Micro Flower Farm

This or That. Bloomquist Pleasing or Peach Bud?

Formby Monarch has started to bloom! 💐

This breeding tunnel is FULL of buds and should be in almost full bloom by the beginning of July.

It's planted with primarily formal decoratives plus a few other varieties with specific colors and I already know I'll be spending a lot of time in here hand crossing different ones to see if I can capture specific traits! 🤩

Reward for the first dahlia to bloom from a tuber this year goes to Angel Rowyn!

This plant is an overachiever apparently. Planted May 8th, bloomed June 18th. 🥳 What are your earliest bloomers?

Note: I have cuttings blooming, but I don't count those because they've been growing longer as plants.

I finally should have enough of this one to release in 2027 🤞! Super gorgeous dahlia, bred by Kristine Albrecht. It has a purple shimmer on the underside of the petals that really makes it sparkle!

Sometimes I choose to keep a seedling primarily because the color is odd/different. This is one of them! On its second year this year, and very curious on what it will look like this season.

Last year I did Teff for half of my paths and LOVED it. But this year I'm doing all fabric. Why? Well, we have pretty obnoxious w**d that I'm determined to get rid of. I saw too much of it cropping up in some of the paths this year (too much = ANY) and because we don't have the capacity to w**d paths also this year, fabric it is to finish solarizing off the plants that germinated this year.

Including a series of photos from the past 2 years - check the caption for information on each.

This w**d is cute but annoying. Daniel, myself and Abigail all have developed an allergy to it now, although it took 2 months of exposure for it to happen. My kids have not, and I don't want them to. Looks like chamomile, it isn't. It's called Mayw**d and it's both noxious and invasive in Washington state. Thankfully it only spreads by seed and 2 years in, we've got out most of it by really focusing on pulling it out and/or solarizing the plants before they can produce seed. I think this year we'll be able to pretty much eliminate it out of the field, which I'm stoked about - all without chemicals.

I'm including a photo from last year of what it does in the comments (it's nasty so don't look if you don't want to see it), because quite a few people think I'm over-reacting when I say "OH IT'S BAD!". We can avoid this type of reaction if we scrub down immediately after exposure, which we do, because the rash feels like a full on chemical burn and takes quite a while to heal (weeks).

It's also worth noting that the skin reaction in the comment photos was while wearing full pants and a long shirt. The rash on the legs happened through clothes while kneeling and w**ding.

So there you have it. Every time someone comments and says "oh those flowers are pretty" or "they can't be that bad" or "I bet they have more medicinal properties than the flowers you plant" my eye full on twitches, because it's been no fun at all. 😂

Good news is: last year, Daniel and I spent a LOT of time w**ding and this year we're seeing way way less so I'm confident that with solarizing the paths and strict attention to anything that pops up in the rows, it will be pretty much eradicated by next year.

Fun fact: unlike honey bees, bumblebees are native to North America and and are amazing little pollinators. 💐🐝

I may or may not have a whole album in my photos app called ‘The Bumbles’ and it’s just pictures of all the bumblebees I capture on the dahlias each year.

This or that: if you HAD to pick, Hollyhill Serenity or Hollyhill Daydream.

This one is tough for me, because I gravitate towards the color of HH Serenity a little more, but ultimately I'd land on HH Daydream for over all plant, stem, flowers, seed production (SO many seed pods), tubers and prolificness.