Strawberry Ice Dahlia Tuber
Strawberry Ice came by mistake when I ordered Strawberry Cream. Once I got over my annoyance with the fact that they were not Strawberry Cream, I started to really enjoy them, ha! (The stories we hold color so much!)
They're a larger flower about 6 inches or more, though smaller toward the end of the season, born on super long, strong, but arching stems that have a ton of motion and grace where many dahlia stems can feel stiff and straight. You can see many of the centers blew for me, but I don't think this is typical of this variety, I think it was a water issue on this row. But even with the open centers, I found them to be quite striking and particularly cheerful in market bouquets! Like really, market shoppers LOVED them. Also, the bees were obsessed with this variety--probably due to the open centers--I'd find sometimes 5-10 bees of all sorts stuffed into each pollen disk then curling up to sleep for the night.
And you know, sometimes it is just so right to plant things that don't just benefit the humans. This variety brought so much to our farm this year, even if the blooms weren't often perfect enough to send to my wholesaler. And even so, they earned their keep with market bouquet sales.