Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 91: Dahlia Hybridizing with Kristine Albrecht of Santa Cruz Dahlias
275 Plays1 hour ago
There are people who grow dahlias, and then there are people who spend two decades quietly shaping what dahlias can become. Kristine Albrecht is one of those people.
From a weed-choked quarter acre in Santa Cruz, California, Kristine has built an extraordinary breeding program, growing 1,500 seedlings a year and selecting only about 50 to carry forward. Her cultivars (all marked with the K.A. prefix) have won some of the highest honors in the dahlia world, including multiple Daryl Hart Awards and the Stanley Johnson Medal. She was the first California breeder to receive that honor.
In this conversation, Kristine walks us through how she got started (giant pumpkins played a role), what hand pollination actually looks like in the field, why she keeps organza bags on everything in August, and what traits she's breeding for right now. We also get into soil health, virus testing, the Juicy Fruit gopher trick, and why your soil test matters more than any recipe you'll find online.
Key Takeaways
- Hybridizing is a numbers game and a patience game. Kristine starts with 1,500 seedlings and keeps about 50 by season's end.
- Hand pollination gives you more control over traits. Open pollination from bees adds genetic diversity. Both are valuable.
- First-year seedlings are incredibly vigorous, and most are virus-free when grown from seed.
- About 87% of older dahlia varieties carry virus, which is why new, clean varieties matter so much.
- There is no universal soil recipe for dahlias. Get a soil test and feed based on what YOUR soil actually needs.
- Kristine practices no-till farming with cover crops, building soil biology over time rather than tilling each year.
- She carries a bleach solution in a wearable pack to sanitize cutting tools between every plant.
- Patience is everything. Some breeding goals take 4 years. Some take 15.
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Santa Cruz Dahlias website: santacruzdahlias.com
- Kristine's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/santacruzdahlias/
- Kristine's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kristinealbrecht3560
- Book: Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer, Florist, and the Home Gardener https://amzn.to/4sEjn1Q
- Book: Dahlias: Seed to Bloom https://amzn.to/4myYF25
- Stonehouse Dahlias (licensed seller of K.A. varieties. Sales are every other Saturday from March 21 through May 16.) https://stonehousedahlias.com/
Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2026/04/16/ep-91-dahlia-hybridizing-with-kristine-albrecht/
Guest Bio
Kristine Albrecht is a dahlia hybridizer and grower at Santa Cruz Dahlias in Santa Cruz, California. She's been growing dahlias since 2006 on a quarter-acre suburban plot that's home to over 2,600 dahlias. Kristine is vice president of the Monterey Bay Dahlia Society, author of two dahlia books, and a tireless advocate for excellence in dahlia cultivation. Her K.A. cultivars have earned national recognition including multiple Daryl Hart Awards, the Stanley Johnson Medal (she was the first California breeder to receive it), and the Les Connell Medal.
Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Christine Albrecht
00:00:54
Jennifer Gulizia
Today's guest is Kristine Albrecht of Santa Cruz Dahlias. And if you've ever spent any time in the dahlia world, the chances are her work has already influenced you, whether you realize it or not.
Christine's Dahlia Journey Begins
00:01:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Kristine dahlia journey began in 2006 when she reclaimed a weed-choked fallow quarter acre in suburban Santa Cruz, California, and has slowly transformed it into an extraordinary garden home to over 2,600 dahlias.
From Soil Nurturing to Breeding
00:01:25
Jennifer Gulizia
What started as feeding the soil and learning the rhythms of the land has evolved into a lifelong devotion to dahlia hybridizing. Kristine is especially known for breeding cultivars with complex color patterns and And distinctive forms, varieties that florists and designers love just as much as they impress on the show bench.
Recognition and Awards
00:01:48
Jennifer Gulizia
Kristine hybridizes dahlias that meet rigorous standards of the American Dahlia Society, where her work has earned national recognition year after year. Her cultivars each begin with the K.A. prefix and have won some of the highest honors in the Dahlia world, including multiple Daryl Hart Awards, the Stanley Johnson Medal, and the Les Connell Medal. Kristine actually made history as the first California breeder to receive the Stanley Johnson Medal. which is awarded to the hybridizer whose cultivar earned the most top ribbons across the U.S. in a single year.
00:02:28
Jennifer Gulizia
In addition to her breeding, Kristine is also vice president of the Monterey Bay Dahlia Society.
Roles and Publications
00:02:35
Jennifer Gulizia
She's an accomplished author of several Dahlia books and is a tireless advocate for preserving excellence in Dahlia cultivation and hybridizing.
00:02:45
Jennifer Gulizia
Today's conversation is going to be a fun one. We're going to talk about hybridizing the patience required to breed exceptional flowers and what it truly takes to leave a lasting mark on the Dahlia world.
00:02:59
Jennifer Gulizia
Kristine welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. It's such an honor to have you here today.
00:03:05
kristine Albrecht
Thank you for having me, Jennifer. This is so much fun for me to talk about, Dahlia. So you've given me a gift today. Thank you.
00:03:12
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, this has been a long one coming. So many people over the last two years, which I can't believe this podcast has been going for that long already, have requested every month to have you on the podcast. So I'm so excited to finally be having this conversation with you.
00:03:30
kristine Albrecht
Well, thank you again for having me. this is This is great. Thank
00:03:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're recording in March. This episode will probably come out in April, but you are already in the thick of Dahlia season.
Weather Impact on Dahlia Farming
00:03:44
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, we are. We have ah we have about a half our farm in the ground right now. California is pretty dry, so we can get our dahlias in sooner than than most. And we've had a really mild winter as well.
00:03:57
Jennifer Gulizia
We've had a mild winter. I feel so bad for everyone on the East Coast that's still battling snow. it's It's wild to see how the weather patterns have shifted so much recently.
00:04:09
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, that's, it's crazy. I mean, we're at 96 degrees here today, which is super hot and we're at what, at March 18th today. So it's very unusual weather. um I'm a little worried about my little seedlings in the ground, but so far so good.
Protection Techniques for Dahlias
00:04:25
Jennifer Gulizia
How are you protecting your seedlings
00:04:27
kristine Albrecht
Oh, well, i I plant them in the ground usually, and then I put agribond over it, which is row cover that usually keeps the heat in and um keeps the pests off of them early season.
00:04:38
kristine Albrecht
But um because it's so hot, actually, I appreciate it for its shade value as well. So I've rolled up the edges so that you have airflow in there and it doesn't get so hot.
00:04:44
Jennifer Gulizia
and um
00:04:49
kristine Albrecht
But at the same time, it's it's working as almost like an umbrella for the dahlias.
00:04:56
Jennifer Gulizia
It's really a labor of love when you realize how much effort you are putting into this. I mean, most people put their dahlias, especially their seedlings in the ground, like where I am in June, and I can just put them after I've acclimated them and leave them, but you are literally having to nurture them
00:05:15
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:05:15
Jennifer Gulizia
after they're already planted right now.
00:05:17
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, you kind of have to if you put them in early. i mean, part of it is we don't have a greenhouse. I work out of my living room mostly. And so I run out of room. So far, I think I have nine grow lights.
00:05:28
kristine Albrecht
um But after, you know, that's all taken up, then the the plants have to go outside. So 1,500 first year seedlings go out. pretty quickly once they're big enough to go out.
00:05:40
kristine Albrecht
And so, but the Agrabond works, our temperatures are good. We have our frost, frast last frost date is probably April 1st, but it's been, like I said, so warm this year that we could get them in early.
