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Ep.22 How Breeding Dahlias In Australia Cultivates Curiosity with Bec McConnell of Serenade Farm
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Have you ever wondered what happens when a passion for music and farming intertwine to create a symphony of nature and artistry? In Episode 22 of the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, we journey down South to Tamborine Mountain in the Gold Coast of Australia to chat with the remarkable Bec McConnell of Serenade Farm.
Bec shares with us the beautiful story of how her love for gardening and flowers was nurtured from childhood memories of her Nan and Pop's garden, to her backpacking adventures in organic farms across England, Ireland, and Wales. After years of running an entertainment company, Bec and her husband finally realized their dream of owning a farm on Tamborine Mountain, where they initially focused on growing food.
However, it was a serendipitous encounter with a bunch of dahlias that sparked Bec's passion for breeding these vibrant flowers. Over the years, Bec has dedicated herself to hybridizing dahlias, creating unique and stunning varieties like Serenade Curiosity, Serenade Moondance, and Serenade Sonata, each named with a touch of musical inspiration.
Bec's story of passion and creativity will leave you inspired and eager to grow dahlias from seed. Tune in to hear the full interview with Bec McConnell of Serenade Farm and delve deeper into her journey of intertwining music and farming.
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Today’s Episode Is Sponsored By Epic Gardening. Shop Epic Gardening’s Memorial Day Sale & Save 30% off All Birdies Beds + up to 55% off select gardening essentials with code THEFLOWERINGFARMHOUSE .
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In This Episode You’ll Hear About:
- 00:01:19-00:01:30 Introduction to Serenade Farm
- 00:02:36-00:03:29 Bec's Journey into Flower Farming
- 00:09:16-00:09:27 Location and Climate of Serenade Farm
- 00:10:59-00:11:09 Hybridizing Dahlias
- 00:15:21-00:15:32 Assessing and Selecting Dahlias
- 00:31:47-00:32:08 Breeding Progress and Future Plans
- 00:32:39-00:32:50 Connecting with Other Breeders
- 00:33:40-00:33:50 Impact of Social Media and Community
- 00:40:18-00:40:29 Sharing Dahlia Names and Inspirations
- 00:42:01-00:42:12 Challenges and Benefits of Breeding Dahlias
Show notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2024/05/21/ep-22-intertwining-music-and-flower-farming-with-serenade-farm/
Learn more about Bec McConnell & Serenade Farm
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Transcript
Introduction to Backyard Bouquet Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:27
Speaker
From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The backyard bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
00:00:56
Speaker
Today's episode is brought to you by Epic Gardening, your source for premium garden products that we genuinely love, use, and recommend. As we head into Memorial Day weekend, it's the perfect time to put the finishing touches on your summer garden plans.
00:01:11
Speaker
Take advantage of the Epic Gardening Memorial Day Sale and save 25% off all birdie beds, plus up to 50% off. Select Gardening Essentials. Right now, you can also save an additional 5% by using the code theFloweringFarmhouse at checkout. This sale lasts through Monday, May 27th only. So make sure to visit today's show notes to save big. Let's make this summer's garden the best one yet.
Introduction to Beck McConnell
00:01:39
Speaker
Hey flower friends, welcome back to another episode of the Backyard Bouquet podcast. Today you're in for a special treat. We're venturing down south into the beautiful setting of Tambourine Mountain in the Gold Coast of Australia to meet a truly remarkable guest.
00:01:57
Speaker
Beck McConnell of Serenade Farm. At Serenade, they don't just grow flowers, they create a symphony of nature, craftsmanship, and music. Beck is a talented musician and harp teacher, integrating her art with agriculture, reading stunning organic dahlias that are as vibrant as the melodies she plays. Today, Beck's joining us to share her journey of intertwining her passions for music and farming,
00:02:23
Speaker
giving us a glimpse into the harmonious lifestyle that Serenade Farm proudly represents. Beck, without further ado, welcome to today's episode.
Beck's Journey into Flower Farming
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm so excited to visit with you and have you as a guest on our show. Thank you so much, Jen, for that beautiful intro. It absolutely makes my heart sing to hear that. It is a passion of mine. Both the music can be now growing daily, which has laid upon itself and
00:02:51
Speaker
you wouldn't usually put those two things together, but for us, it just works beautifully. So thank you. Well, that is so exciting. I can't wait to hear more about both. So how about, if you don't mind, most of our listeners may or may not have heard of you. I found you on Instagram because of your gorgeous dahlias you're breeding, but could you take us back to the beginning and let us know, how did you get started with flower farming?
00:03:17
Speaker
absolutely absolutely so we have been here on the farm for eight years but that wasn't the beginning of the journey as it usually isn't and as things go it wasn't a straight line so um when i think back over the years there were sort of three little seeds that were planted um to
00:03:34
Speaker
One when I was a child and I used to go to my nan and pops garden and they had the most beautiful garden. It was gorgeous with all these annual flowers in the front yard where my nan used to attend those and out the back was full of vegetables. So at the time I didn't think anything of that. That's woven into memories, it's woven into those
00:03:53
Speaker
big hugs they used to get from them and all those beautiful food that used to get cooked out of that garden. So that was one of the little seeds that was planted in me. The second was my husband and I got married when I was 20. At the time we were studying, I was studying music at the Conservatorium, he was doing arts, so we were doing all sorts of things that didn't have
00:04:12
Speaker
much in relationship to gardening at all. And we didn't know what we wanted to do with our lives. I was 20, I was bright eyed and fresh and looking at the world. So we went backpacking overseas, which you do when you're young and you don't have any responsibilities.
00:04:27
Speaker
And at the time, because we didn't have any money, we did some woofing, which is willing workers organic farms, which is an amazing way to travel. So for six months, we worked around England and Ireland and Wales. We worked on other people's organic farms and we learned so much about it. So that was the second seed and that was huge. That was planted deep, deep in our hearts at the time. Then we came back to Australia and we went, great, okay, let's go and buy a farm.
00:04:52
Speaker
And we realized we didn't have any money. We didn't have any skills. We didn't have any knowledge. All we'd had was six months working on other people's farms. And so at that point we went and we studied horticulture. We were very sensible. We thought, okay, that's first step. And we need to save some money for our farm. And so off we went, we did that. But then we got distracted for 20 years. For 20 years, we ran an entertainment company. We did all sorts of different things as life does.
00:05:17
Speaker
and we didn't have a farm for a very long time. And then as we got a little bit older, I was coming up to my 40th birthday, which is eight years ago, and we said, okay, if we don't do this now, when are we going to do it? So off we went, we looked and looked and looked for about two years and we found this beautiful farm that we're on now and we bought this place.
