Tips from a Dahlia Farmer & a Tour of Fleur Farm

We're at Fleur Farm and this is one of our dahlia fields. This field has about 10,000 plants right now. I don't think I've ever had anyone pick me a bouquet before. This is very nice. This time of year when we're just seeing the borders, seeing the holes in the borders, what colors do we want more of? This is like, it's like Christmas. This is amazing. Wow, this is such a good time to start to really think about what to grow for next year. This one is a little bit bigger. Look at how huge that is. That's enormous. Oh my gosh. That would be gorgeous in the back for a little wedding updo. We love to make everybody happy with flowers. Whether it's kids running around with dinner plates and showing their parents or we support charity events here in the neighborhood or bring it to nursing homes and other places where a flower goes a long way and makes people smile for the whole day. That's so true. Why not grow some more? Sharing the joy is really part of the mission that Fleur has and it's how it started. My dad always loved flowers. He got like Louie body and then my mom started to do the same. But I always saw that he still enjoyed flowers. And so I had some people here that were also had some cognitive decline and they just loved coming to my house and see the flowers. And one lady wasn't really functioning that well anymore or recognizing people and still recognized the flowers and even wrote me a thank you letter in handwritten. But she wasn't even able to recognize people anymore that she loved. But she loved the flowers and so that sort of started this idea of let's grow some more, let's share some more and share it with people that are in cognitive decline and their supporters. And that's kind of started this and now we have 20,000 plants. What a beautiful mission. You're like spreading beauty with the world. I think it makes us happier, much happier to be surrounded by beauty. And so can you tell me a little bit about how you store them? A lot of trial and error. Do you dig them and store them in vermiculite or perlite or something? Or do you do soil on them? We've tried all of these things at this scale. Because if you dig like 15,000, 20,000 tubers, not all are going to make it. So if we store 15,000, you can't use vermiculite. Yeah, yeah. That would be very costly, I imagine. Then we have hundreds and hundreds of crates. So we line the crates with plastic that's perforated for airflow. Used to use peat moss, but that's not very sustainable. It's also not very healthy if you breathe it in. We use pine shavings now. Oh, okay. And we used to be very diligent, like layer, like lasagna layer, tuber, layer, tuber. Yeah, okay. But I don't think we need to do that. We're going to loosen up a little bit. Pine shavings, make sure there's airflow. And you can do the best technique would be lasagna. But you can kind of get away with not doing it, just putting it all in there together. Truthfully, if you only have a few dahlias, five or 10 or 20, the best way is to dig them up, leave the soil on, the whole clump. Leave everything on, put them in a plastic bag or something, but leave it open. Not cardboard, because that takes all the moisture out. Okay. Leave it in its own soil and it will be fine next year. Okay. But we can't do that. We have to process them. We sell our tubers. So we harvest them, wash them, let them dry for a few hours. And when they're dry to the touch, they're packed away immediately in shavings. Oh, wow. Okay, so that's given us a lot to think about. We do vermiculite, but I think that shifting it up and doing maybe pine shaving, something like that. I like that idea. Vermiculite is too, you don't want to breathe it in. It's silica. You want to wear a mask when you use it in the house. Okay. A little fine dust. Definitely. I've been doing all those things, so. If you just have a little bit, it's fine. If you do it a lot, you just have to be careful. Do you do any fertilizing throughout the season? Or do you just kind of let it... Yes, we take a couple soil tests throughout the year. Oh, okay. Especially the fall one is important because that will tell us how the soil has changed during the season because plants take a lot. But also, a lot of fertilizer has to be done in the fall. Oh, okay. And then we'll send it to the UVM extension and they give us a report. This field is high on magnesium. Medium on the nitrogen is low on potassium. So that's something throughout the season I add a little potassium. Okay. We do add nitrogen in the beginning of the year. People say don't do it for dahlias because nitrogen promotes green foliage. And you don't want the flowers, the plants to get too big and not enough bud setting. I find if we don't do it, plants stay really short throughout the year. Oh, okay. March we fill in a little bit of nitrogen. Okay. That's it, only once. So you're sort of covering your bases and then from there you're backing off on it. Yes, from then it's potassium. But that's so interesting because I think most people, especially home gardeners, they just kind of go in and fertilize carte blanche. They'll just do the whole thing. Right. But I think testing the soil, that's such a good tip to say test the soil so you know where your