00:05:53
kristine Albrecht
And then the Agrabond also protects from frost, like it gives you a couple couple more degrees. So if it was going to go to 32, but it was 29, the plants would be fine under that.
00:06:03
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
00:06:04
kristine Albrecht
In some winters when it's really cold, I've had to put like a second blanket on and then you get like six degree protection. And, you know, we usually get cold like that for one or two days.
00:06:15
kristine Albrecht
So it's usually not a problem. I feel lucky that we have that much able ability to plant in early because it is fun to get dahlias.
00:06:24
kristine Albrecht
We can usually get some more, some before a mother's day, like 250 blooms or something like that. So our florists in town like that aspect of it for sure.
00:06:35
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I would die to have flowers or dahlias for Mother's Day. I mean, we get peonies and ranunculus, but to have dahlias is really incredible. I don't even think, I mean, it's so dark and gloomy here and cold. I can't even wake my dahlias up in time to get them planted.
00:06:53
Jennifer Gulizia
um Maybe someday with a hoop house, but right now I get to admire your beautiful pictures when you start posting them on Instagram when they start blooming and I get to live vicariously through that.
00:06:59
kristine Albrecht
oh
00:07:05
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, there are a few bigger farms around here that do have greenhouses and do grow dahlias, get them in and get them going early. So um we're we're kind of near Watsonville, California, that has a lot of agriculture.
00:07:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:07:19
kristine Albrecht
And so there's a lot there are a few big flower farms down there. So they all have greenhouses that they work out of. But we're on a quarter of an acre, so we don't even have a greenhouse. So we just do what we can with that small amount of space.
00:07:34
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that you said that. And I want to now talk a little bit about your story because I think you're so relatable for so many people because you don't have acres upon acres. And like you said, you don't even have a greenhouse, but yet you grow thousands of dahlias. Can you tell us how did you get started?
From Fundraising to Gardening Passion
00:07:54
kristine Albrecht
Well, it was kind of an interesting story. um i i kind of, I had a career ah at a school that I was, i was working at a school as a fundraiser for a nonprofit school. And then we also had two children. So those were my two main jobs um up until my kids were like in junior high and high school. And then they decided that their mom wasn't as needed anymore. And so um I really enjoyed gardening my whole life. It started with my dad. having a veggie garden when I was a kid and enjoying that process with him.
00:08:25
kristine Albrecht
And then I did have a garden in college. And then also when we moved to this house that we're in here in the 80s, I had had a garden out in the front yard here. And so I've always enjoyed um gardening. And so when... um Brian started ah organizing a well, running ah a bed and breakfast. um My husband ran a bed and breakfast. He said, hey, how about you grow some dahlias for the rooms? And I was like, okay. But I first started out with zinnias and I thought, well, those might be easier to grow than dahlias. And I had no experience growing actually either of those. I had just grown grown vegetables. And so started I started right in and ah grew zinnias the first year. And then a friend gave me some dahlias from Costco. And I said, oh, these are amazing. i joined our local dahlias society. They are very generous with the tubers. They're like, here, have everything you want. And so I was able by the second year to have 60 dahlias and just here at my house. um
00:09:28
kristine Albrecht
I didn't really ah clean up the farm, which is my quarter acre that I farm on now until a couple of years into the process, because it was a big job cleaning that up.
00:09:39
kristine Albrecht
um It had dead trees, lots of bushes, tons of weeds. um So I did maybe a third of it at first, and then did another third, and then another third, just because it was so much work.
00:09:50
kristine Albrecht
um Yeah, so back in the old days, people also didn't take their garbage to ah dumps, typically. And so they would just dig a hole in their property and and dump things.
00:10:01
kristine Albrecht
So we found shoes, ah you know, one of the dog dog tags from the army, we found one of those there. We find marbles, you know, all kinds of things.
00:10:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Bye.
00:10:10
kristine Albrecht
It's kind of fun. Even now, every once in while, I'll find something. So I started um kind of expanding out to the farm at some point.
Mentorship and Pollination Techniques
00:10:20
kristine Albrecht
In 2006, I started the farm and cleaned that up and got dahlias going, joined my Dahlia Society, which was super helpful.
00:10:30
kristine Albrecht
And then At some point along the way, I i had a luck to have a lot of really nice ah hybridizers actually in our dahlia society that were really kind of my mentors. And um they were already hybridizing dahlias. Kevin and Karen, kevin Kevin Larkin and Karen Zeidner were already hybridizing some really great dahlias.
00:10:56
kristine Albrecht
And so I was like, this looks like really a lot of fun. And so, um, because I had also hybridized giant pumpkins with my son, that was something we did together.
00:11:07
kristine Albrecht
That was super fun. ah for like seven years, we grew, i think the largest pumpkin we grew was 780 pounds. And, um, that's kind of a pumpkin that a kid can jump inside of, you know, and stick their feet out of the eyes if you carve it at Halloween, which we used to do.
00:11:16
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wow.
00:11:21
Jennifer Gulizia
Totally.
00:11:25
kristine Albrecht
But, um, Yeah, so they all hand pollinated and hand crossed for those giant pumpkins. So I actually learned about hand hand pollination through the giant pumpkins that my son and I grew.
00:11:39
kristine Albrecht
And that was a really, you know, good learning experience for me because they did cover up the male and the female parts of the pumpkin.
00:11:45
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
00:11:47
kristine Albrecht
And then we would take pollen from one to the other and then, you know, try to come up with the biggest pumpkin we could. We were We were hybridizing for size, not for color, not for looks, because they all look kind of funny.
00:12:00
kristine Albrecht
But um yeah, so we worked hard with hybridizing and learning hybridizing that way I did. And so when it came time to hybridize dahlias, it was kind of something I had already kind of learned to do.
00:12:14
kristine Albrecht
And um I was hand pollinating pumpkins. And there weren't very many people at all hand pollinating dahlias.
00:12:21
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
00:12:23
kristine Albrecht
But at the same time, I was super fortunate that my sister-in-law is a hybridizer of many, many different kinds of flowers over a 30 year career for her. And she was very helpful in encouraging me to keep hand pollinating because most of what she did was hand pollination because it gets you a little closer to your goals a little quicker.
00:12:46
kristine Albrecht
And so, um we I was fortunate to kind of start working with her pretty soon, pretty early on, after a couple years of disasters.
00:12:58
kristine Albrecht
My first couple years, I didn't realize that you needed to take out any open center dahlias out of your patch, at least cut them down and remove all the blooms.
00:13:05
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:13:09
kristine Albrecht
if you are wanting to get fully double dahlias. And that is what's my goal initially was to get a fully double dahlia. I just didn't want to get a single dahlia, like an eight petal dahlia with an open center.
00:13:22
kristine Albrecht
And so for two years, I thought something was wrong with my patch because I had maybe a fifth or not even a fifth, like 10 10 dahlias that were open center and everything else was fully doubled, which means the petals go all the way back.
00:13:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
00:13:40
kristine Albrecht
And, but when I grew up my seedlings, almost every single one, I mean, every single one, I not, I didn't get one fully doubled dahlia in my whole patch. And so I was really discouraged.
00:13:51
kristine Albrecht
I did that for two years and then took a year break and then started again and started with hand pollinating because I knew With hand pollination, it doesn't really matter what you have in your field, like whether you have open center or fully doubled ones, because you're covering up the the blooms before the bees have gotten to them at all, like when they're really young.
