Dahlias and other edible flowers

[Greenie DeS]

I'm jumping in on the dahlia party a little late. I got some coccinea seeds from cultivariable and planted them a couple weeks ago, they are gorgeous happy little plants at this point. I'm not sure I have either infrastructure or patience to overwinter anything, so I may be selecting for plants that can produce roots and seed from transplants. No idea at all how they'll do up here.

Reed, how did your overwintering turn out?

[bill]

I don't think that you will have any trouble getting plants that produce a useful yield from seed if you are starting them indoors.

[Greenie DeS]

I'm hoping I can get both seed and roots! I only have a 90 day season, and 400 or so degree days base 10C. My default assumption is that anything won't make it.

[bill]

I wouldn't expect to get seed in 90 days.  To do that, you would probably need to save intact root balls, let them sprout early indoors, and transplant them out.  If you do that, you might make it before the end of the season.  Of course, if you sow enough seed, you may find some early flowering varieties.  Every once in a while, I see one that flowers a month early.  If you find a few of those and concentrate on them, that might get you where you want to go.

[Greenie DeS]

That sounds like a good plan; lots of seed and reassess before committing to saving or not saving roots, marking the earliest ones for saved roots if I don't get any seed.

How long does seed generally take? What sort of heat do you have?

[Kadence Luneman]

I put in an order with Cultivariable and couldn't help myself... got the edible dahlia mix seed... I don't know if they'll be a long term project but it looks fun and they seem pretty much no input. Plant, harvest flowers for seed, dig up in fall.