Unfolding in the Sun

This is our first dahlia bloom from the plants we raised this year from seed.

Last summer, we admired the wonderful deep-red dahlias in the beds in our local park, and rather coveted them. In the autumn, we collected several seed-heads (probably forbidden in the bye-laws!), and this spring were happy to see that of those we planted, a good proportion germinated.

But what flowers-if any-would we get? We certainly were not sure that growing from seed would produce similar plants to the ones in the park. But we were hopeful, given that all the plants from which pollination was likely were of the same variety.

Today, we found out! Although this bloom is small, it certainly has the right kind of colour. It will be interesting to see what the next blooms will be like, and then, if we manage to preserve the plants, what will happen in subsequent years.