00:14:14
kristine Albrecht
And so you can... you can really have anything in your field um as long as you you have it, you know, like I was hand pollinating from one fully doubled to another fully doubled.
00:14:25
kristine Albrecht
So I knew I was going to get better outcome with that. So,
00:14:30
Jennifer Gulizia
Now to do that, you had to cover them though, is that correct? So that the bees couldn't mix what you had already been working on.
00:14:33
kristine Albrecht
yeah.
00:14:38
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, so if you look at my field, actually I start hand pollinating pretty much as soon as i get my first blooms. um So I will cover those up and if if they're what I want and they're working me towards my goals, I will cover them up ah in in June or July and then hand cross those together. So, you know, I will start early, but if you come and visit my farm in August, you will see organza bags everywhere.
00:15:09
kristine Albrecht
because you have to protect those blooms from the bees. Otherwise, they'll be doing the selection for you, which is good too. And I do do that myself at the end of the season. I do let the bees do open pollination, basically on on my dahlias at the end of the season. But early season, i do all hand pollination. So this year, I've started 1,500 seed. um And I would say that probably um like three quarters of them are hand pollinated and a quarter are open pollination.
00:15:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing.
00:15:44
kristine Albrecht
And yeah, what's good about open pollination is that the bees are doing the selection and and you get a lot more genetic diversity by them doing it.
00:15:45
Jennifer Gulizia
amazinging
00:15:54
kristine Albrecht
And so i think it's important in your field to not get, um you know, super inbred. So if you just, for example, chose the same seed and pollen parent every year, that would be considered like a lot of inbreeding. And what happens with dahlias and inbreeding is you can get a lot of inbreeding depression, which which can cause ah the plants to not grow very well. I mean, we all know that like like families that interbreed, you know, it's not the best. And so even with dahlias, it's not the best too. So you can get like spots on your leaves, you can get a lot less vigor, you can get
00:16:36
kristine Albrecht
really great outcomes because they you're kind of concentrating some of the the traits that you want but you can also concentrate bad traits that they have that there are moving forward into your into your bloom so i typically like the open pollination for that fact for sure
00:16:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Interesting. So I'm curious when you're saying how it can become kind of inbred, I'm trying to figure out the right way to ask this here. i have heard about breeding down the line, how you want to keep crossing back to a parent if you are finding a trait that you like.
00:17:16
Jennifer Gulizia
Is that considered inbreeding then when you're breeding down the line?
00:17:19
kristine Albrecht
Well, i think i think it it is in a way, but I think that is common to do for like maybe a couple generations. But if you just kept doing that for multiple, multiple, multiple generations, it's not uncommon like for me to um to breed two siblings together.
00:17:34
kristine Albrecht
So you have the parents and then you get seeds from those parents and then you breed those together. i definitely do that. Yeah. And sometimes I breed back to one of the parents.
00:17:45
kristine Albrecht
So I can do that. Like say I'm getting close to the color I want, but one parent is just the exact color I want, but I'm you working on a new form. I might take that original parent and breed back to to one of the siblings too.
00:18:00
kristine Albrecht
So most, a lot of the time, sometimes I'm going to say, sometimes you get one and done dahlias, which I call one and done, which means The first year you grow them out, they're just perfect.
00:18:11
kristine Albrecht
You can't see any changes you'd like to make. But a lot of times in breeding, it's a multiple year process. Like my sister-in-law, who is a breeder, she worked one time on one cross that she was hoping to get and an outcome she was trying to get for 15 years.
00:18:27
kristine Albrecht
And for me, sometimes um I'm working on
00:18:28
Jennifer Gulizia
well
00:18:31
kristine Albrecht
for example, palms right now, and I've been working on them for four years now. So, you know, um you know, I'm not getting the pedal count I want. So now I'm trying to either back cross or cross out to somebody else that maybe will give me higher pedaled count, things like that. So it's kind of challenging, all that.
00:18:51
kristine Albrecht
And it takes a lot of patience. And, um you know, ideally, you would be working on something for years, like I've been working on a brown dahlia for years and years now. And I'm getting kind of close with Kay's Creme Brulee is probably the closest brown that I've gotten.
00:19:08
kristine Albrecht
Kay's Moca Maya is a little bit brown. But um I would like it to be like the Rose Coco Loco.
00:19:11
Jennifer Gulizia
the
00:19:14
kristine Albrecht
Do you know that rose?
00:19:15
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I love that, Rose.
00:19:17
kristine Albrecht
It's so beautiful. That color is just amazing. So I'm still working towards that. But um yeah, each year I set my goals. And so I crossed the year before knowing that what my goals are.
00:19:31
kristine Albrecht
So one of the things I'm working on is informal decoratives and but in a real small size, a size that would be work really well for florist and designers.
00:19:41
kristine Albrecht
because ah there aren't that many small informal decoratives out there. So those ah informal decorative dahlias are ones where the petals twist and turn, and that you have a lot more movement than with the formal decoratives where everything marches back just perfectly.
00:19:56
kristine Albrecht
So um I really am working on on trying to bring down the size of ah of an informal decorative. And then we're working on balls too, because we know that florist and designers really like balls.
00:20:11
kristine Albrecht
It's it's a variety it's a form that ah works really well for weddings and for design work, especially because it has a really great vase life.
00:20:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely.
00:20:22
kristine Albrecht
And I know, um you know, dahlias aren't known for their super long vase life.
00:20:23
Jennifer Gulizia
so
00:20:27
kristine Albrecht
They're not like an Ostromaria or a rose, which can take a little more heat and a little more, um travel damage and things like that than dahlias can. But, um, so I'm working on balls of all different colors. So we've got, um, like Kay's boho rose coming out, uh, this year, which is a really beautiful rose color ball. Um, we've had Kay's, um,
00:20:52
kristine Albrecht
honeycomb. I don't know if you know that one, but that one's been really good.
00:20:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:20:55
kristine Albrecht
And we have Kay's sicilian summer. So those sicilian summer and boho rose are new this year. And stonehouse dahlias is introducing those through their for through their ah cuttings that they sell.
00:21:09
kristine Albrecht
And the first sale is is in March and they go through, ah I'm going to look at the dates, but I think they go through April and into May a little bit.
00:21:19
kristine Albrecht
So it's every two weeks. And when you order those, you order them on a Saturday and they ship them out on a Monday. So it's a really quick turnaround once you order.
00:21:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wa
00:21:29
kristine Albrecht
So it's a good idea if you are going to order um cuttings that you, because they come in as little plants, to order them really close to the time that you're going to be planting them.
00:21:39
kristine Albrecht
Unless you have a greenhouse, unless you have grow lights, you can then just pot them up and wait till the perfect temperature and they get a little bigger. Um, I tend to do that. Um, but, uh, early season, I would like Stonehouse will send me some cuttings early and I'll pot them up and wait till they get a little bit bigger and the temperature is better outside to put them out.
00:21:59
kristine Albrecht
But, you know, they're ready for planting pretty much within a day or two of receiving them. So, um, Anyway, Stonehouse is a great way to get some of those new varieties.
00:22:09
kristine Albrecht
And Galena at Microflower Farm, she also sells a few of ours. And she sold ah Novella Rosa this year and um Grandma Sib, which is named after my mom.
00:22:22
kristine Albrecht
um And those are those she sold earlier and sold those out pretty quickly.
00:22:23
Jennifer Gulizia
all
00:22:28
kristine Albrecht
So, yeah. So we're working on different things.
