Dahlia Experiments 2025 - Source Books For Dahlia Growing and Hybridising
Hello friends,
As you've probably already figured it out by now, I love doing gardening experiments. Whether it be growing my own wheat, and then harvesting that flour to bake into my own bread, or growing my own linen plants so I can spin and then weave the fibre from it, I'm curious about how the world works, and especially how plants work. This mostly comes from the fact that I'm a trained scientist, I have a PhD in Plant Biochemistry, and also a certificate in Horticulture. From a very young age, while gardening with my grandfather and aunt in their backyard, I fell in love with plants, and I decided I wanted to work with them.
Even though I am no longer in these fields of work, I still love learning about plants, and I use my garden as an experimental testing ground to do this on a very small scale. This, combined with my obsession and love of dahlias, I've decided that this growing season is going to be the one where I hone my dahlia skills including growing hybridised seeds from scratch, taking my own cuttings, and also breeding new dahlias from dahlias I already have growing in my garden.
To do this my first job has been to find good source material to work from. Even though there is a tonne of information about dahlia growing and hybridising on the internet, it's hard to know what information is accurate, and what information is incorrect. Luckily there are some very good source books available from growers and hybridisers I trust, and I now have three books from them at my disposal.
First up is Erin Benzakein from Floret Flower Farm, her work with dahlias and other plants like zinnias is legendary, and her book "Discovering Dahlias" has been my go to dahlia book for years. It includes understanding dahlia types, how to grow, store, and divide dahlias, and also advanced techniques including propagating and hybridising dahlias. Her book also includes a great section on floral designing with dahlias, along with a visual section of her favorite dahlias sorted by colour. I really recommend this book to any new dahlia grower.
The last two dahlia source books I now own are by Kristine Albrecht, the owner of Santa Cruiz Dahlias. Her long term work on dahlia breeding, and her deep dive into dahlia genetics (which she is willing to share), makes her a fountain of knowledge about dahlias. Her book "Dahlias: Seed to Bloom" is an in depth guide to dahlia growing from seed to bloom. This is a great companion book to "Discovering Dahlias", and I now use them both side by side.
Kristine Albrecht's second book "Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener", is a small, but dense step by step guide to hybridising new dahlia varieties by seed. Its sections on dahlia genetics, traits to target in dahlia breeding, and growing dahlia seedlings, is perfect for the dahlia enthusiast interested in dahlia breeding. It was also really great to see her record keeping set up as well, as detailed notes are needed to decide whether a dahlia seedling has the traits you are looking for in the first year, and in the continuing years, if you decide to keep growing it.
With spring now sprinting towards summer with each passing day, and the first of my garden dahlias are popping their leaves above ground, I can't wait to dive into all things dahlias this growing season.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Harvesting and Processing Tea From My Camellia Sinensis Plant
Hello friends,
I drink a lot of tea, and especially flavored black, green, and white tea, usually for breakfast and alongside a piece of toast. And of course since tea comes from the plant Camellia sinensis, growing my own tea plant, and then harvesting tea leaves from it, has been high on my list of things to do over the years.
Camellia sinensis, aka the tea plant, is in the camellia family, so if you can grow camellias in your garden, you can grow a tea plant of your very own. Camellia sinensis
thrives in conditions with part shade, and needs to be protected from strong winds, in acidic, well-drained, and organically rich soil. Consistent moisture is needed for the tea plant to be happy, especially during dry spells and leaf production, but it also doesn't like waterlogged conditions either. Here in Mosgiel where we live, our winter temperatures drop down to -6˚C, and in summer they rise up to 35˚C, and my tea plant happily survives both of these extremes without needing any frost cloth or extra watering.
The first challenge in growing my own tea plant was getting hold of a Camellia sinensis plant of my very own. The easiest time of the year to track down tea plants is in the spring, but when I hunted for one in autumn, I was able to find one for sale online. Once it arrived by courier, I planted it in a spot on the south side of the house, where it gets periods of both sun and shade during the day, and it lives beside my blueberry bushes which also like acidic conditions.