Farm Acquisition and Dahlia Discovery
00:05:37
Speaker
So it's three acres up on Tambourine Mountain, which is in the Gold Coast hinterland in Australia.
00:05:42
Speaker
It's a subtropical climate, so it's quite hot and humid in summer, and it's beautiful and cool and mild in winter, so we don't get frosts or anything like that. Just very, very light frosts. It's rainforest originally, so it's beautiful, well-drained soil. It's just a gorgeous place to live. It's a touristy area. A lot of people come here, but it used to be a place where people grew a lot.
00:06:07
Speaker
So that's the farm we bought eight years ago. And so we at that point, we went, OK, this is what we want to do. We want to grow food. Food is what we were looking at first. And as we moved in here, we started looking at the little roadside stalls. And across the road from us, there was a little flower stall. And I had actually never seen a dahlia until eight years ago because they don't typically grow in our climate all that much. But yeah, so we found these little bunch of dahlias abroad at home.
00:06:37
Speaker
$5 for these dahlias, it was the cheapest flowers I've bought in my life. But they just, they absolutely filled my heart and they filled our home and it just gave me, that was the third little seed I guess that was planted and it was, I knew I wanted to grow food but from that point
00:06:54
Speaker
flowers were also perhaps in the picture as well. So it's a very winding kind of journey that got us here because we weren't planning to do flowers originally and it took us a long time to get our farm. I think a lot of people look around now and they see these Instagram accounts where people are growing thousands of dahlias and they imagine that you just buy the land and then suddenly you have a farm. But it took a long time for us, you know, it was
00:07:21
Speaker
It was 20 years really from when we decided we wanted to do this until we actually started growing on the land. All those years, we obviously always had a little veggie patch on our gardens in our properties, but nothing to the scale of what we do now.
00:07:35
Speaker
That's really amazing. I love your story. It reminds me of the saying that one of my friends who's a landscaper first shared with me, and that is, in terms of plants, as they're getting established, first you sleep, then you creep, and then you leap. And it's kind of the same thing that happened with your journey is there was this little seed that was planted, and it slept inside you for all of those years. And then you got that job as a woofer.
00:08:05
Speaker
which we have a bunch of them around our area because I'm in a heavily agricultural region. And so it's a dream of mine to someday have space where I could have one. So you kind of started creeping in your journey. And then you saw those dahlias and you leaped. And what a beautiful story that I think that's such a great reminder that it's not necessarily sure there are those
00:08:30
Speaker
a few occasions where maybe someone overnight becomes a farmer, but you've been on this 20 year journey of becoming an incredible flower farmer and in such a unique area that you are. So can you tell us a little bit more about where you're located on the Gold Coast and the region? I was looking online and I saw waterfalls and like you said, the tropics.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, it is really beautiful. So it's when in Brisbane, that's our closest city, but the Gold Coast is a it's a really famous beachy area. Lots of tourists come here because they're just stunning beaches. So we're only about half an hour drive from the beach, which is lovely because my husband particularly loves to go swimming down the beach. But we go there quite quite often in both summer and winter. We are our area is more rainforest typically. So when you do come up the mountain,
00:09:21
Speaker
We're only 600 meters above sea level, but it's just enough to cool things down a little bit. So even though we're in a subtropical climate overnight through summer, it cools down. So that really helps our daily lives. That means that
00:09:35
Speaker
A lot of people in this sort of climate really struggle with them through summer because it's so hot and particularly it's so humid. But here it just cools down enough that we can really, they're just beautiful, particularly in the early season and the late season. They do really, really well for us. So it's just going into May now and we still have a few flowers out there. So that's the equivalent to the Northern Hemisphere in November. So if you imagine
00:10:00
Speaker
what's going on usually in a season over there. We're quite fortunate that we have a really long season of flowers as well. It's rainforesty, but it's beautiful and close to the beach. We've got gorgeous soil. I think it's paradise. It sounds like paradise. I know that the Gold Coast is on our bucket list to visit someday, and I hope I can see your farm in person someday. That would be a dream.
00:10:28
Speaker
For most of us that are listening, we're in the Northern Hemisphere. Yes. I do have listeners that are around the world. And so for you in the Southern Hemisphere, it sounds like your season is drawing near
Dahlia Hybridizing Efforts
00:10:40
Speaker
to an end. Is that correct? That's exactly right. We've had a really big, wonderful, a wonderful, challenging, but wonderful season.
00:10:48
Speaker
And we've got to the point now that, well, we stopped doing florist orders about, I'd say five weeks ago, but we still have a little honesty cart for our local community customers. So on our little honesty cart, we're still managing about 10 or 12 bunches a day. So that's, it's not nothing. So the season, but it's very much towards the end. Our focus is absolutely on hybridizing and collecting seeds now. So because that's, I guess I haven't talked about that much, but breeding daily as is my
00:11:16
Speaker
real love, it's my real passion and a thing that brings me to life. So that's a really important part of our season even though we're getting to the end now, it's one of the most precious important things to do is collect those seeds now.
00:11:29
Speaker
Yes. Well, let's talk a little bit about your hybridizing. So eight years ago, you picked up a little bunch of dahlias for $5, which is incredible, and your heart swooned, and you felt this connection. I'm guessing that you probably didn't start hybridizing immediately after holding that. No, not at all.
00:11:54
Speaker
In fact, what we did, I'd say for the first five years, it really was our focus was vegetables. We were growing food to eat ourselves. We became very active with the local growers community, which was all about food so that we would go down to the market once a week with all our produce and sell all our food.
00:12:12
Speaker
it just as the flowers started creeping in and started creeping in more and more, and I would see how much joy they would bring to other people as well. So my little experience of picking up that pose in flowers was not just something for me, it was everybody. So the flowers started working their way in. We got to the point about three, four years ago where we thought, okay, we're ready to make this leap. We're going to shift from, because we were also still running our entertainment company at the time, sort of as you do with
00:12:42
Speaker
very cautious people. So we were treading gently still and easing into being farming full time. So it was about four years ago that we went full time with the farming. And at that point we also were shifting over into the flouts. So we took that leap, we took that final leap where it was our whole income. And at that point I just started putting a few seeds in because I've been reading and hearing about this breeding dahlias and I'm wondering, okay, what's involved? This sounds a bit of fun.
00:13:09
Speaker
my expectation was that I might keep one in a hundred. That was sort of what you hear is what you might keep. I put 350 seeds, germinated that first year, and I had dozens, dozens and dozens. And I'll probably talk about it later, but one of the first ones, it was the 21st one that came through, it was 121 was the number, it was 21st flower,
00:13:31
Speaker
was a little daily that I've never seen anything like it before. And as it turns out, it's something that a lot of people have never seen anything before that has little petaloids in it. So it had sort of layers of petals and then these other contrasting color petaloids.