00:22:31
Jennifer Gulizia
you had
00:22:32
kristine Albrecht
So...
00:22:34
Jennifer Gulizia
ah You just gave me so much information to process there. i It's amazing when you start thinking about what goes into it. I think so many people have been bit by the bug of growing dahlias and now more of society or more gardeners are realizing oh, this is really fun to also see what you can get from a seed. For me, it feels like it's like Christmas morning. It's like, oh what's gonna bloom? Because it's that mystery. It's like, who cares about Christmas morning presents? I wanna see what dahlias I'm gonna get from my seeds. And I think a lot of people feel that excitement
00:23:08
Jennifer Gulizia
But it's so much more than just what meets the eye. It's not just collecting these from the bees and planting something and going, oh, that's really pretty. I'm going to release it next year.
00:23:19
Jennifer Gulizia
there's I mean, you're talking about 20 years you've been growing dahlias and now hybridizing them.
00:23:24
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:23:26
Jennifer Gulizia
It's not an overnight magic that all of a sudden you've got this variety out in the world. You're talking about trying to create a brown one. How many years have you been working on some of these varieties?
00:23:37
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah. Or these these, not varieties per se, but I guess it's more the, is gold the right word or like
00:23:37
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:23:44
kristine Albrecht
The, yeah, goals, I think is the right word. Yeah. Well, um, Yeah, it it it is a long-term process. You have to have a lot of patience. You have to be willing to wait another year to to maybe get what you want.
00:24:01
kristine Albrecht
And yeah, i I think it's great that so many people are jumping in and um starting seeds because um hybridizing is a numbers game.
Selecting Traits for Longevity
00:24:12
kristine Albrecht
So the more of us that that plant out Dahlia seeds, the more chances of any of us getting one that's really beautiful and one that will last over time.
00:24:22
kristine Albrecht
You know, i think it's important that they have certain traits that that that let them ah b have longevity. So that would be um like a good bloom attachment, a strong stem, ah ah For me, color is really important, a good color that the tubers store well, um that they give you a lot a fair amount of blooms all season.
00:24:46
kristine Albrecht
Like there's a couple um varieties that I just love, but I get five blooms all season from them. I'm like, okay, i either need to hybridize a new one that is a lot more vigorous in the bloom department or just need to move on and and try something else.
00:25:02
kristine Albrecht
So the traits are really important, I think. for all of us who are hybridizing that we try for the best traits we can. So for me, for fully doubled, they have to have a big petal count.
00:25:12
kristine Albrecht
I like to have a big petal count. And part of the reason is that you've probably noticed with dahlias, like early season, they tend to have a lower petal count. Then mid-season, they're really pretty full and then lower.
00:25:23
kristine Albrecht
Then towards the end of the season, again, they have kind of a low petal count. And so I think if they start with an extra load of petals that you'll have a better early season and a better a better late season for them that.
00:25:37
kristine Albrecht
So, yeah, so we're always working on those traits and thinking about those traits and, you know, working towards our goals. I think it's, I think it is a really good job, a really good idea to have goals um if you are going to be hybridizing dahlias.
00:25:55
kristine Albrecht
I mean, I would say give yourself a break the first couple years and just get good at Starting your dahlia seeds, growing your dahlia seedlings and making sure you understand that.
00:26:08
kristine Albrecht
and And because it's kind of different than tubers, you're basically putting in a small plant.
00:26:11
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:26:13
kristine Albrecht
And so you want to make sure it's the right time to do that. um And, ah you know, i think you give yourself a couple years and then maybe think about goals that you want. um A lot of the hybridizers out there working do have do have goals. So um I think it's a good idea. Otherwise, it's a little bit of hit and miss. Otherwise, if you know, and maybe keeping the same things year after year. um But I think you also have to leave open the idea of,
00:26:42
kristine Albrecht
looking at these dahlias and saying, that one doesn't fit in my goal, but it's amazing. And I should keep that one because I know some ah hybridizers in the past, like for example, only wanted B-sized dahlias. And if everything else was was smaller, like B-sized is like six inches or bigger, six to eight inches, like he might have a ah BB size, which florists and designers would love, you know, the smaller size. And and he would just throw them out no matter what the color, no matter anything.
00:27:15
kristine Albrecht
So I think we need to be really open to seeing new varieties that that aren't out there. You know, there's ah Sandy Bullies, Sandy, a tulip that's out there, which is really unusual.
00:27:29
kristine Albrecht
If she was just looking at her water lilies and saying, all I'm looking for is water lilies, she might've thrown that one out, you know? So, you know, there's a lot out there that,
00:27:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:27:43
kristine Albrecht
that people probably in the past have thrown out that would have been great to keep. So I think it's good to keep an open mind too on on the dahlias, even though you might have goals that you're working towards.
00:27:55
Jennifer Gulizia
I'm glad you say that because I know i had the privilege of you and Brian coming to my farm in, i think that was, was it September or October this last year?
Preserving Genetic Diversity
00:28:06
Jennifer Gulizia
And you walked through my first year seedlings. And I remember there was this one that was grown from Cornell bronze and it looks a lot like Cornell bronze. And I told you that I was going to get rid of it because it looks so much like it, but you encouraged me to keep it Because you said that we need those future generations that have similar traits, but maybe will give us, and I might be wrong on some of this, so please correct me. But I think you said something about it might have new disease um capabilities or it like this one happened to be taller in its first year. We'll see what it does this year. But it was it was not quite like Cornell Bronze, but it it had a lot of similar characteristics. And you encouraged me to keep it when I was ready to get rid of it.
00:28:52
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, i think i think that's a really good idea if it's like hit checking all your trait boxes and everything you want, but it's kind of similar to an older variety that's been out there for a while. a lot of the older varieties, like 87% are out there are virused. And so sometimes with virus on board, they start to kind of not disintegrate, but to fall apart as ah as a bloom. So it's so good to have new ones that can replace them. Because typically, dahlias grown from seed, in my experience anyway, um most of them are not virused. And so, you know, when you do grow from seed, you can get a really clean, really vigorous plant um growing. I mean, I'm just amazed at how vigorous dahlias can be when they don't have have virus on board.
00:29:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I mean, my seedlings, I don't know if it's just because I plant them closer together because i'm this will be my fifth year growing my own dahlias from seed. And the seedlings always are taller. They're more vigorous. I get so, so many blooms out of them, even with a poor field. I mean, we were ducking through my seedlings because I didn't get them all netted when you were out here.
00:30:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Is that, have you found that through your years of breeding that first year seedlings just tend to perform better than others?
00:30:13
kristine Albrecht
Oh, yeah. They yeah are so vigorous. And um that's what I love about growing seedlings, too, is the plants are so healthy and just right off the bat. I mean, have I found ones that are virused? Yes. um You know, we do a fair amount of testing for virus um because we when we ah bring ah our plants to...
00:30:37
kristine Albrecht
to Stonehouse, they have to be virus-free. we do three rounds of testing and then they do rounds of testing too. So when they're when they're multiplying them, you know, they know that they're clean. And so, but having a clean variety is really makes the vigor so much better. So I'm super excited about growing things from seed. because most of them don't have virus that I've seen.
00:31:03
kristine Albrecht
And I do a fair amount of testing, so.
00:31:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes, I'm sure. i can only imagine how much.
00:31:08
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:31:09
Jennifer Gulizia
um Are you testing for, ah what are you testing for when you test seriously?