weak spots are. Yes. So you're not just wasting. For example, if you go in with a bunch of nitrogen or something like that, they don't need it and that's not even going to produce what you want. No. That's a really good tip, testing the soil. You can poison your soil by doing that. Yeah. Make it really uninhabitable for certain plants which you're looking at. Dahlias, they like a little acid on the acid side. Do a soil test, you can't go wrong. They have home kits, you can test it and it's fun. Yeah, that's how we do it. These guys keep blooming no matter if they're early or late bloomers. They'll bloom until the first frost if you take care of them well, which means we strip the bottoms. So we get rid of the bottom leaves. They've grown back now. Keep the bottom leaves about a foot or so airflow and that's where the first rot starts. That's such a good tip. And then we pinch them. It's late in the year now, it's October, but we would do this like in July. You don't do pinching on a mature plant, but you just take the center out. To encourage the side growth and bushiness of it. It doesn't go so big. Keep the weeds down and deadhead, deadhead, deadhead. Okay, all right. So those are such good tips. Make sure that you're stripping the bottom leaves to keep the airflow going. Yes. Keep it nice, nice and healthy. And then you want to pinch them back, deadhead, test your soil, fertilize. Pinching is when the plant's about a foot tall and you get like a second or third pair of leaves. Then you pinch them and then you get all these side branches. And deadheading weed, deadhead at this stage. Anything that starts very yellow. Anything that's starting to turn, uh-huh. The yellow, the pollinating sign, deadhead. And then we don't throw them on their path because these will start attracting mold and then mold can spread. So we take all those deadheads out to the field and dispose them in the compost. Okay, okay. We, um, we support our plants with netting. Okay, yeah. Especially taller varieties. And then raise this up. Okay, so then you just kind of put it up rung by rung when you need to through this season? Okay. We did, this year the plant stayed so short that we never really raised them. And it's just enough to hold the stems. So this is all about creating a healthy environment for our beautiful dahlias. And that's what we're going to do next year. I'm going to take these tips into next year so that I don't have what happened this year which is very little flowers. We're a little bit at the end of the season here but there are still some flowers that can be cut. You want to cut the dahlia when it's like three quarters open or more. Like this one. It still has a compact part. Okay. It's not fully open. That one has the longest space life. How long would you say roughly for something like that? Six days. Six days? Six days. All right, here's one that's fully open. It's even showing the heart center. That means it won't have that much time left before it starts dropping the petals. Once this is open and the pollinators can get in and pollinate it with pollen from the other flowers. This flower is done. It's like, I'm done. I'm pollinated. I'm going to make seeds now which is when it starts dropping petals like really quick. Okay, okay. Like tomorrow. You see it folding back here already and then this will come up. Okay, yeah, yeah. So when they start folding over in the back and when you can start to see if pollinators are landing on them and they're not an open Dahlia, then... Right. Too late. Then you don't want them in your kitchen table. Okay. Leave them in the garden. Okay. Another indication is the back of the flower when the back petals start turning brown. When they start turning brown or turning in on themselves a little bit. Yeah, you don't want them on your kitchen table either or give them as a present. So you're done. But these are beautiful. Perfect. I love that. Now this one is not in bud, but it's opening. If I cut this now, it won't open much further. So we want to leave that one. It's a common mistake that you... With other flowers, you always want to cut it at this stage. Right. Like bud stage or emerging bud stage. Not with Dahlias. Okay. Do you tend to recommend picking them in the morning? Or do you have any like common practices for picking them? Morning is good because they're fully hydrated and they're rested overnight. They lose that hydration during the day, especially when it's a hot day. So you don't want to do it during the day or in the evening. But I find that Dahlias are kind of resilient. So you put them, even if you cut the end of the day and then you put them in a bucket overnight in a basement or something, something dark and cool. Okay. I find that they recover really well. Okay. So they're kind of best practices. Yes. But you can also get away with it because they're a resilient flower. Yes. Okay. I love that. That's a great one. Is it a market bouquet or is it for florists? Especially if it's like a wedding that you want. For weddings, you don't want any of these. Like no bug bites, no little weather, rain damage, or they have to be perfect. For those, I would pick early morning. Okay. And do you do a lot of weddings? We don't do weddings. We supply for weddings. But supply