00:13:47
Speaker
which were just fantastic. They're so beautiful. And I'll give you a photo of that that you can post up so people can see what that looks like. But that was amazing. We'll include that in the show notes. That would be fantastic. Yeah, because it's something that's really different. It looks like a little colorette, if you know dailies, that has a little layer of petals and then the different colored petals. But then it has many, many layers of those. So that was something that got me so excited. And
00:14:12
Speaker
there were, you know, I would say that first year I kept around 50 or 60 out of the 350. And I was over the moon with that because it was much more than that one in 100 that I thought. So the next year we had scaled up, we were doing all dahlias, we had about 3000 plants then. And we had just come out of a year where there was droughts and bushfires. So up here, we can have very, very hot
00:14:40
Speaker
dry years and we can also have very wetter years. So our expectation was, okay, it's going to be hot and dry again. It was forecast to be that way. But we had that next season when we had made the leap and it was all on the dailies, we had the wettest season that I can ever imagine. And we had flooding through and we lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of our dailies. We had all the money that we had sold
00:15:03
Speaker
from our other business. We had invested in the dahlias and we lost a lot of tutors, which happens. This is the reality of farming and we all know what it feels like to come across those kinds of things.
00:15:16
Speaker
What I saw in that was the glimmer of hope that, okay, well, I've got all this space now. I've lost all of these dahlias. I'm heartbroken. There's nothing left to plan. But I have a whole lot of seeds. I've collected all of these seeds. And you know what? Last year, I kept 50 or 60 seedlings. Maybe I can do
00:15:34
Speaker
something this year. And so I decided to grow 2000 seedlings that next year. So that was a couple of years ago. It was insane. The sort of job of managing that many new dahlias, the risk of not having things that are going to be cut flower worthy. But it was the best thing that I could have ever, ever, ever done. Because growing up 2000 dahlias of new seedlings meant that I learned so much about hybridizing. It was a baptism by fire. It was a way that I could really
00:16:04
Speaker
immerse myself in that experience. And so I'd have sort of a hundred or something of each seed parent and you'd learn so much. You'd see what genetic traits would tend to come through. It was all still beautifully random as daily as tend to be with their genetics, but it was just so much of a learning experience. And it was so exciting seeing all of these new forms, all this beautiful stuff. And if I wasn't hooked before, I was certainly hooked that year.
00:16:34
Speaker
So that was two years ago? That was two years ago, yeah. So that was the year I did so many seedlings. And I restrained myself this season after that, because it was just so many to manage and handle and assess and continue to sort of look through. Because the first year I had those 2000, it was just too many to manage well, I would admit now.
00:16:58
Speaker
I did just over 600 from seed last year. Which is still heaps.
00:17:05
Speaker
So many because I pinched all of them in hopes that they would be good cut flowers as well as for my CSA. And I have no open centers in my field. So I was fortunate that I think of the 600, I had less than five that had an open center and the rest of them were either semi-double or double.
00:17:31
Speaker
but trying to keep up with taking notes on them and managing them and figuring out which ones to keep and evaluate, it's a full-time job. So how did you do that with 2000? What was your process? How did you keep track? Yeah, it was. And I did do them gradually over the season. I didn't do it all in one huge succession. And I think I would have gone absolutely bonkers if I had done that. So it was done in succession planting. So that helped.
00:17:59
Speaker
I was, that was my main focus that year. So although we were doing the cut flowers and we were doing that as well, the breeding, as I said, it was sort of, I guess the good side over losing so many was that I had a lot of space and I had a lot of time that next year and it was 100% of what I was doing.
00:18:16
Speaker
So that helped as well. But I would just take photos, take notes every day out there. I was just going through and processing it. And I think like anything that you're excited about, anything that sort of fills you up with joy, it was just so motivating in itself to be out there. I can't imagine anything more lovely to do than spend a day out in my flowers just getting to know them, I guess, because that first year, that's what it's all about. You know, something pops up.
00:18:41
Speaker
and you don't know what to expect from it. So you're giving it an absolute saying, okay, tell me about yourself. You get to know each little dahlia. And like you, I had all fully doubles in my patch. I was keeping very good cut flowers sort of the year before. And therefore, the quality of what comes through with the seedlings was fantastic. So I wasn't throwing all that many away, which
00:19:06
Speaker
of course, then the next year when you have to go through and you have to dig and divide and you have to decide what to do with all of those, I kept hundreds for this year, which has been another big effort to process them. And some of them I've chosen to let go of, of course, this year, that second year assessment of those. But there's been a lot to choose from, which has been wonderful when you have, you know, a dozen of these beautiful smoky pink with gold tipped
00:19:32
Speaker
fully double daily as you can really go through and decide, okay, which ones do I really want to keep? Which ones are going to be the best long-term? And some of the qualities like being really floriferous, giving me so many blooms, that can be one of the reasons I keep something. Sure. Sounds like you have so many. Did you grow more from seed this year also?
00:19:55
Speaker
I did. I put 600 in this year, which was again too many considering what I was managing. But yeah, I'm pleased I did the 600 because my, I guess my assessment criteria this year was really, really strict.
00:20:09
Speaker
because they now have to compete with all the hundreds that I kept from the year before, and they have to be even better. If they're not better, then I'm sorry. It's nice, because I can keep them around for one season, and they're the ones that go out on our community honesty stall. They might not be perfect for the florists. They're not A-grades, but they're still beautiful flowers. And so they get to stay around for a year. So it's not that they get thrown away straight away as well. So that's a nice thing to do with them too, is to have them for a year.
00:20:38
Speaker
So, but yes, we, I, but I've only of those 600, I haven't finished assessing them, but I'd say I'm only keeping about 20 to 30 of the very best of those, which are the ones that are just that little bit more special or just incredible cut flowers. So they're getting kept this year.
00:20:55
Speaker
Well, you must be really good at assessing your dollars. I don't know. Judging them and going through a time period. Can you share with us how do you assess them? What kind of criteria do you use to decide what gets to stay and what goes? Sure. Sure. I would say I'm not all that good at it because I want to hold on to everything. That's hard to let them go. It is. It's so hard because they're your new little babies and each one has its beautiful qualities and it's really unique.
Breeding Criteria and Climate Suitability
00:21:24
Speaker
But because for me, they are going to be for cut flowers, I do look at each one and go, is this something that I would send to my florist? So that's sort of the first criteria. Will this give me enough flowers? Because some of them are beautiful, but you'll only get two or three over the season, and our season is so long that if it's not going to give me many flowers, it's just not going to justify its place in the patch, unfortunately. So those ones tend to go.
00:21:50
Speaker
Is it a bit cut flower or does it have potential to give me something that I haven't seen before? So that's what that little petaloid seedling that I got sort of.
