You can find more information, photos and advice sheets on all the plants and recipes that we

talk about in this podcast by heading to the links in the show notes or on our website

at sarahraven.com.

Welcome to GrowCook Eat Arrange, the podcast of me, Sarah Raven and Arthur Parkinson.

I have asked Adam to join me, my husband, Adam Nicholson, instead of Arthur today, because we are just back from a trip to Holland.

And we're just back from the Netherlands where we went to visit

Dahlia trials. And we had such a good time that I actually thought it would be quite a fun

thing to do an episode. I mean, I'd love it if we could have done it from there, but it's just

too complicated. But the thing about how we and others breed dahlias, I think is worth explaining.

And then Adam could maybe talk about being in the fields and doing the selections.

Welcome, Adam. Hi. Hello. Thanks.

We're sitting in our kitchen with our dogs and with the fire lit because it's a pretty miserable day.

So how you breed a new dahlia is basically you select something, a characteristic and a variety that you particularly like.

So for instance, at the moment,

we are really, really keen on growing dahlias for pollinators. So we tend to select from either the single varieties, the colorets, which is the singles with a whirl of petals at the centre,

or the new anemone flower group, which almost looks like there's a sort of sea an the centre or the new anemone flag group which almost looks like

there's a sort of sea anemone in the middle of a single dahlia and that's because all of those

are very rich in nectar and pollen and then you're crossing it with a colour that you like and so

we tend to like the sort of burnished umbbary, rich crimsony colours almost more than the

pales. So that's what you're looking for. So you're crossbreeding, just like with any plant,

you're getting the pollen from one daily that you love and you're putting it on the stigma of

another daily that you love and hoping that that fertilises it.

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