00:31:15
kristine Albrecht
We we test we test um first for Dahlia mosaic virus um because in our experience, in our field, most of the Dahlias, if they're sick ah have Dahlia mosaic virus. I very rarely have seen like um tobacco streak virus or tomato spotted wilt virus or impatient necrotic spotted virus in my field. I really have seen that very rarely. So we first test with, for Dahlia mosaic virus. And that is a test that you can't really do in-house unless you've, you've purchased the very expensive machine to do it and all that. So we send that out for testing. And, um,
00:31:58
kristine Albrecht
So that's where we start. We start by testing the ones that we want to introduce. We test them either year one or year two of growing because the longer they have have it in your field, in their field that your field, the chances of virus are higher. um But we also are really careful about how we cut our dahlias.
00:32:19
kristine Albrecht
We have a pack on our side with 10% bleach solution in it and our SNPs go into that between each plant. And so ah we are really working hard to keep our field clean.
00:32:32
kristine Albrecht
um We know though, that when we bring in other other varieties for hybridizing, we keep them kind of separate, um that that probably 87% of those are virused.
00:32:44
kristine Albrecht
So, but yeah, so we just, we work hard to try to keep our field as clean as possible.
00:32:45
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:32:51
kristine Albrecht
And any of the ones that we're introducing through Stonehouse have been tested quite a few times, like four to six times before they get multiplied and sold to the public.
00:33:03
Jennifer Gulizia
That's incredible. Okay. You just said something that has my mind unable to focus on anything else. You said you carry a 10% bleach solution in a pack. Is that something you're wearing?
00:33:15
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, we're wearing it. So it's not like I have to walk over there and dip it into like a cup with it. So um so all of us who cut, we wear our really old clothes because ah the the bleach gets on your clothes, even if you're careful. But um I've worked on on kind of creating this pack that goes on the side and then the the tools go right into it. So as you're walking, they're they're getting washed by the bleach solution and it's not spilling everywhere. Well, at first it was until we figured it out, but now we can we can do that and everybody who cuts. So we we do We do grow our varieties out and we do sell to our local florists and designers. And one of the reasons we do that is we really want to see how our varieties are working out there in the world. And so um I'd say like 90% of what we cut for our florists and designers are our varieties. And um so it's really good for us to see how the whole process works from the beginning to the end.
00:34:23
kristine Albrecht
But yeah, we have developed a little device.
00:34:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:34:26
kristine Albrecht
um I would share it, but it's um it it needs some more ah little more work. Yeah, because it's made...
00:34:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Maybe there's a grant for you to get that figured out because all of us are probably, everyone I'm sure that's listening is like, how do I do this? Because I ruin all my clothes with bleach
00:34:44
kristine Albrecht
Right. Right. Well, even with this but this good process, it's pretty good and not very spillable. We still get some bleach on our clothes. So we, you know, you wouldn't want to wear your best clothes when you were cutting in our fields either, but the whole crew wears these and they know that's how, what we do at our farm. um But yeah, if someone's interested, I'm happy to talk to them about developing that because um I'm not really interested in doing it myself.
00:35:14
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing though because I mean, I've tried everything. i gosh, this was like when viruses first really became well-known. This was probably like 22 maybe is about when people really started getting afraid of the viruses and dahlias.
00:35:29
Jennifer Gulizia
I went on Amazon and I bought sippy cup lids to go on all of my mason jars and then I cut holes in them So just the tips would fit in and they were silicone and they worked pretty well.
00:35:42
Jennifer Gulizia
But every time I'd pull them out, they would still splash all over the place. And I'm carrying mason jars in a container and like a tote around the field. And now that our dogs come to the farm, it's like, are the dogs going to drink the bleach?
00:35:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Am I going to spill it on me?
00:35:56
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:35:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Am I going to shatter glass? There's so much that you have to worry about carrying that bleach to try and keep your field disinfected.
00:36:05
kristine Albrecht
Yeah. Yeah. So we still need to work on that. So if someone's up for it, we should do it.
00:36:12
Jennifer Gulizia
ah You guys have your challenge. Everyone listening to this podcast, if there's someone that has that bandwidth, we all could use that.
00:36:18
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:36:19
Jennifer Gulizia
That's the next million dollar invention for this industry.
00:36:22
kristine Albrecht
betweeningly
00:36:24
kristine Albrecht
Would be a good one.
00:36:24
Jennifer Gulizia
um
00:36:25
Jennifer Gulizia
You said that you cut and sell a lot of your flowers to the florists. I remember you said something a couple years ago that really stood with me is that you pinch your first-year seedlings because you have the potential of being able to sell them. Are you still pinching and selling your first-year seedlings?
00:36:47
kristine Albrecht
um We do sell our first year seedlings from time to time, but mostly my farm um friend and partner, farm partner Jan, and I are the ones that go through the first year seedlings.
00:37:00
kristine Albrecht
I mean, we will cut them and put them into a vase and sometimes those get mixed in with the ones that are being sold to our florist and designers. But in general, we like to take them home now and really like leave them on our counter, really look at them, see if they hold up in base life, things like that.
00:37:18
kristine Albrecht
um So we aren't selling those those too many because much of the time. Because what we do is typically Jan and I will go through a row. And we have those little um garden ah flags, you know, that that ah that have the little tiny flags
Seedling Selection Process
00:37:35
kristine Albrecht
with the metal.
00:37:35
kristine Albrecht
We will will mark which ones we want to pull out. And so um then Debbie, who's one of our helpers, she'll come through and remove all those like that week, at the end of the week.
00:37:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:37:47
kristine Albrecht
So we start out with 1,500 plants growing. But at the end of the season, in that third of an of a quarter of an acre, which is our seedlings, the 1,500 are growing in there.
00:38:00
kristine Albrecht
We have about 50 only left out of 1,500.
00:38:03
Jennifer Gulizia
how
00:38:04
kristine Albrecht
So we remove them weekly as we go. um We move about 100 a week. So if any of you have grown ah seedlings, you know that even with the best parentage, dahlias like to harken back to their their roots, which is eight-petaled open center dahlia.
00:38:26
kristine Albrecht
That's what the dahlias back in the day look like. And so many of them have really low petal count. So they might have three rows of petals, but we're hoping for 30 rows.
00:38:37
kristine Albrecht
And so those ones immediately get taken out. So that's a big percentage of Our dahlias get removed for low petal count. You have funky stems sometimes. um You know, poor growth.
00:38:53
kristine Albrecht
You know, they're they're stunted or they look funny. those Those will come out too. So we're constantly pulling and pulling. And then it's hard at the end. We get down to like 200 and now we have to get down to 50. And some of those 200 are really nice, but they're just not part of our goals. We already have one that kind of looks like that.
00:39:12
kristine Albrecht
So then that gets pulled out. That gets pulled out too. So sometimes it's hard. We've gotten better over the years because we basically have limited space. So if you think about the first year seedlings, you do 50 of them. But the next year you have to grow three of those. So that's 150. So that's more than one of my rows at the farm to grow out as a second year seedling. And so you can see how you can run out of room pretty quickly, especially if you've been doing it for a long time like we have.
00:39:42
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. It's so hard to sometimes narrow them down. Do you give away any of those seedlings that you pull or are you composting all of them so they don't go out in the world?
00:39:52
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, I don't, I don't, um you know i really, really work really hard to have really good traits and anything that's kind of associated with my name or our farm. And so um I, we do just um give those to the green waste basically.