00:22:00
Speaker
a couple of years ago, that one's not a cut flower. The head just pops off. The fact that it's open scented after a few rows is not so bad, but it's just not strong enough. It's not a good cut flower. But goodness, it's got so much potential in it with these beautiful petaloids. It's such a different form that I'll be keeping that for long-term breeding. So that's the other thing, I guess, with breeding. You're not looking at what it is right now, but what it could be and what the potential is and what genes are in there.
00:22:30
Speaker
that could give you something later and you can't do that with everything because otherwise there's potential and everything you might like the color of something but if it's a single and it's got a floppy head and it's just not going to stand up to cut flowers you just have to surrender that one particularly if there's others in a nice color. So is it a good cut flower or does it have something really special? And then
00:22:53
Speaker
you're looking for colors that, or more so, colors and forms that aren't just duplicating something else that already exists that's really effective. You've got your favorite cut flowers that are in the patch. Those ones, we don't really need to breed more of the same unless they give us, they're a really, really robust plant and they're particularly virus resistant or particularly good, the pests don't affect it. That might be a reason to keep it, but otherwise, I'll let something go if it's,
00:23:23
Speaker
It tends to be something like that sort of mid-cool pink that's, you know, it's an open kind of shape and it's not giving me anything that I don't already have. Even if it's a lovely dahlia, unfortunately that goes to the compost heap as well. You have to be pretty rough on your decisions when you have so many because there's just not enough space to keep all of them either.
00:23:46
Speaker
that's exactly right because it's okay that first year when you've just got one plant but then the second year that might turn into five plants and then the year after that you multiply that out by five again and you're looking at a lot of plants in three or four years so if you're wanting to
00:24:01
Speaker
to duplicate it. There are a couple of things that I know aren't really great for cut flowers and I have a few little beds that I keep just for my own love and interest. So there's a few things there that I just can't throw away. I know they're not practical to keep, but that's just a little indulgence of my own. So there's that aspect to it too. There's a little bit of intuition that has to be in there as well. There's a little bit of a gut feeling, sort of, you know, I'm not a
00:24:30
Speaker
clean cut spreadsheet, does it ticks sort of eight out of nine boxes and then I'll keep it. Sometimes there's that little extra box there that I go, no, this one just needs to stay a couple more years until I decide. Yes, I totally agree. You mentioned that you don't get a frost where you live. So do you get a frost?
00:24:55
Speaker
We get very, very light frosts sometimes, but certainly nothing that's going to affect the daily. It doesn't come until very, very late in winter. And by that time, everything's died back there in the ground. It doesn't affect the tubers at all. So it's not a heavy frost that's going to do that. So we can leave them in the ground, no problem at all.
00:25:13
Speaker
I haven't done that on any large scale until this year. This year, we're going to leave them in all winter, which is a little bit scary. I might dig some of my most precious ones just in case. But we can. In our climate, we can leave them all through winter. So this year, what I plan to do is when we get to very early spring, I'll be digging, dividing, and replanting all in one go so that I don't have to do any storage this year, which
00:25:40
Speaker
We just need a break. You know, we've been farming for eight years now. And before the last couple of years, we were doing annuals all through winter as well, because we can grow here because it's mild enough. It's actually our best growing season for the vegetables is in winter.
00:25:53
Speaker
So we've been working just constantly for eight years and we thought, you know what, it's time we need to just ease back, just to take a little bit off and go easier this winter, maybe go back to playing some music and those kinds of things and just consolidate a little bit. So we will be leaving them in the ground. And it also just gives us an opportunity to see which of them the tubers are strong in our climate to do that as well, because that's the other thing that we are breeding for is
00:26:21
Speaker
that are going to really suit our sub-tropical climate because there's a lot that don't. You know, we get a lot up from the southern states where it's really cold and those ones just don't do well here. So that's one of my breeding goals loosely as well is just to make sure we're breeding the right plants for our climate.
00:26:40
Speaker
That's great. And you need a break. Yes. You deserve a rest. Farmers are really bad at that, I think, because it's constant. It keeps moving. And particularly in our climate when the seasons, we have shifts to the seasons, but it doesn't ever really stop. We never go out there and everything's asleep. So we tend to just follow that pattern and go, go, go, go, go. And it's been a long, long slog of going. So this year, it's time to rest a little, yes.
00:27:10
Speaker
Yeah, for people that aren't farmers, I'll have friends say after our frost, because I'll post these beautiful pictures of the season ending killing frost and then how everything is all brown afterwards. And a lot of people reach out and they say, you must have so much time on your hands now, but the dahlias are dead. And if I left them in the ground, maybe so, but digging and dividing and storing them all winter and then planning, it just doesn't ever end. So.
00:27:35
Speaker
If you can give yourself a break, kudos to you. You deserve it. And I know that you'll have a busy spring, which will be wet. And about three months from now, you'll have to start digging them up. That's exactly right. So our season is so long that we can start planting again in August. And so here we are in May.
00:27:52
Speaker
June, July, it's sort of all we have. And also in that time, my focus, because we could still take cuttings and overwinter cuttings here, I don't really stop anyway. Which I don't want to completely stop. But the idea of not... So we're not doing a tuba sale this year, which is... It was a huge decision because obviously that's part of our business model. But
00:28:15
Speaker
for this year we just needed to have a pause and so we're not doing tuba sale because last year it was really hard because everything happens all at once which it does in every climate. I'm sure spring is huge but we were trying to plant at the same time that we were sort of trying to do our tuba sale and it
00:28:33
Speaker
pushed everything back so much last year. Whereas this year, I'm really excited. We'll actually get everything in by September, which means we'll have flowers by Christmas, which is very exciting. So it's lovely. Our season will be really, a really full season, this next season coming.
00:28:49
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It's always been a dream of mine to have dahlias blooming on Christmas. We always miss Mother's Day. So Mother's Day is this coming Sunday and the dahlias are just looking terrible and our florists haven't had flowers for sort of a month or so. But even our honesty card, I think we'll be lucky to have two or three bunches out there. So we miss Mother's Day, but we do get Christmas.
00:29:14
Speaker
That's interesting. So you must get Mother, or not Mother, so you must get Christmas and Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is amazing. It's our hugest because it's right at the right time for daily years. It can, on our hot, dry years, it can be a little bit of a struggle to get the product out there. But this year, it was just incredible. We were at peak production at Valentine's Day, which is beautiful for the daily years because they do reds and soft pinks so well. So they're perfect.
00:29:42
Speaker
I'm so into it. I mean, unless you have a giant hoop house, a heated hoop house in the United States, pretty much most flowers for Valentine's Day, most people don't realize are imported in. People ask me, what do you have blooming at Valentine's Day? And it's like, well, look outside.