Ever since I bought my tea plant, I've been patiently waiting for it to be big enough to harvest the leaves for processing. Tea leaves are harvested by plucking off new buds and the first two leaves from the tip of the plant in spring for the highest quality tea. After doing some research on how to process tea at home, I decided to wait and see how big of a harvest I got before making a decision about which tea type to process. Well, it ended up being a very small harvest, a total of 8 grams of tea leaves this year, so I opted to go for the simplest tea processing method, which was making white tea.
The process of making white tea involves only two steps, and they are both very easy to do at home. The first step was to pluck the tea leaf tips off the plant and then lay them out to dry for 48 hours, in a stage they call withering. During withering, tea leaves begin breaking down, and the biochemical processes inside them leads to a tea which is fruity and floral and sweet, with reduced astringency and a sweet aroma profile.
I harvested tea leaves in the morning, as was suggested in my research, and then laid them out to wither on a tray in the sun for 48 hours. As it's been quite windy this spring, I couldn't lay them outside, as they would very easily blow away, so I set them up inside our glasshouse for two days.
At the end of this step, it was time to dry the tea and stop the break down process. For white tea, you dry the withered tea leaves at 180˚F/82˚C for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the leaves are crispy. For this step I decided to use our dehydrator on its highest setting, which ended up taking 1 hour of drying time at 80˚C.
When the tea leaves were dry and crispy I removed the leaves from the stalks and then popped them in our coffee/herb grinder for about 10 seconds to break the leaves up smaller. The resulting leaves were only big enough to make two cups of tea.
All that remained was to brew my own cup of tea, so I placed 1 teaspoon of white tea leaves into a strainer and added it to a tea cup. I heated water to around 85˚C, and then added it to the cup and let the tea steep for 1 minute.
The resulting tea was just wonderful, despite some of the tea leaves escaping the strainer while steeping. The white tea flavor was light, sweet, delicate, and had a slight floral taste, along with a pleasant grassy scent. It was very drinkable and much nicer than white teas that I've bought commercially.
Now knowing how easy it is to make my own white tea, I'm very much looking forward to harvesting and brewing my own tea each spring. Hopefully as my tea plant continues to grow bigger, I'll get bigger harvests so that I can try brewing other types of tea.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Signs of Spring 2024
Hello friends,
Spring is just around the corner, and my garden is showing many signs of spring. I'd thought I'd share with you some photos I've taken recently.
My miniature Irises have already put on a show with their beautiful, dainty flowers.
Crocuses have also been flowering.
As are a lot of my daffodil varieties.
And finally, my deciduous shrubs and trees have started breaking their buds, and there's also blossom appearing on our fruit trees.
Spring is less than a week away, and I'm so excited for warmer and longer days. There's lots to do in the garden now, so it's time to get on with all the things, especially seed sowing.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Backyard Plant Removals and Planting Spring Bulbs
Hello friends,
While the garden consultant was designing a plan for our backyard, it was time to start removing plants, and taking all the resulting green waste to the local rubbish tip.
The first plants to go were the rhododendrons, camellia, and the hydrangea taking up space in the back yard. I don't like rhododendons at all, they are poisonous to native bird life who are sugar feeders. As our local area has numerous tui, bell birds, and wax eyes, I wanted all the rhododendrons gone. The camellia in the backyard also got removed because it was squishing my beloved feijoa bushes. A hydrangea was also removed because our home's previous owners planted it in the wrong place.
We were able to remove half the garden shrubs ourselves, but after my shoulder tendonitis flared up from removing shrubs and then digging up their root systems, we ended up getting our local garden contractor (who trims all our hedges) to help remove the remaining shrubs and their green waste.
He also helped us remove an old coal storage concrete bin from our back path, so we had enough space to fit in all the new council rubbish and recycling bins that had just been delivered.
I bought clearance daffodils and tulips from an online store to help fill in the spaces where the rhododendrons and other shrubs had stood. It was late in the season to buy them, so I got them on sale. It didn't take long to plant them into the ground on a warm sunny day.
After all that, the back garden was mostly a blank space, and it was just a matter of waiting for the garden plan to be ready. The garden consultant said it would be done in 2 - 3 weeks, but it ended up taking 6 weeks...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
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