Dahlias From Seed - Dont Come True - What Does This Mean?

Your right about the colour of the dark foliage being one of the main features of the
Bishop of Llandaff, ours has a bright signal red flower.

when starting the Bishop series from seed, is it easy to pick the dark leaved ones? can you visually see the dark foliage ones as seedlings? and then maybe choose these to grown on.

Not 100% how many different varieties there are in the series, but I did find these:

Dahlia Bishop of Llandaff - Red​

Dahlia Bishop of York - Yellow​

Dahlia Bishop of Leicester - Pale lilac-Pink ​

Dahlia Bishop of Oxford - Orange ​

Dahlia Bishop of Canterbury - Cerise​

 

Dahlia Bishop of Auckland - similar to Llandaff, and also has dark leaves. I have never seen a description that says why it is "better" / "different" to Llandaff!


Bishop of Llandaff. For me this is the first one into flower, and extremely prolific, not surprising its such a popular choice


I also particularly like Dahlia Twyning's After Eight which is "bishop-like" and has exceptionally dark leaves. Not sure how it is different to Bishop of Dover though, but the story behind the name is quite nice!



The other Bishops:

Bishop of Canterbury


Bishop of Dover:


Bishop of Lancaster - similar to Llandaff again, but more "double" I suppose:


Bishop of Leicester:


Bishop of Oxford:


Bishop of York:


Bishop Peter:


There are quite a lot more that look Bishop-like - like "Butch" for example (I suppose "Bishop Butch" was not going to be an acceptable name!), and Dovegrove (can't distinguish that from Llandaff / Auckland either!)

 

I believe that there are about 60,000 different named cultivars of Dahlias.

I don't think they have to be different - in fact I think they can't all be different. I spoke once to Paul Picton, the national collection holder of Asters, at his nursery commenting that many of the named Asters in his nursery looked the same. He said that they didn't have to look different - they would be accepted by the RHS if they were sold commercially under that name by at least one commercial nursery.

 

I'm growing this one this year, called 'Cream Delight', it has very dark leaves;

 

Bit daft isn't it ... although I can't imagine who would police a naming system to insure no duplicates ...

Probably a ruse to charge more for "new varieties" ... I'll Google look-alikes next time I see one I want, and see if they are available more cheaply!

 

I think you have put your finger on it Kristen. Who is going to decide if they are different or not.

However there was one case of hardy Geraniums "Rozanne" and "Jolly Bee", but that involved a lot of money.

 

Hi, do you mean dust the cut on the tuber or dust the cutting?

Also if it is the cutting, most videos that I have seen, normally they dip
the cutting in a rooting hormone, will dusting it with flowers of Sulphur as well
as the rooting hormone effect how it takes root?

 

Hi Intel

If you have a rotten part on the tuber or tidying them up ie half broken pieces , dust the "flowers of Sulphur" on the cut DONT use as a rooting aid , use nothing or only hormone rooting powder/jell .


Spruce