Magic Dahlias: Creating your own unique flower from seed

Derry Journal

Dahlias are one of the most popular flowers in the world today and are a familiar sight in gardens across these islands, but what is less well known is that it is relatively easy to create your own unique dahlia. #gardening #gardeningwithbrendan #dahlias #dahlia #flowers #growing #greenfingers #derry #Ireland

Transcript

00:00Today we're just going to have a focus on data and growing data from seed in particular.

00:21All of these were grown from seed over the last couple of months and all from the one

00:26plant apart from I think there's two here that were growing from a different packet of seeds

00:32that I bought but I've mixed them all up and I can't remember which is which but

00:37all these taller ones were all growing from seeds collected last year from the yellow data

00:43and I'll just show you the seeds here this is them so you can see they were all just from one flower

00:52head or a couple of flower heads from the one plant and it was a yellow data but the magic

00:58thing about data is they don't come through the seed so you could end up with any variation of plant

01:05from the seeds that you get they have eight chromosomes which makes them totally different

01:10to just about every other plant and I'll just take you down here and just show you the difference

01:15in height and leaf shape and size all from the same plant and I have no idea what color they're

01:22going to be either they could be anything likelihood of someone will be yellow but I had another red and

01:28white pom-pom data so I'm not sure if there was any cross-pollination with that one or some from

01:35someone else's garden then they're likely will be different but even if there wasn't then the chances of

01:43them all being like the mother plant are stumbling on so expecting some variation here now as you can see

01:52this one is actually this was planted later from the same packet of seeds from this little packet and

01:59a lot of people would know delias from tubers and you normally get the dry tubers and put them in the

02:06ground but they're very easy to grow from seeds very very easy um probably one of the easiest things

02:13I've ever grown from seed definitely I didn't know you could grow from seed until I clicked to the

02:17seed heads and just threw them in the ground and then looked it up and see it's quite popular in America

02:24the thing is if you're someone who likes to know what you're getting then delias are not the plant for

02:29you so it's a bit of a padlock game so I find this is quite interesting so these are a bit dry actually

02:38they need watered but these are now about maybe two and a half months old 10 weeks 10 or 12 weeks old

02:48so they're really they really need potted up a lot of them and you can see there they've been growing

02:53mostly on doors from late winter and they're starting to get kind of scraggly in places and one thing I did

03:01do was pinched out the tops of each one of them which that encourages then branching on the plants

03:09so if you see this one here this is probably the healthiest looking one uh after pinching out that

03:15top two leaves appear so you get more and then they start coming from each of the joins as well so

03:23if you don't punch them out you get one massive thick kind of bamboo leg stock and far less flowers

03:31so that's for the reason why

03:37and today we're going to just pot up a few different ones and maybe some of the weaker ones actually

03:42and then leave them outside now they are not frost tolerant so I'm hoping they'll do okay but

03:50we'll just have to wait and see move them a moment and then we'll pick some of the weaker ones they plant

03:57I have this big pot here I'm going to try and get four on this

04:04so

04:18it's very one day today it's not on the stems

04:22I just take the rest inside so the four I'm going to go for today are

04:34these ones here and just what I was saying about variation you can see here this is one these are

04:39two from the same seed packet I showed you but look how tiny these leaves are compared to this one

04:46in a totally different shape this is your normal the normal dahlia you see in the garden center

04:54and this one is maybe a third of the size the leaf so we'll probably produce far smaller plants if it

05:01survives they're far smaller flowers it's a far thinner stem as well so we'll just and because these are in

05:10at an angle I'm going to plant them at an angle too so that point the top is up the ways so

05:19you can see there they have an extensive root system and

05:29they will produce tubers as well so just the same as the tubers you'll see in the plants and the great

05:36thing about the edges is they come back every year the downside is they can't survive early frost so

05:43I'll have to just keep an eye on the weather and the other downside is that they're an absolute magnet

05:48probably more than anything else that I've grown for slugs and snails so just have to be super careful

05:54about them so I'm just putting this on at an angle and then covering over a lot of the stem

06:00so that it's actually facing more upright than it was these I probably started these too early and

06:10that's why they're kind of looking a bit distressed at the stem so

06:21there you can see all the fine roots all over

06:25so I'm putting them well down down to about here

06:42now one of these will probably fall out this part but they are quite young so I just want to give them

06:48the best chance

06:55and I'm running out of pots and room they actually grew them I did put

07:00data's in the ground last year I bought tubers these are actually one of the

07:05the mother plant of these was one of the tubers and

07:10they were eaten straight away by slugs as soon as I planted them um I think in a matter of days they

07:15were all gone so the only ones that survived were the ones I put in pots

07:22so I wouldn't I have a few tubers that have put in the ground just to see this year from last year

07:28that survived the winter fine that come apart very easily and this and that's the two I was talking

07:34we planted together but look how different they are so put this one on first

07:47well they're all down and then just

07:53stir it in

07:53and that way he's facing up right and then this little one again I'm gonna these are the

08:05the earlier seed or leaves so because he's quite flimsy he's going right down

08:12and then we're gonna bury him right up

08:14there we go now that's four in there and just while I'm here I'm going to add on some

08:22device breath as well that I have

08:27so all I'm doing now is just aging the pot with the copper tape I'll just do a double

08:34two lines of this around the pot and this should act as an deterrent

08:44it's one of the few things I've found that rather it actually works I think it works but I know there's a lot of

08:56naysayers about different things out there but I don't want to kill anything in the garden it's not

09:05the slugs provide great food for birds and they do a job with the soil as well they're no longer classed as pets

09:11they're good for composting things

09:21and slug pellets once they get on the

09:26the ground they can kill the wee birds too and the hedgehogs and things that feed off the snails and slugs

09:32so

09:32don't bother that

09:45I get this tangled every time

09:46and this is actually

10:04I used to do

10:06I still do wee butts in pieces but stained glass projects just using the toughening technique

10:12and this is what you use for that this copper tape so

10:20it's now got a new function

10:22with the ardent

10:28and it's just a harmless way of to turn slugs off your nuts

10:33and nobody has to die

10:39so all that remains to do now is just water that on

10:53I'll just once it soaks on I'll pick up the

10:56the baby's breath so that it's not lying on the wet compost

11:02but that is it done

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