My favorite dahlia, the one that started my dahlia obsession, is Sweet Nathalie. I am part of the 0.4% of the female population with red/green color blindness. Thus, you won’t find many red flowers in my garden, except the few I keep for bees and hummingbirds. My favorite flower colors are the soft pinks and pastels that I can see well from a distance.
I have been growing vegetables and herbs most of my life. When my daughter went off to college in the fall of 2014, I decided to sell the horses and expand my gardens to add flowers for cutting. Doing some research at our local book store, I came across Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms and became obsessed with dahlias, particularly the beautiful, creamy pink Sweet Nathalie. For several years, I tried to grow dahlias from seeds purchased at big box stores. As I soon found, the varieties I really wanted to grow needed to be ordered as tubers.
My daughter became engaged in 2017. They planned the wedding for fall 2018. Naturally, I wanted to be the one to do the flowers for her wedding. Although I was just dipping my toes into dahlia growing, I knew they produced their prettiest blooms in autumn. Excited for the challenge, I ramped up my efforts to get flowers and seeds in place. I purchased three Sweet Nathalie tubers from Red Daisy Farms in Colorado, but the rug was pulled out from under me when they decided to move the wedding up to May. Peonies (May bloomers) are her favorite, so it worked out nicely.
Back to my beloved Sweet Nathalie, the three tubers all produced beautiful plants, flowers and tubers. I was able to save and winter the tubers properly in 2018. Since then, I have been able to triple my production of Sweet Nathalie. As of the 2021 season, I’ve lifted and divided 100+ tubers from the original three.
In conclusion, I find Sweet Nathalie to be extremely easy to grow and store. They produce amazing amounts of beautiful pastel blooms and great stems for cutting. Sweet Nathalie is a favorite to everyone that visits my garden. She will always be a favorite to me.