for weddings. Yeah. Okay. Wow. I feel like I would be very intimidated to grow flowers for a wedding. Goodness. Darcy. This is one of our top performers. It has beautiful. So beautiful. Long stems that we cut easy and has lots and lots of flowers. I love this peachy kind of color. That like orangey peach color. That's one of my favorites in the garden. I love that. It's beautiful. Believe it or not, there's a fashion in flowers and it was a millennium pink for the longest time. But what kind of, what color pink is that? Is that like a rich pink or a soft pink? It's a soft. It's not baby pink. It's like a soft, dusty rose. Like a wedding pink kind of thing? Yes. But it's changing a little bit to the apricot colors. To apricot and peaches. A lot of what you see here has changed colors over the years. Here we have golden scepter. Golden scepter is very... Oh, that's gorgeous. A little smaller. I like the smaller because I really feel in the place where it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little highlight, especially when it's this color. That's like a really beautiful one. Oh, lovely. The big ones tend to break. And this is polka. Polka. Should we do a dance? Oh, that's so cheerful. This style is called anemone. It's an open heart. That is gorgeous. Oh, look at that yellow picking up. That's so pretty in the center. It's like blushed with that pink color. Yes, you want a couple more here. Yeah, sure. I don't think I've ever had anyone pick me a bouquet before. Like, this is very nice. Do some more Darcy's. I'd love to name dahlias. I mean, what a fun thing to do. Darcy. I wonder if this is like Mr. Darcy. Little colorette. Single colorette. Oh, that's so nice. It's a pollinator. Yeah, look. Friendly flowers. Lots and lots of bees on these. Yeah, look at that. Do you want to stay here, little one? Do you want to stay here? This is Kelsey's sunshine. A little careful. The bees are kind of protective. This is their last food of the season. Here we have daydreamer. Oh, that's beautiful. Like an ombre effect. That's so nice. Of like yellow to apricot. That is gorgeous. Nice long stems. Nice long stems and thick stems. That was my problem this year. Strong stems. My stems were terrible. They were so weak. My flop over. Totally flop over. Here we have Noordwijk's Glory. Oh, I have this one. Noordwijk is a beach town in Holland. Oh, OK. I didn't know that. Noordwijk, that's how you pronounce it? Yes, Noordwijk. When you go to Holland, you can go there. It's a beautiful beach town. Gorgeous. It's called the Glory of Noordwijk. Noordwijk's Glory. This is so lovely. I love the stem color on these. That burgundy color. Yeah. Isn't that gorgeous? It is. It does stand out. We've planted this field kind of in a rainbow pattern where it goes from the lights to the blush to the yellows and then apricots, oranges, and then purple and then red. Oh my gosh. But this season has not produced a lot of flowers, as you know. So we never got that drone footage where it looks like a rainbow field. We'll try again next year. Oh my gosh, it looks amazing now. This is like one of the popular ones now. This is... Oh yeah. This is like the color. Oh yeah, that is... You can see that sort of apricot color. That is so nice. Look at that. What's this one called again? Sweet Suzanne. It's our new introduction. It is sweet. Sweet little one. Oh, I love that. What a happy bouquet, huh? Oh my gosh. I love that these turn more pink as the age it looks like. They do. That's gorgeous. A little bit softer. Most of the blooms start out different. That's café au lait over there. And people like that really light color. But they often start out more pinkish before they turn to this. So this could be the starting color and then it fades to that or something. They start like that. There's a lot of variety in here. Yeah. And these are all the café au lait. It's a café au lait and then café au lait royale or something like that. Yeah, there are six varieties now. Okay. There's the queen, café rose. Right, we have those over there. And there's a new one now. It's not a café au lait, but it's a café Paris. And it has these colors. Okay. But it's a cactus flower, so... Oh wow. Those ones are so funny. For me, my favorite is the dinner plate dahlias in the border. So I like having the big ones in the border. And then for cutting, I think it's easier to arrange with the smaller ones for me. The bigger ones are kind of chuffed. When they get moisture, they'll tend to hang over and break. Is this the Wizard of Oz? No. This is Pink Pearl. Pink Pearl, okay. Wizard of Oz is somewhere here in that field. And Light Wizard is over there. It's a much smaller flower. This is a favorite. Oh yeah, that's really pretty. I get the flowers a little tired because I did have a first frost nip. This damage here is from the frost. We had a frost last Saturday. That's what that does. This one took perfect to flower. Yeah. But it got nipped. Look at that. That is stunning. And then that is Light Wizard. It's a sister of the next one. It's a sister of Wizard of Oz. Shorter stems of beautiful little blooms. Still very good for arrangement work. Because a lot of these arrangements are short, like table arrangements. This is perfect. A little boutonniere. Yeah, yeah. I