00:30:00
Speaker
Nothing. I want some dried flowers, but yeah, a lot has to get imported in for Valentine's Day, which we could ship it to like July and have Valentine's Day. Absolutely. I think all the flower farmers should get together and just change Valentine's Day. Yes, we're creating a new holiday. Absolutely. Like Christmas in July, so what, we need Valentine's Day in September, something like that.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yes, if only we could do that. Let's go back to your breeding dahlias because I had a few more questions I would love to ask you. So you're in your fourth year of breeding dahlias right now. So we're about the same. This is my fourth year also. Have you released any to the public yet? Have you shared any of yours? No, no, I haven't. And there's a couple of reasons for that.
00:30:49
Speaker
I think one reason is because the first year, I did get some beautiful ones the first year, but the, I'd say there weren't enough of those ones that I was really proud of. So I didn't, so this would be the year that I released those and I decided not to. One of the other reasons is just because the demand is a little overwhelming and I don't want to just go to market with a small number and disappoint so many people. So I do really want to work on
00:31:18
Speaker
One of my strategies over the last year or two has been to get really, really good at taking cuttings so that I'm not relying just on tuba stock for when I do release. So last year as well as at tuba sale, we did a plant sale and that was just a trial doing that. So I took a lot of cuttings in screen time. That was of named Cultivars. It wasn't of my own.
00:31:39
Speaker
And it was amazing. It was the most beautiful day. And it was it was such a lovely, you know, I think we sold out in about 10 minutes, but everybody still have two hours and we had such a beautiful time chatting. So it was a lovely. It's difficult for people who live further away in other states in Australia, so they won't have that same.
00:31:57
Speaker
kind of connection if we do it that way. But it was just finding the way that worked for me. Because tubers, there's a limitation to tubers. You can only sort of divide so many and it takes that many years to build up. Whereas I see this as a potential for us to build up the stock to a really lovely level to release. So I would hope that we can
00:32:21
Speaker
get there next year, so sort of not this spring but the spring after. But we'll see because I am also learning to slow down. It's a long lesson for me because I tend to be, you know, I love to race at things and go at things really hard and do things as well as I can.
00:32:41
Speaker
But I'm learning the garden is teaching me the climate, the nature is teaching me to slow down and just be patient. And so that's what I'm doing with my releases, which I know is driving everybody crazy because everybody wants to get their hands on them and I post all these beautiful photos and such a tease. But I think it's going to be worth it because it means a lot of people won't be hoping to get them next season or this season and not be able to get hold of them.
00:33:05
Speaker
That's really the main reason I've held off, because I have some beautiful ones that I want to share with the world so much.
00:33:13
Speaker
it's probably a secret, but I've let a couple of other breeders, I've traded with them because they've sent me things that are really precious and beautiful for my breeding program as well.
Collaboration and Community in Dahlia Breeding
00:33:22
Speaker
So I've been so fortunate to find a connection with some other breeders. They do it as a hobby more than a business. And so I'm able to send them some of mine as well so that together we can actually forward this breeding as a little team. We can do it together, which has been a lovely facet to work with as well.
00:33:43
Speaker
So I love that. That's one thing I love about the Dahlia community is for the most part, people are so supportive and there's such an amazing community. It's part of why I created the Dahlia patch, which is my online learning community that I launched in April.
00:34:02
Speaker
It's just amazing the joy dahlias can bring to people's lives and the joy just multiplies when you can share it with others. The fact that you can partner with other breeders without people feeling the competition is really amazing. I love that. It is. It really is so special.
00:34:25
Speaker
That's the one thing that I'm actually taking a break from social media at the moment. I'm taking three months off, along with having a break from the garden being full on. I'm taking a break from that. But social media has just
00:34:38
Speaker
opened out that the ability to connect with people that you're really aligned with. And it's so good for learning. We've learned so much from each other. And it just fast tracks that process because I'm such a believer in being curious and learning through doing and going out into the garden and just seeing what happens. That's massive for me. I love to learn through doing. But
00:35:03
Speaker
It's a slow process. You know, slow is okay, slow is great, but it also, by doing it, by sharing with other people, by learning of other experienced people and just, I don't know, I guess running ideas by people who are in a similar situation to you, you can learn so much more and just let you look at things from a different perspective. It's sort of being curious, but then being curious with a group is even more exciting because you can get so much further with it.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I agree that, you know, the daily community, whether it's sort of our local daily societies where everyone is so generous with knowledge to, you know, a lot of the Australian daily communities that I've connected with are just incredible. And then even internationally now, you know, the fact that we sit down and talk about daily is and we're in a completely different climate and completely different hemisphere, even. And so the climate, you know, the seasons are upside down, but it's still beautiful and we can still share that between each other.
00:36:00
Speaker
is I think that's one of the most lovely things about the way we're able to connect these days. I love too just the ability of being able to share the photos online and for example when it's the middle of winter and I have nothing blooming and I can see that your farm is starting to bloom with these gorgeous new dahlias. It just feels like there's life out there and that sense of hope of
00:36:26
Speaker
this is coming to me next too. It's kind of like, here I am talking to you and it's for something in the afternoon here. And it's the next day for you. You're having a whole day ahead of us, just like with the Dahlia season, you're always ahead of us. And it's just kind of that beautiful circle of life of getting to see the beauty that's either ahead or behind us. So I think it's really incredible. It's precious, isn't it? And that's the thing, when you're out there in the garden, you feel connected to the seasons.
00:36:56
Speaker
But this ability to connect with the opposite season, it just keeps that cycle. You feel it going over and over and over again. And it's very important, I think, for us to actually feel that in a really strong way. And we do. And it is. There's nothing better than being in the middle of winter and you haven't seen it daily for months to see those gorgeous images across the other side of the world. It's so reassuring. It's reassuring that, yes, it will come back again. It really will.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yes, especially when I was sitting at my dining room table, dividing dahlias and it's 20 something degrees outside and I log on and there's one of your new hybrids. And I'm like, oh, I'm dreaming about my seeds right now as I'm splitting tubers and going, I have this brown little potato in my hand, but it's gonna become something beautiful in a few months. It's just really beautiful. So with your breeding, you have not released anything into the world yet.
00:37:49
Speaker
But when you do, do you have a name for yourself as a breeder? What are you going to call your dahlia? Yes, we're using Serenade as our prefix. So Serenade Farm is the name of our farm. It links in with our music. It links because my husband and I are both musicians. He still builds beautiful harps. So even though he's working full time on the farm as well now.
