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Welcome to Grow Cook-E-Torange, the podcast of me, Sarah Raven, and a lovely selection of different guests.

Today, I am joined again by our returning guest, Josie Lewis, who is the head gardener here at Perch Hill.

And the reason that I've asked her to come on this one is that we share a sort of vague background in science. And Josie, before

she became a gardener, was, this is quite a mouthful, a veterinary pharmacinetic person, pharmacologist. So she, like me, is quite interested in the sort of

research part of what we do in horticulture and trying to push the boundaries forward on things.

And one of the things that we have a joint passion for are dahlias.

And the thing about dahlias is that they are the most floriferous plant that you can possibly grow.

I've banged on about this quite enough in that if you plant a metre of peonies, you get a third of a bucket of cut flowers.

If you plant a metre of dahlias, you get 30 to 50 buckets of cut flowers.

But it's not just that.

There's just the most incredible range.

And it's the range we're going to talk about

because Josie and I, but really led by Josie,

are planning a whole daily breeding program here at Perch Hill.

Okay. are planning a whole daily breeding program here at Perch Hill. Welcome, Josie.

Thank you very much.

Nice to be back again.

Good.

And the thing that we're going to just try and explain is one, I guess, why we're

interested, but perhaps that's obvious, but also how you actually do it.

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