NEW 2024 PEPPERHARROW DAHLIA VARIETIES
At PepperHarrow Farm, we’re thrilled to introduce our newest adventure! We’ve created our very own dahlia varieties! Our dahlia journey began before the 2022 tornado disrupted our lives and farm, but it didn’t dampen our passion. Last fall, in 2023, we were able to pick up where we left off, diving back into dahlia hybridization with hand pollination and seed collection.
Our Favorites
From lovely blush, to bold corals, there were so many beautiful shades of new dahlias that we were extremely excited about!
In early 2024, we carefully planted those seeds, watching eagerly as each unique bloom came to life. The results have been beyond exciting! We’re seeing a remarkable variety in form and color, with many displaying stunning double blooms, classic ball shapes, vibrant hues, and sturdy stems that are ideal for both cutting and admiring in the garden. These dahlias have been everything we hoped for—and more.
A little backstory about growing dahlias from seed…
Starting dahlias collected from seed will always produce a wide variety of colors, shapes, and sizes because dahlias are highly genetically diverse and don't grow "true to type”, unless you grow them from a tuber or a vegetative cutting.
Each seed inherits a unique combination of traits from its parent plants, leading to new and unpredictable variations in bloom forms, colors, and plant structure. This diversity is what makes starting dahlias from seed so exciting—each seed has the potential to grow into a one-of-a-kind plant with unique characteristics.
With each seed that we started in 2024, we had no idea what they each would produce, so when they starting blooming in July, it felt like each one that would bloom was a present, because each one had its own color and shape that made it unique. So exciting!
Some of Our Favorites
Berry Good
The shape and petal structure of this beauty makes it a winner in our book, but the unique color on top of those details makes it absolutely extraordinary. We can’t wait to grow this one in earnest next year!
Lovely Lilac
The soft shade of lilac and perfect ball shape in this latest dahlia from our breeding patch had us really excited. It also grew incredibly tall and had the most perfect, sturdy stems for bouquet making. So gorgeous!
Beautiful Blush
If you’ve been keeping up with our flower farming journey, you know we love blush dahlias and that this color is one of the most in demand colors for weddings and from local florists. When we saw this one bloom, we couldn’t contain our excitement!
Other Notable Beauties from the Dahlia Seedling Garden
From the colors and shapes we’ve shown above, do you have a favorite? It was definitely hard for us to narrow down which ones we kept and continued to grow for next year. To help make decisions on which ones stayed and which ones we left behind, we looked at some of the following criteria: do the dahlias have - double blooms, open centers, weak stems/strong stems, unique enough from other dahlias to be kept as a ‘new’ variety?
We’ll be keeping these beauties under our watchful eye for another year to ensure they maintain their color, size, and shape across seasons. If all goes well, we’ll be ready to share these special dahlias with the world by early 2026. And for those looking to add a touch of PepperHarrow’s floral magic to their gardens sooner, dahlia seeds will be available in our seed shop starting February 2025. Woot!
Stay tuned for updates, and join us in celebrating these stunning new additions to the PepperHarrow family!