00:38:11
Speaker
his true passion is building with wood. So he builds harps. I play harps. Serenade just seemed to be the thing that fit for us. So we've got, we've started naming a couple and the Serenade, it's been the prefix that seems to really sit for us really well. And it also doesn't tie us. If we
00:38:29
Speaker
if we need to move one day because one day we do want to live in a colder climate and grow these like roses and peonies and all those gorgeous things as well so that we can keep our prefix with us regardless of where we happen to be best at the time. That's really smart. I love that that you have put a lot of thought into your hybridizer name.
00:38:50
Speaker
Does your husband help you breed the dahlias? The breeding part is more my area. In fact, he's not allowed into the breeding patches when we get in our office. More so because I just need to keep seeing them. And if something gets cut before I've tagged it,
00:39:09
Speaker
So no, he's not allowed in there. Let's be honest. I was going to say it in a nice way, but no, that is my domain. He's very active. We both work full time on the farm and he does a lot of the harvesting and everything as well, but he generally sticks to the main cutting patch. He's been allowed into the second year seedlings this year, but not the first years. That's hilarious. I think that's wonderful.
00:39:34
Speaker
I'm sure he's wonderful. What's your husband's name? It's John. Yes. John. Yeah. Well, I love that the two of you get to farm together. Before we jump into that, I do want to know, you said you have named a few of your dahlias. Can you share their names? What have you named? Of course. My little petaloid one, which is the one that sort of a lot of people get excited about, is called Serenade Curiosity.
00:39:57
Speaker
because I believe that curiosity is what it takes in the garden to really learn and to explore and this was it it's not a good dahlia it's not a perfect dahlia but it really piques people's curiosity so that's that's curiosity I've got a big beautiful white roughly fluffy one that I love
00:40:20
Speaker
That's Serenade Moondance, then I've got Serenade Sonata. There's a lot of musical type names that we're throwing around just because it can be our thing. I've got a couple, yeah, and we've got a couple. There's one named after one of my grandmas, so that's Serenade Margaret Mary. I've got one named under a very dear friend, Margaret Nerida, so Serenade Nerida.
00:40:43
Speaker
I think it's such a beautiful thing to be able to name your daily as after special people. It's a lovely, I love that that just exists a thing in the daily, you know, nomenclature. So it's beautiful.
00:40:59
Speaker
I love that. I know that I haven't named any of mine. I once heard that it's bad luck or superstitious to name them in their first year. And I have, well, now I have about 50 to 60 going into their second year. I have two in their third season this year, my fourth season ones. I think
00:41:18
Speaker
But what should have been my fourth year, I chucked all of them last year in their third season. I just, I wasn't as impressed with them when I saw my first year 2023 seedlings. I said, hmm, these aren't as good. And so I got rid of them. But I have a list, like you said, of people that have influenced my life, my flower career. And I can't wait to be able to have something that gives them a legacy and honors them
00:41:44
Speaker
for impacting my life that can be shared with the world. I think it's a really unique position as a Dahlia hybridizer or any kind of hybridizer for that matter. Absolutely.
00:41:57
Speaker
I'm going to have to figure out how to make it down there so that I can get your curiosity one. My daughter, she's nine and I always choose a word of the year for myself. And this year she decided she wanted to do that with me. I do a vision board where I spend the first week of the year cutting out pictures and putting them on the wall. And my word this year is flourish. I don't think I've ever shared that publicly this year.
00:42:21
Speaker
And my daughter said, well, I don't want just one word, I want a phrase. And her phrase is, stay curious. And when you said your Dalia name, I was like, oh my God, that is such a wonderful name for Dalia.
00:42:35
Speaker
Oh, that's beautiful. It's a beautiful one. Yeah. How to muggle one through customs. It's so difficult. And it's actually one of the reasons I started breeding as well is because we were seeing all these overseas cultivars that we couldn't get hold of here in Australia and and much that there's amazing breeding being done. A lot of the breeding that's happened in Australia has been for exhibition and show. So everything is bull or
00:43:03
Speaker
you know, formal decorative and that kind of style. And we'd see these things from overseas that were ruffly and multicolored and all this amazing stuff and all the beautiful sort of soft subdued colors that go so well for floristry work. And we had nothing like that that I could see. And so I thought, okay, I'll just have to breed them myself. And so that was actually a big part of what got me excited about breeding too. And now that I've started, I can see that
00:43:28
Speaker
It's the way to go. I encouraged so many people in Australia to start breeding your own, because as soon as they start complaining about, oh, we can't get this, or we can't get that, or we can't get this one, or we'll have to smuggle it in, and biosecurity in Australia is there for a really good reason. So we just need to breed our own. That was one of those little other reasons I started doing it, and I'm so pleased now, because it really does. You start to see that
00:43:56
Speaker
the forms that you get in the exhibition they're so tight and they're so small and it was like that for a reason and I really respect that because I've done such beautiful work with breeding for those forms but when you start actually having to write down descriptions you know as you write your notes you start to realize okay well this isn't a water lily and it's not a decorative it's somewhere in between it's kind of like and you have to start describing color as well you know yes you can take a photo of it to keep it but
00:44:24
Speaker
It makes you realize that, and I think it's one of the things I love about daily so much, is this huge spectrum of colors. And there's a massive, massive amount of variation in form that doesn't just fit into nice little neat boxes at all. And so that's, yeah, that's so exciting as well. It just, you know, if you
00:44:45
Speaker
got any kind of sense of creativity or artistry, Daily has just fulfilled it so beautifully. They just come in with, you know, you think you know something and then it just gives you something new again, which is very exciting. And I think you can look at it and go, well, that doesn't fit, you know, I'll throw that out. Or you can look at it and go, wow, this is something really different and really special.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yes. Well, I think it all goes right back to the name of your first Dalia Serenade curiosity. I mean, they keep us curious. There's such an element of curiosity about Dalia's that just make you want to know more or to see more. And I think that's for us that are breeders. For me, it's like Christmas morning. It's that surprise of
00:45:32
Speaker
being curious and wondering what is it going to be. So that's really neat. Do you have, you've mentioned breeding for specific things. Do you have specific goals when you're breeding? Like, are you breeding for a specific color this year or a specific shape or form?