00:40:09
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:40:09
Jennifer Gulizia
Sure.
00:40:11
Jennifer Gulizia
I ah recently interviewed Laura Lee of Floralee in Australia, and she she talked about eating the tubers.
00:40:16
kristine Albrecht
I heard that.
00:40:20
Jennifer Gulizia
I was like, gosh, I wonder, should we be putting these tubers to use somehow? I mean, all of a sudden, there's maybe going to be a surge of ah tuber bread or something, but
00:40:32
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, I mean, I do make muffins out of the tubers from time to time.
00:40:35
Jennifer Gulizia
you do.
00:40:35
kristine Albrecht
Most, yeah, I do bring them to like Dahlia society meetings just for the fun of it.
00:40:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:40:40
kristine Albrecht
And Kevin Larkin, who was a hybridizer in our club for a long time, he used to bring um potato chips made from um Dahlia tubers. And those were really good. Like anything deep fried is great, right?
00:40:52
kristine Albrecht
So they were deep fried Dahlia tubers.
00:40:53
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely.
00:40:54
kristine Albrecht
So those those were really good. And then one year, um, My husband was doing ah food tours in Santa Cruz where we went around. to He went around to different restaurants and talked to people about the history of Santa Cruz and the history of the restaurants. And one of the one of the chefs said, oh, I can make ah because we were complaining that it's really difficult to make Dahlia tubers taste good because we had tried. different things. And he's like, oh, I'm a chef. I can do this. No problem. And, and ah he took, I gave him a bunch of tubers and then he, he said, okay, I give up.
00:41:28
kristine Albrecht
He gave up.
00:41:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:41:28
kristine Albrecht
He couldn't, he couldn't make them taste good. So I think it's, I think there's sort of a limited, um you know, ah ah audience for, for dahlias and some people are nervous about eating them.
00:41:40
kristine Albrecht
So Like even in our club, like, okay, I'm not going to eat your muffin made from, it's kind of like a zucchini muffin. You know, you can, you can do that. You grate it and then you add the cinnamon.
00:41:50
kristine Albrecht
It makes it taste good. Yeah.
00:41:52
Jennifer Gulizia
was there there was such high water content i could see and they look like a potato
00:41:57
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:41:58
Jennifer Gulizia
that But for me, it's that mindset. I'm like, I can't wrap my head around eating something that I'm growing as this cut flower, but I might have to try it this summer. And then she also talked about the petals, eating the petals.
00:42:07
kristine Albrecht
Yeah. cut
00:42:11
Jennifer Gulizia
Have you ever ate the petals?
00:42:13
kristine Albrecht
I've eaten them before, but I don't add them to my salad. i mean, we we tend to spray our dahlias, so I don't really want to be eating.
00:42:19
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:42:21
kristine Albrecht
I mean, even though we spray with organic, um you know, OMRI approved products, it's still, I don't, that doesn't sound like a good idea to me, you know, like horticultural oil, eating that or spinosad based something, you know, so I don't, but you could, I think you could, if you grew organically, for sure, that would be, that would be fun.
00:42:30
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:42:41
kristine Albrecht
Kevin Larkin, who, who was our president of our Monterey Bay Dahlia Society for a long time, he used to um give all his used tubers to his cows, and they loved it, you know, and we, yeah, and we and all know that gophers love them too.
00:42:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, so animals will eat them.
00:42:58
kristine Albrecht
ha
00:42:59
Jennifer Gulizia
We have the biggest gopher holes everywhere on our new farm. Everyone was like, how do you handle gophers and voles? And I'm like, i don't have a problem with them. And i I spoke too soon. It's like they all are here at our new farm.
00:43:13
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, they're they're a challenge.
00:43:13
Jennifer Gulizia
How do you manage them?
00:43:15
kristine Albrecht
Well, just last week we had a gopher, I think it was two gophers in the Dahlia center section. So I had planted all my cuttings, um all the cuttings from Stonehouse in the center section. And that's ones we use for our florists and designers and get them going early so that we can have blooms by Mother's Day. And um I came to the farm and 20 twenty plants were taken out like over a period of two days that was gone for two days and the gopher took out 20 plants and it's very discouraging but we always are on the lookout for for dahlias we use the gopher hawk the maccabee the cinch all gopher traps and we trap our gophers um we do have a neighborhood cat that likes to peruse our garden so that that's helpful But um we we don't have voles yet, but I hear they're coming. So I'm preparing to think about what we have to do with that. We do have moles. um
00:44:12
kristine Albrecht
We do have crows that like to, um I've had to have a talk with them. They like to have my tags. They like to play with the tags and throw them up in the air and and mix it up.
00:44:20
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:44:21
kristine Albrecht
So I told them I'll give them the gophers if they if they'll leave my tags alone. So, so far, so good after the first first year that they mixed them all up.
00:44:31
Jennifer Gulizia
I've never heard of them lifting the tags up.
00:44:33
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, I think they're white and they they look fun and they just pull them up. Yep.
00:44:40
Jennifer Gulizia
We have so many crows, so I'm going to now be on the lookout at our new farm. I mean, it's like everything's new. I i thought I had this wave growing in the city, and all of a sudden, it's like we've got crows circling us, and they're they're aggressive.
00:44:51
Jennifer Gulizia
I mean, they come up to our big dog and just talk right back at her, and it's amazing.
00:44:57
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, you have to be kind of nice to them because they're really, really smart too. So I'm always really nice to them. because they have a really good memory um if you're not. So I think that that could cause you problems in the long run.
00:45:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:45:11
Jennifer Gulizia
I heard that they can carry a grudge. I know this is totally unrelated to dahlias, I heard that their grudge can carry over to the next generation. And the next generation can hold that grudge against you. So I was like, okay, here's some sunflower seeds for you guys.
00:45:26
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, i'm I'm nice to them. I give them all the gophers they want when I catch them.
00:45:32
Jennifer Gulizia
They eat the gophers.
00:45:33
kristine Albrecht
Oh, yeah. They love gophers. Yeah. They won't eat moles, but they'll eat gophers.
00:45:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I didn't know that.
00:45:37
kristine Albrecht
Yep.
00:45:38
Jennifer Gulizia
Interesting.
Managing Vole Problems
00:45:39
Jennifer Gulizia
We have coyotes that I'm hoping will start to take care of the voles because, i mean, it's like everything I'm ah lifting up this spring, there's another vole, there's another vole.
00:45:49
Jennifer Gulizia
um I haven't done this recently and I might take some heat for sharing this with you right now on the podcast. So um I apologize in advance for those that all of a sudden are not happy with me. um I had a master gardener tell me years ago, when we first started growing dahlias at scale, we had a vole problem. We had a mole that came in and would tunnel, and then the voles would follow behind.
00:46:16
Jennifer Gulizia
And we're in a high agricultural area with a lot of orchardists. And they told me that one of the orchardists buys juicy fruit chewing gum. And they found this was the... Have you heard this before?
00:46:28
kristine Albrecht
I have, yeah.
00:46:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay, you're nodding your head. Well, I better tell this story real fast for the listeners here, but that apparently it's only juicy fruit that they're drawn to and not other types of gum, but it's more humane than putting poison in the holes is that you put juicy fruit because it clogs their mouth and then they can't eat your tubers.
00:46:47
Jennifer Gulizia
We have not done that since 2022, but that summer it took one round and our voles were completely gone.