messed up the microphone. That would be a perfect little boutonniere. That would be so sweet. With maybe some like thistle or ammy. That would be so beautiful. Yeah, we got a few of the Wizard of Oz. But it was not a great year. Not a great year for dahlias in general. Not a great year for dahlias. But I mean, I say that, but I mean, this is amazing. Like, I just am so amazed and impressed. It's just so gorgeous. Blizzard. This is Blizzard. Blizzard. Blizzard is going to be in our garden forever because this is just such a lifesaver. Always. Just reliable. Nothing's growing. We have Blizzard. Oh, wow. Okay. And we cut them and they're back the next week. Wow. Okay, Blizzard. Blizzard is, I mean, look, it's so easy to cut. You don't have to reach in very low. Doesn't need a lot of support. Look at those stems. I'm amazed. Not everybody likes white. Right. I love white, but some people, you know, want color in the garden. Yeah. Oh my gosh, are my hands aren't big enough? This is gorgeous. This is a new introduction this year. This is called a Radegast. Radegast. Okay. And... Oh, that is such a cool shape. For some reason, this one decided to grow tall. I think part of the reason is we're on a slope here. And there's a lot of drainage here down to the lower part of the field. I think that's why all of these have performed better than in the lower field. And that's an indication that the moisture was part of the reason why this year was not so good. We had rain for the whole month of August, like every day. Every day. And they never got a break from drying out. Yeah. So some of those tubers, they rot. And then you get that dark look here. So this is the sign of a rotted tuber. It could be. If it's... Okay, I guess you'll only know when you dig it up. Some of the year, it could be rust. It could be other things too. But earlier in the year, when you see that black, you dig up the tuber and often it's just all moisture is gone. And it's just rotting. Okay, yeah. And a lot of that happened this year. This is a gorgeous one though. Radegast. Do you want some in your apricot bouquet? Or is that going to mess it up? I don't know. What do you think? Flowers always play nice. Yeah. Or we can start a second bouquet and then you have your hands free again. Oh my gosh. Sure. This is plural. And you see what dinner plates do. They hang their heads. Yeah. Especially when it's shy. For your morning do, very easily break off. Break the next one. Yeah. So not so great for arrangements, but wow. So beautiful. And they add such impact in the border. Yes. Such impact in the border. I have Thomas Edison. Yeah. And that one is just like such a wow factor, I feel. That's gorgeous. People say their dinner plates are 12 inches. I've never seen a 12 inch balloon. I think that's exaggerated. Oh wow. But this is like an 8 to 10 inch balloon. This one is a little bit bigger. Look at how huge that is. That's enormous. What's this red variety? Honestly, I don't know. It was delivered to us as tartan. But it's not tartan. Oh, okay. So I'll do some research, but I haven't been able to find what that is, because there's a lot of lookalikes. I'm going to get you a lookalike. So if I really don't know what it is, then you can give it a new name. Yeah. For Anna. That's such a lovely Christmas one. So this is Mystic Day. And they look alike, but they're not the same. Right. This is a true decorative shape. Yeah. This is almost like a semi-cactus shape. These petals are round, and those petals are spiky. Not the same. Not the same, yeah. Oh, interesting. There's a plant identification. There's a lot that goes into it, like the stem color. This is green, and the other one's like darker purple. Yeah. Leaf shape. See, this one is variegated. This one too, but different. Plant growth habit. Time of bloom. Sort of things go into, not just flower, into plant identification. Yeah. But it's always hard, if you don't know the name, to know for sure what it is. Oh, okay, yeah. I don't, but that's not tartan. Okay. That's exquisite. It really is. This is a very, this is the first one to bloom. This bloomed before, this whole row was blooming when there was nothing else in bud, even. Oh, wow. So if you're having a gothic wedding, then you can have this in August, maybe? Late July, maybe? That is gorgeous. With that stem, that is just so, so beautiful. I am so impressed. I can't believe you're able to grow dahlias here. I feel like they are just, I went so hard on dahlias this year. I planted so many and it was not the year to do that. Short, yeah, not easy. Short growing season. But we are able to plant earlier now. I used to wait until Memorial Day, sometimes even like June. Now we plant them for a second week of May. Of May, okay, yeah. These all went in the second week of May. Still, still a short season. Still such a short season. Thank you for coming out to the field. Thank you so much for having us. This is so inspiring. I feel like I learned so much about, you know, it's his favorite flower is dahlia. And it was my Nana's favorite flower. So it feels so encouraging to learn that you can have this kind of beauty where we live. Well, thank you so much. This is such a joy. And it was so nice to meet you and see your beautiful flowers. So thank you very much.