00:45:47
Speaker
Yes, I do. So this year, I'm really looking to do more in the soft pink. We actually don't have enough soft pink. Maybe it's universally across dailies, but here in Australia, we tend to have a lot of bright pinks, but we don't have those really lovely subdued soft pinks, particularly the warm peachy pinks. So that's the colour I'm gravitating towards. So for the open
00:46:13
Speaker
open pollinated dahlias. They're the ones I'm leaving in the patch at the moment that I won't touch them. I'll let them go and let the bees sort of do their thing with them. But I'm also, and I am also going back to more bull forms because this previous year I wanted anything roughly. I wanted anything that just sort of had this crazy kind of shape into it because we didn't have much of that. But what I'm finding is there's certain
00:46:39
Speaker
colors in the ball forms like those peaches and pinks that we just don't have enough of a really good cut flower for those colors. So it's a lot more traditional than what I was pushing for last year. But then in saying that, I've got these breeding gulls, but at the same time, if something pops up that's different, I just follow that thread as well. I'm not going to say, no, you don't fit before you're out at all. So if there's something that comes through that's
00:47:09
Speaker
You know, even if it's yellow or bright orange or one of those kinds of colors, but the form is really exciting. I'll go, okay, well, maybe we'll keep you and I'll carefully place you next to you next to all the lovely colors that I want to, you know, try and infuse into that form and see how we go. Because there's no certainty, obviously, with daily reading, it's just so, so complex with those octopoid genetics that you're not going to be guaranteed of anything, but
00:47:37
Speaker
you can stack the odds in your favour, you can just try all sorts of different things. I don't do a lot of hand pollination for a couple of reasons and the main one is it's just so wet here at that time of year that we're doing it that I'm going for a lot of seed. I need to aim for a lot of seed because we just lose so much because it's
00:47:59
Speaker
March, which is the time when we're doing that hybridization, is the wettest month here, which is really unfortunate. Our weather is beautiful for daily in most ways, but for the hybridization, it's a bit of a struggle. And also the bees do it so well. So I've got a few little techniques and strategies that I put in place to just help the bees along, you know, to encourage them. Okay, put this one with this one, please, because this is what I want. And that tends to give us the best results from the sea.
00:48:26
Speaker
to climb a lot of seed and a lot of good quality seed. That's great advice. My first year tried hand pollinating. And we usually get rain in September, which is about when I want to start collecting. And I lost all my hand pollinations to rot because of the rain. And so then the next few years, I've just let the bees do the work with a strategy in place. And it's amazing how many seeds you can get and good seeds from the bees being your friend and ally.
00:48:55
Speaker
So for those that are listening today that are saying, wow, this sounds really fun. I'm really curious. I want to try hybridizing dahlias or breeding dahlias or collecting seed this year and just dipping their toes. What advice would you have for someone getting started? Absolutely. Just do it. I think that's the biggest thing with seed is that you don't know what you're going to get. So just try something.
00:49:22
Speaker
But in order to get the best chance to get the seed that you're going to give you the best results, I think at the very minimum do selective pollination
00:49:32
Speaker
where you are removing anything that doesn't fit, either your breeding goals or things that you like even. So hopefully your dahlias are the ones that you like that you have in your garden. But if there's anything there that you go, you know what, I don't want a red cactus involved in my breeding program at all. Cut that away, you know, cut that back before you start collecting seeds. That's the very basic. But there's a few things I do. When I'm planted, if you're fortunate to have not planted yet,
00:49:58
Speaker
really think about what things you'd like to combine and plant them in close together because that's actually very effective. You know, where the bees are, if they're all flowering at once and you can remove everything else around, that will help a lot. I always also put a couple of things in pots that I really want. So my little curiosity seedling, I always put some of those in pots so that then I can decide, you know what, I want to try mixing that with such and such this year. I'm going to take that pot while they're flowering at the end of the season.
00:50:28
Speaker
pop the pot right in the middle of that block and there's going to be a very good chance that I'm going to get those crosses. I had great success with that method last year because then you get seeds both off that plant and the plants around.
00:50:41
Speaker
but even taking a little vase and popping some of your flowers that are open pollinate, you know, that have pollen showing and popping them into that block of other flowers as well as another way that the bees can, yeah, it's a friend of mine. One of my little team of petaloid breeders that we worked together gave me that suggestion. So it's a way of actually, if you haven't planted it in the right place or you don't have it in a pot, it's just a little cheat way that you can get some pollen in there without hand pollinating, but the bees can do that.
00:51:10
Speaker
because it'll continue to release pollen while it's in the vase. So that was another really good little trick for getting the pollen together.
00:51:19
Speaker
And that's a great little tip. Yeah, that one is really quite effective as well. So I've done a lot of that this year because I planted all my little petaloid seedlings in one place because I've got quite a few of them now over the last couple of years. I've been breeding for it. So I put them all together. But then I had one from one of my friends who she sent one up in January. She had taken a cutting really quickly and sent it to me. And that one wasn't planted in that area because it was all full. And so that's what I've been doing. That one bringing it in the pots in little vases with the flowers. So I'm not attached to that.
00:51:50
Speaker
I love that. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great one. Well, tell us about how you incorporate music. So you had a previous business, an entertainment business. Was that in the music industry?
00:52:06
Speaker
It was, we worked in corporate events, so we would do government dinners, we would do those kind of things. And in fact, that was, it had started off with music, but we also went into circus entertainment. So that's kind of a crazy sideline. Oh my goodness. So I was a fire performer, I was a stilt walker, I was a hula hoop girl. We did all that kind of crazy stuff. I told you we got distracted for 20 years. Wow. So that's what our distraction was.
00:52:31
Speaker
But over the years, as I sort of got a little bit older, I was still doing all of those things sort of right up until we moved to the farm. But I also started learning the harp. So the harp wasn't what I was doing when I went to the conservatorium. I was studying composition. But the harp is what I've gravitated to. And it's the thing that
00:52:51
Speaker
really integrates with our lifestyle really well now so that when things are a bit quieter so this year in the winter I'll go back to teaching harp and I'll go back to playing a lot more music. I have already started which has been so nice in the last little while because it fits in with our lifestyle so beautifully so we're able to do that as well as the farming as well. That's incredible and John plays the harp as well.
00:53:17
Speaker
No, he's a guitarist and singer. So we play music together quite a lot and then he builds the harps. So his connection with the harp is that he loves to work with wood. He's a really talented sort of cabinet maker. So he translated that into building harps as well. So he builds the harps that I teach on and that we sell to our students. And so that part is all a really lovely way that builds up. And it means also because we don't do farm visits, we don't do workshops, we don't do any way that people come on
00:53:47
Speaker
with the flowers, just because it's a working farm and a lot of farmers understand that's just not really practical. But it's a way that people, we can connect and share with people here on the farm is that they come and do the teaching workshops with the harp. So they'll come and learn how to play music. And I don't know, it sort of doesn't seem like something that's connected. But for us, it's very, very
00:54:09
Speaker
much the same thing because you're either creating with nature, you know you're out there breeding dahlias or you're creating with music and it's funny how these things just have so many parallels with one another and they sort of tie in together so you might be composing a piece of music and creating something like that or you might be creating a bouquet of flowers
00:54:28
Speaker
And it's all the same elements. You know, you've got color or you've got musical timbre and it's all the same. It's form in both ways. And it's just bringing beautiful things in together and making it part of the human experience, which I think is so precious. That's amazing. And how long ago did you learn how to play the harp?