00:46:55
kristine Albrecht
Oh, good to know. always good to have lots of tips.
00:46:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:46:58
kristine Albrecht
I always ask everybody any tips on catching gophers, you know, i mean, I think it's good to have a lot of opportunity to do that. That's why why I work with three different gopher traps.
00:47:09
kristine Albrecht
And, you know, I've tried the sound things, you know, I've tried pretty much everything. And then worst case, I call my brother who's really good at um catching gophers.
00:47:21
kristine Albrecht
and And we do I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Caddyshack, where he digs up a whole golf course trying to find a a gopher.
00:47:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, yeah.
00:47:29
kristine Albrecht
And we've we've done that at the farm too. And that's what I actually needed. That's actually what I did last week. I had to follow a gopher trail like 50 feet that way, 30 feet that way.
00:47:40
kristine Albrecht
That was when those 20... plants went down. So, you know, it's good to to, you know, watch and keep track of anything that's eating your gophers.
00:47:50
kristine Albrecht
I mean, eating your, your dahlias just important to, that's just part of farming and agriculture, you know, that you might have problems like that.
00:48:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. What would, I mean, you've been doing this for 20 plus years now. What would you say looking back on all of your years has been your biggest challenge or learning lesson through mother nature and nature presenting challenges for your business?
00:48:19
kristine Albrecht
um Well, I think early on, i used to till my fields.
No-Till Farming Transition
00:48:24
kristine Albrecht
I tilled every year. um And what was challenging about that was I had to wait till till the weather was just perfect, that it hadn't rained for two weeks before I could actually get in and work and do my ah work my soil or plant my dahlias in. And so that was really challenging. So learning about no-till for me was huge. And and putting in a cover crop each winter, you know, building the biology or feeding the biology in the soil and bringing, building my organic matter. I think those were um some challenges, especially early on. I mean, now I'm sort of on maintenance at my farm. So I add compost in the fall, like two inches, and then another two inches when I plant here in the spring. And so that keeps my plants pretty healthy and the biology pretty healthy. But I think cover cropping and no tilling has made a huge difference in my soil. And think the soil, mean, for me, the lesson is that the soil is so important to to to try to get that right. I did a lot of um like soil testing early on to see what, my soil was lacking, what it had too much of, so that when I did adjust um my nutrients that I was adjusting to what the needs of the soil were. So I would say that's really important.
00:49:49
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. That's what we're prioritizing right now is our soil health and how do we improve it. As you saw when you visited my farm and I had some dahlias that were definitely struggling, there's been a lot of talk lately about different nutrients and what you need to give your dahlias. And I've seen a lot of discussion online saying, give your dahlias more nitrogen.
00:50:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Is that something that you recommend? Absolutely.
00:50:12
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, they they are they are heavy feeders. um You know, they're giving us, like ah our plants give us um like six blooms a week. So almost a bloom a day.
00:50:22
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:50:23
kristine Albrecht
I know in some areas where it's really hot, that number is is like half that. But like once we got our soil really healthy, we are we get we get a a lot of blooms based on the the better soil.
00:50:38
kristine Albrecht
Did I answer your question? I'm trying to think.
00:50:40
Jennifer Gulizia
I think so. I'm curious, are you adding, I mean, I know you you pay attention to soil health and you look at what your soil needs, but on top of that, are you adding extra nitrogen to your soil?
00:50:41
kristine Albrecht
Okay. Yeah.
00:50:46
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:50:51
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, I do sometimes, maybe three times a year, I add extra nitrogen to my plants, because because we've done a cover crop. So that's kind of like like green manure.
00:51:03
kristine Albrecht
so that's So basically, you get so much of your nitrogen from the biology that's in your soil.
00:51:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:51:09
kristine Albrecht
So if you think about worms in there, and they're pooping, and you know other things are in there, you know adding their their theirs to it too, that's really where you're going to get the majority of it.
00:51:21
kristine Albrecht
But For example, when I put in my dahlias early season, so I put them in end of February, early March, the soil is kind of cold. They don't take up nitrogen well when it's, when it's cooled out. So I did do some um feeding of the plants right when I put them in so they could take up the nitrogen right away. And I do that. I'll do that again, probably before it gets too hot and then maybe once towards the end of the season. so I don't, but once you get your soil pretty good, you don't really need to fertilize all that often.
00:51:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm definitely having to add a lot more at my new field than I used to have to add to get the same quality of blooms.
00:52:01
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, I think, I think it's important until you get your soil right too, to make sure you're feeding them well, because like they, they are heavy feeders, you know, like, I don't know if you've ever grown v veggies, but like corn, heavy feeder, right? So you, You really need to know ah your crop and what it needs. And dahlias do need nitrogen. But you don't want to add too much. I mean, I learned that lesson when we were doing giant pumpkins. So I just thought, oh, the more more manure you add, the better. So I just would every year just bring in tons of manure, put the manure down, and the plants would grow crazy green and big. But then I had a bad aphid problem. And so sometimes too much nitrogen and can get your plants kind of weaker and attract aphids. So, you know, that's why a soils test is is really good to know, like how much you should add.
00:52:54
kristine Albrecht
So, you know, you can overdo it too, for sure.
00:52:57
Jennifer Gulizia
that's great advice what about bone meal i know for a long time everyone said you put a handful of bone meal when you plant your dahlias do you still do that
00:53:06
kristine Albrecht
No, we've we've never really, maybe maybe early on we did, but we don't do that with our dahlias because we've tested our soil and it doesn't need that. So, but every soil is really different. Like we're really high in potassium and I hear back east growers have very little potassium in their soil. So that's why there's no real recipe for dahlias because it's really based on your soil.
00:53:31
Jennifer Gulizia
I'm so glad you said that because I have – that's probably the one question I get more than anything else on social media is what are you putting in your soil for your dahlias?
Soil-Specific Nutrient Management
00:53:39
Jennifer Gulizia
And it's like, well, it's so dependent on what your soil actually needs and not – there's not a perfect one-size-fits-all recipe. So thank you for saying that.
00:53:49
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, we all want a recipe for everything, but, um you know, in agriculture, it has a lot to do with your soil and where your soil's at when you start.
00:53:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. i couldn't agree more. Kristine we've talked about so much and I feel like I could just talk to you for hours. You're such a delight to chat with.
00:54:06
kristine Albrecht
just
00:54:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Is there anything I haven't asked you today that you wanted to make sure our listeners know?
00:54:13
kristine Albrecht
um Well, um you know, if you are going to be doing hybridizing, you know, just be patient because it does take a long time and just be curious and, and just, you know, be resilient and just, you know, keep doing it. Don't expect, I'm, I'm actually a pretty impatient person. If you ask my friends, I'll go, oh yeah, Kristine's impatient. But, um,
00:54:40
kristine Albrecht
you know, hybridizing has taught me a lot of patience because you have to, you know, cross the seeds and wait. And so i would just suggest that people, um who want to do hybridizing, that they that they're just really patient with themselves, give themselves a couple years to kind of get going on it and to understand how to grow it. ah grow um People may want to we have two books out.
