Saving Cafe Au Lait Dahlia seeds?

[Thepeppapigfanclub]

Hello!

One of my aims this year is to save more seeds for next year. I have searched the internet, but I can't find any actual results... Has anybody ever saved the seeds from cafe au lait, and if so, what were the results?

I know that any seeds won't be true to the parent - but how different are we talking. I have some other multicoloured (and frankly much less impressive) dahlias in my garden re pollination. Any idea on what to expect or should I just do it and find out next year?

Many thanks.

I saved loads of seeds last year from a variety of dahlias and I've got a load of interesting results, multicoloured, different and mixed shades etc, but none true to parent plant. You could take some root cuttings if you wanted more cafe au lait in particular.

I would try to split tubers instead.

Thank you so much.

Yes I will divide/take cuttings etc. This was purely out of interest - I just wondered if I would be likely to get a 'dinner plate' size from the seeds or if even the size would be completely random from a cafe au lait. Sorry if it's a stupid question. 😂

I grew a packet of “bishop’s children”, seeds from “bishop of LLandaff”. All have the dark foliage, single flower, varying from orange red to deep red.

I guess the range of variation will depend on the genetic inputs into Cafe au Lait, how much variation has gone into its breeding.

I also tried sowing some Pelargonium seed. Parents were 1) single plain bright pink 2) single bicoloured pink. I got two seedlings:

1. miniature, almost cristate, with hundreds of leaves less than 1cm across, and plain pink single flowers
2. normal sized leaves, went straight up like a rocket, and produced double bicoloured pink flowers.

Thanks so much for the information. I've got lots of different colour dahlias in my garden. I'll give it a shot for the interest but I'll bet a tenner now that they all turn out as single headed yellows. I specialise in them because I hate them. 😂

https://www.sarahraven.com/podcast/show-notes-ep124
@Thepeppapigfanclub if you are looking to do this again this year I guess do what they say here in that you isolate the bud in an organza bag and then make sure you polinate the plant.