00:54:48
Speaker
The harp was something I did while we were doing entertainment, so I'd say I've been playing for about 15 years, so even though when I first started I was playing piano and those kind of things, and French horn was what I played in orchestras, so that was what I started with when I first started playing music, but harp was the one way that I could just play music by myself as well at first, and then gently I spread that out to playing with a whole ensemble of harps together, or playing with my husband while he's singing and playing guitar, so yeah.
Music and Flower Farming Integration
00:55:19
Speaker
Incredible. I can just picture you out in the field with the dahlias and the harp. Is it called strumming the harp? Or what do you... Yeah, you strum and you pluck and that's right. But I'm sure it's just like so harmonious just to have the soft sounds and the dahlias blowing in the wind. I'll have to do some videos with both together next year just to satiate that vision. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:55:47
Speaker
It's more so, it's something that I think, you know, I'll be out there and I sing all the time. I do sing to my dailyers. I know that sounds crazy and sometimes I have my music on and I'm dancing as well, but it's a bit crazy out there. My neighbours must think I'm absolutely mad, but I think it makes a difference. I think it makes a difference if you sing to the dailyers. Certainly it's a happy place for me, so it's somewhere that I will sing.
00:56:11
Speaker
It's obviously working for you because your hybrids are absolutely stunning. I'm just amazed at what you have been able to create in four years and I hope that someday your hybrids can find their way to the United States because they're truly magnificent and you've done a beautiful job and you should be really proud of what you've accomplished in the last four years. I can't wait to see in four more years where you're at with your breeding of dahlias.
00:56:38
Speaker
Well, thank you, Jen. That's so beautiful. But the thing is, there's nothing special about what we do here. And I really believe that if everyone just tries it, it's also, one more thing I'll say about it too, is I think a lot of people get very stressed by buying the tubers. You know, we're all aware of this crazy, the, you know, hunger games of tuba buying just grow from seed. I really can't recommend it more. It's something that's so satisfying because
00:57:04
Speaker
you're creating something new and it's you're working with nature which is the most incredible creative partner that you can ever imagine so it's it's something that if you just throw yourself into it if you just try because i think a lot of people are scared and they think they're going to get a whole lot of just little yellow singles or something but if you just try i think you'll be surprised i think the listeners will
00:57:26
Speaker
You know, yes, you've got to accept that there's going to be not all perfect ones, but that's kind of part of life as well. And it's a good lesson for us all as well. So yeah, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful, beautiful world to explore.
00:57:40
Speaker
someone reminded me just recently about how there's beauty in the imperfection. Absolutely. And no flower is perfect, but they're beautiful. And it also kind of had me think when I share pictures and I'm like, okay, should I keep this or should I toss it? And people are in arms. They're like, you can't throw that away. I'm like, well,
00:58:01
Speaker
It has a wobbly head, so I can't keep it. But it's true. It is a beautiful flower. It's created by nature, and it is unique and special. And I think there are those beautiful lessons and reminders. And I feel so blessed to be part of the hybridization world because we get to experience that firsthand of seeing that beauty that truly is imperfect, yet so perfect at the same time.
Artistic and Creative Aspects of Dahlias
00:58:28
Speaker
Absolutely. It absolutely does. And it all depends on the perspective, because this is the other thing too. I've got a couple of friends, one of them is a painter, and she loves a dahlia with a floppy head, because it gives her so much scope for painting, you know. So any of my seedlings, because she's also a grower, so any of my seedlings that are really floppy, they just go down the other end of the mountain for Loretta, and she grows those ones up for her painting. So she's a painter, and then I've got another friend who's
00:58:55
Speaker
She grows to press flowers, for edible flowers, and she loves anything that's a single, anything that doesn't have much depth to it, that she can press, that's got beautiful colorings. So it's wonderful, anything like that. I could just send down to Penang vera to Simone. So it's wonderful, and it just depends on the perspective. So it's so true. Not only are things not perfect, but, you know, they've got their own perfection in the right context. And I think that's a beautiful lesson for us all to remember as well.
00:59:25
Speaker
Absolutely. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Truly is.
00:59:30
Speaker
Well, Beck, I've had so much fun chatting with you today and I know that we could continue this conversation for hours, but it's early morning where you are and you probably have a busy day ahead of you. Before we say goodbye today, could you share with our listeners how can they find you? I know you're taking a little bit of a break from Instagram if you're listening in the spring of 2024, but you'll be coming back to Instagram. Is that correct?
00:59:56
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's my favourite place to be. So yes, absolutely. So I'm just serenade underscore dahlias on Instagram and that is the best place to find me. In the season, I'm posting, oh goodness, every day, plus stories all through the days. I get very excited there and I'm very active in messages, so I'm constantly getting back to people in that way too. So yes, I'm taking a little break in our winter, but I'll definitely back as soon as spring hits and we're planting again. I'll be back there as well.
01:00:26
Speaker
And then if someone's in Australia, you do have a website as well for customers. Is that correct? Yeah, we do serenadefarm.com.au. So people can find us there. We aren't doing a tuba sale this year. We're not even doing a plant or seed sale this year, which is a bit mean, but we are certainly selling our cut flowers again next season. And then the following year, we will be looking to release some of our special serenade dahlias. So for Australians, you can find us there as well.
01:00:55
Speaker
Perfect, and I'll include links in our show notes for both your website and Instagram so people can be sure to find Jukes. I know everyone's gonna be anxious after this episode if they're not already scrolling on their phones to check out your gorgeous dahlias. Okay, so before we say goodbye today, do you have any parting advice that you would like to share with our listeners today? Oh goodness, I think the most important thing is to find your own way. Find your own journey, find your own way of doing it,
01:01:24
Speaker
If that for you is grow by seed, try doing that. If it's not, just do something that suits you. I think we're looking around all the time and seeing what everybody else is doing, but just look inside yourself and have some curiosity, have some curiosity to find out what really works for you. So that's the best advice I can give.
01:01:43
Speaker
It's beautiful advice. Thank you, Beck. And I would love to bring you back on the podcast. Maybe let's hear. I know your seasons are different. So I'm thinking when it's time for planting again in your season, as we're ending our season, it would be great to bring you back on the podcast and have another conversation with you.
01:02:02
Speaker
That would be absolutely delightful. I've had such a lovely time. Thank you so much, Jen. Likewise. Thank you. And enjoy the rest of your season. And happy planting to our listeners in the northern hemisphere. I enjoyed this conversation. And I can't wait to chat with you again, Beck. Have a wonderful day. You too.
01:02:23
Speaker
Thank you Flower Friends for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today, whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer.
01:02:39
Speaker
you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends.
01:03:02
Speaker
Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.