White dahlias that grow well in high heat and humidity. And show well too - list in description

Well, hello there from the garden. I wanted to share a few things about white dahlias that I've been growing this season. I grow the dahlias to sell to florists who are doing wedding work, event work, and other sorts of things. And I've tried a lot of different kinds, and I'm just sharing the ones that have worked best for me in our super hot and humid climate. Number one, the best dahlia that I have that's a white, a true white, is Blizzard. Now, I know a lot of you might say, ooh, and I did that for the last three years, but I found virus-free stock, and this one has produced a lot of great long healthy stems. The plant health has been good. I haven't had a lot of powdery mildew or any fungus going on. The pest pressure has been okay, and I credit that to the virus-free, and I was able to get a lot of stems, long straight stems. My second place has been Gets Attention, and this one is a good-sized bloom again. It's been putting off a lot. Plant health has been very good. It gets a lot of sun, and it will produce a ton of stems. Let's go to our next one, which happens to be AC Andromeda. I know I'm saying it wrong, friends, but it's a stellar form up here. This is a good dahlia for cut flower and for show. Looks like we got some pest in here. Okay, so anyways, I showed this one, and it was the first place for the stellar. So if you're looking for a double dipping, this one would be a good choice. It's a tall plant. It's putting off an enormous amount of stems. This is my third choice for beautiful dahlias that are white. You can see it has a hint of cream in the middle. Next to it, I have AC Sultan and Crackers, which are new releases for this year. It's hard for me to really tell how I feel about them because they are so new, and I haven't had a lot of experience with them. They don't put as many blooms out. Sorry, I have a bee that's decided to visit me. They don't put as many blooms out as the Blizzard and Gets Attention, but when they do put it out, they're really pretty blooms. The next white dahlia I want to mention would be a great one for wedding work. So this is a small, I put my hand behind it, it's a smaller bloom, but imagine that in bud vases. It has a little kiss of blushy pink. This is one plant, and it is really putting off a lot of blooms. It's quite lovely. This would be my fourth choice. So my fifth choice would be if I wanted a tiny little bloom for some boutonnieres, or some corsages, or homecoming stuff, this little guy is a cute and tiny bloom, and it's quite nice. It's called Eden Bonaire. I believe that this plant is a little bit healthier, so I probably will not keep this one, and I will keep this bloom. The next white I will grow, but I'll keep this in a separate area, is Kay's Khaleesi and Papa John. Both of those are kind of similar, one's a little bit bigger in size, but they're lovely white blooms. So Papa John, Kay's Papa John, didn't win me an award at the Cincinnati Dahlia Show. I was able to have a few of them on display. So they are great show flowers. They are very large blooms. Papa John could be up to eight, and Khaleesi could be around 10 or so. The one thing I am noticing about this plant right here is the plant health has been fungusy, and some powdery mildew. It hasn't been as healthy, so I will be growing it again. However, I will keep it separate from my production stock. A blizzard gets attention. Eden Bonaire, Eden Alice. I do have some older stock of Kay's Bella Luna, and this has been okay, not optimal. She just didn't put off many blooms when it got hot, and again she's dealing with fungus. I was hoping I'd grow her again, but honestly with the amount of blooms, I'm not going to give her the space in the garden. Now if your conditions are a little bit cooler, that may be just fine, but I'm very hot and humid, so it doesn't really work here. This has been a lot whiter. It's way more lavender with the cooler temperatures. This is Lakeview Premier. I've always loved this one, but this year I had it where it had more sun, and it didn't like it as much. It's okay right now, but honestly, blizzard performed better than this one did, and there are a ton of blooms right now, so maybe I'll change my mind, but right now this one's on the chopping list. A couple years ago, I purchased Kay Chiffon, and it has been going open center since I purchased it. I think it's the temperature thing again. It just doesn't like our hot, humid weather. These blizzards are not virus-free, and they're producing pretty well still, so I did keep them on the opposite side of the garden. I have nine raised beds that are in this row, and row one has the virus-free, and then row two, I'm sorry, the last two beds have potentially virus ones that are just not tested. This is the final bed, and you can see we do have more powdery mildew going on back here, and it could be the soil location, the plant health, but I don't have it in the first section, so I am gonna just chalk it up to maybe they do have some virus load. I don't know how much, but it's something I'm going to choose not to move forward with, so Michaela Miranda, Clearview Sarah, Irish Ruffles, and Irish Aran. If I can find clean stock of those, I would love to grow them again, but we are just pest heavy, powdery mildew heavy, and not able to use these blooms very well. The final bed is this virus-free bed, which is on the end, but there's another bed in between this one and the other one, and these are from Pollinator Patch. They look really good, nice, again, incredibly long straight stems. They're easy to disbud. They're easy to manage, and I think I would corral them with just two two layers of Hortonova netting, and they would be just fine, and I was lucky enough to be able to have two wonderful seedlings come out of this bed. This was half seedlings and then half my friend's seedlings, so I have those tagged, and hopefully we get another bloom before the frost hits. This is one of them, so we all we will get this bloom. I can't wait. I want to bet you this one back here is that too. So just to hit home the facts, the virus-free for me in Zone B, Kentucky, has really been a game changer. I don't think I want to grow something that's not virus-free in my production area that I'm selling blooms for. I just get more bang for my buck from those. Hopefully our tuber production has been really great. We have cut a ton. We are incredibly hot and humid in Kentucky, so that would change what grows well in your area, but for sure if you're considering to grow dahlias that are white for cut flowers, blizzard gets attention, and then some AC ones are excellent choices. I almost forgot I have River's Rider. It is good, but I had noticed that she took on more pest pressure, so I will grow her again, but out with Khaleesi and Papa John. So there we have it. I hope to see you guys in the comment section below. Maybe you can suggest some other white ones that do really well in the hot environment, and we'll talk to you guys later. Bye!