It’s finally time— here are the 2020 dahlia trial results!

Throughout the 2020 season I grew 17 varieties in my trial beds. Some were 2nd year trials, some were 1st. To be a second year trial means I wasn’t sure about it the first year, but it had enough good qualities to give it a second try.

I am evaluating dahlias for cut flower production so bear that in mind as you read. During the trials I test things like vase life, stem strength, and average bloom size. I also evaluate the growth habit of the plants- things like height, does the plant bloom in the leaf canopy or above it, strong stems or floppy, etc. You will see I recommend some varieties as “garden only”. This means it didn’t meet my standards for cut flower production. But note that any variety that meets the cut flower production standards will also work as a garden variety. I’ll have some of these varieties for sale in our tuber sale mid-winter, but it will mostly be the garden only varieties that I won’t be keeping for cut flower production. There is also a chart at the bottom that makes it easy to see all the qualities at once.

I tried a lot of yellow/gold varieties this year hoping to get some winners so let’s start there:

So overall who are my favorites? Innocence and Karamel Korn! Those two have the best plant habit, decent number of sellable stems, awesome color. I’ll propagate those via cuttings and tuber divisions this winter to get enough for production. I’ll continue evaluating some other varieties and I’ve got plans for a much larger trial next year.

Here’s the cheat sheet chart:

Dahlia Tuber Pre-Sale going on now- check it out!