Books and Resources on Dahlias
00:55:03
kristine Albrecht
We have ah Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer, Florist, and the Home Gardener, and it's a step-by-step guide on how to hybridize dahlias. And I wrote that book because there really wasn't a book out on how to do that. And so if you want to learn more about hybridizing dahlias, you can do that. We also have, I think it's 160 videos YouTube, free videos that you can watch. And if you go to our website, which is Santa Cruz Dahlias, You can go to YouTube there and you can see the numbers listed on what the subjects are. So if you want to learn about how to start seeds, you can go and there are three videos on that. If you want to set up a cutting bed, there are a bunch of videos on that. You want to learn how to how to plant your dahlias, there's a bunch of videos on that. So i would you you can do that. We also wrote ah another book on just how to grow dahlias. It's kind of a thick book. So Dahlia's Seed to Bloom, and both of them are available on Amazon. So if you wanted to purchase those, that's a good place to go to to get those. um Yeah, i think I think that's pretty much it.
00:56:14
kristine Albrecht
um But thank you for having me. This was so much fun. I love talking about dahlias. I hope I didn't talk too much.
00:56:22
Jennifer Gulizia
No, you've been fabulous. Before I let you go though, this year in 2026, I started asking a series of quick fire questions to all the guests to kind of wrap up the episode.
00:56:30
kristine Albrecht
Okay. Yeah. Okay.
00:56:33
Jennifer Gulizia
So is that okay if we do that today?
00:56:34
kristine Albrecht
Yeah, sure.
00:56:36
Jennifer Gulizia
um So this question, because you pretty much only grow dahlias, I think we know your favorite flower, um but do you have a favorite dahlia that you have hybridized?
00:56:49
kristine Albrecht
um Well, that's a hard one because, you know, I do like quite a few of them, but I think Kay's Cinder Rose is kind of, um one of those that I've hybridized that kind of works in all climates. So it's kind of nice. I've heard from people in North Carolina that it grows great in the heat. And then we're pretty cool here in Santa Cruz by the Pacific Ocean. So it grows well there. And it's a color that florist and designers um felt like wasn't really out there before. So i'm pretty excited I'm pretty excited about that. That's been out for three years now, but I'm kind of excited about my next variety, whatever that is, my new seedlings that I've just planted. Like you said, it's like Christmas when they bloom and I feel like I get so much excitement. I mean, it is what gets me up in the morning and and gets me really excited about growing dahlias are my new new varieties that I haven't seen yet.
00:57:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, you can see how excited you get just talking about it. ah Kristine why do local flowers matter to you?
00:57:52
kristine Albrecht
Well, local flowers matter to me for like a couple reasons, because I think it's really important for us to grow, buy locally because of the carbon footprint that most flowers um have. You know, many of the flowers that we buy are flown in from other countries. And um I think also like growing flowers that are in your community, it builds community. And it builds educating that we can grow flowers here and there are beautiful flowers grown in our our area. So I think it's really important that people understand that most of the flowers are not grown here in the United States.
00:58:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. i think I love that you're hybridizing dahlias and encouraging so many people to hybridize them because I think one of the ways that we are going to move the local flower movement is changing the mindset that we say, I love you or I care about you or I'm thinking about you with a dozen red roses. And instead of that, it's here is a dozen dahlias that were grown down the road.
00:58:59
kristine Albrecht
Yeah.
00:59:01
Jennifer Gulizia
What is one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
00:59:06
kristine Albrecht
Well, i think i think that i think that what I just said about that it that really that most of the flowers are coming from from far away and that there are there is that ability to grow them locally. And you know I wish more people would would give it a try. And i think I think it's a good idea if you're thinking of um growing your own dahlias is to really approach your local florists kind of early on.
00:59:33
kristine Albrecht
I mean, when I first started growing dahlias, I didn't know what I was going to do with all these flowers I was growing. And so I just went to my local florist.
00:59:42
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:59:44
kristine Albrecht
I brought in a bunch. I mean, it might have been good if I had emailed ahead of time and say I was coming, but I i just showed up, showed her the flowers, and um she said, when can we when can we buy some of these?
00:59:57
kristine Albrecht
And, you know, she was really nice early on, like some weeks I wouldn't have dahlias and then the next week I would, you know, about being patient with um with farming in general and the fact that, you know, flowers don't come when we want them, just when they want to bloom.
01:00:12
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
01:00:13
kristine Albrecht
So I think it's a really good idea if you have extras to approach your your local florist because, they they can't really buy dahlias outside a local community. It's difficult to fly in dahlias, say, from another country because they just don't have uh, the, the shelf life to do, to do that. They, their, their, um, base life isn't as, as strong as some of the other flowers. And so, um, you know, they, I, our florists just love getting dahlias and getting our local dahlias here. So I just encourage everyone to, um, to reach out to their florists or set up a farm stand. Those are fun too. um, that's a great way to build community too. Like we, i know all my neighbors from the farm stand that we used to do. And we really enjoyed that, especially during COVID when people were kind of trapped in their, their homes, they would come to the farm stand and buy flowers. And it was just a wonderful experience.
01:01:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I love that. What are you most grateful for that flowers have given you beyond the blooms?
01:01:24
kristine Albrecht
Well, Some of my best friends like Jan and Iris and, you know, our Dahlia community, i mean, we have a local Dahlia society. So many of those people are my friends now.
01:01:36
kristine Albrecht
And so I feel like, um you know, friends are super important and community is really important. So we have the Dahlia society, i have my friends, I have the community that helps me on the farm. So Wednesdays, when we cut for florists and designers, we have about four or five of us that come to the farm that day and cut and we've all been, we're all friends and, you know, they've been helping me for years and years and years. So um it's just so, such a nice community of people and very friendly and just love it.
01:02:09
Jennifer Gulizia
but That's awesome. Well, flower people are the best people, which is why this podcast is so fun for me to host because I get to talk to people like you every week. So we really appreciate you being here. I know you shared your two books and we're going to link those in today's show notes.
01:02:28
Jennifer Gulizia
If people want to connect with you, where is the best place for them to connect
Contact Information
01:02:32
Jennifer Gulizia
with you?
01:02:33
kristine Albrecht
um Well, they can DM me on Instagram. So that's at Santa Cruz Dahlias. They can go to my website and send me an email if they have questions. I mean, I do answer a lot of questions on Instagram. Like this morning, I probably asked answered five questions that people had about growing. I'm happy to do that. If you have questions and then, um you know, if you go to our YouTube, which is under my name, so it's Kristine with a K, last name, Aubrecht is the YouTube channel. um You'll, you can get, you know, we have about 160 videos on that, then they're free.
01:03:05
kristine Albrecht
So you can just go on and um check that out. You can go to our website, Santa Cruz Dahlias. You can see all our varieties. You can see our licensed sellers.
01:03:16
kristine Albrecht
So we have sellers that are licensed to sell our our flowers. um Not our flowers, but our but tubers and and plants. um You can see that on our website as well. So all's good.
01:03:27
Jennifer Gulizia
Perfect. Well, we will include links to all of those in today's show notes. We so appreciate you carving out this time to join us on the podcast. And we can't wait to see what you come up with next with your hybridizing. It's really fun to watch. So thank you for all your contributions to this industry.
01:03:47
kristine Albrecht
Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for having me on. This is so fun. And then I'm heading up to your area again this summer. So I hope this i hope to see your farm again because it's so fun seeing it in progress.
01:03:54
Jennifer Gulizia
I heard.
01:04:00
Jennifer Gulizia
I would love to have you guys back and I hear I'll be seeing you up in the Skagit Valley also.
01:04:05
kristine Albrecht
Yeah. Yeah. We're excited about that too.
01:04:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, thank you, Christine. You have a wonderful day. We'll talk to you soon.
01:04:12
kristine Albrecht
All right. Bye.