We entered a vase of three large pompon dahlias at the Show on Saturday, but didn't have time to provide a full explanation of what was going on. The orange-coloured (slightly chewed!) dahlia at the front is a lovely variety called Rosemary Dawn. The two blooms at the back come from a plant grown as a cutting from a Rosemary Dawn tuber this spring. It has produced pink blooms due to a random genetic variation - and it is often described as a 'sport' of the parent. Dahlias often throw rogue-coloured petals, and sometimes these unusual colours are picked up by the whole bloom, branch or plant. It will be interesting to see if we can keep the tuber and generate more plants next year with the same pink colour - or whether they revert to the original orange colour (as often happens). There is already a pink sport version of Rosemary Dawn called Rosemary Blush introduced commercially by Halls of Heddon recently. We need to see whether our version is a distinct colour variation - or very similar to Rosemary Blush!
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