), Skeena Sugar Pie (Formal Decorative), Skeena Gem (Formal Decorative), and Hy Suntan (Ball).
4. Size of bloom – we like a range of blooms sizes. From the pompons under 2 inches in size up to about 5 or 6 inches max. Using a mix of bloom sizes in bouquets adds interest, variation and visual appeal.
This bouquet shows a range of bloom sizes from about 2″ up to about 5″. We’ve also included some dahlia bud stems that haven’t quite opened yet (a great way to use stems in the fall that won’t have enough time to fully bloom before frost).
5. Floriferosity – growing varieties that have lots of blooms over the season are favoured. Remember to pinch plants to encourage lateral branching and more stems. And remember to disbud to get more usable stems per plant.
6. Space – if you’re limited in growing space, you may just want to pay a bit more attention to size of bloom and floriferostiy. It takes more small blooms to fill out a bouquet than larger blooms. A garden of pompons would be delightful, but also much harder to fill out a bouquet with such tiny blooms.
Enjoy the Dahlia!
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