Hollyhill Dahlias is owned and operated by Ted and Margaret Kennedy of Oregon City, Oregon. We have
been growing dahlias since 1988. Our primary interest is breeding new dahlia varieties and entering these new varieties in
trial gardens and shows. We are not a large commercial venture and have no employees. As we get older(we are in our
70s), we sell fewer and fewer tubers and especially fewer of our older introductions. We do not sell many tubers overall
and are always sold out within days of our opening date that has been about mid December in recent years. We advise
people to buy the older Hollyhill varieties from other sellers. Occasionally, we will offer stock of a difficult to find older
Hollyhill variety but do so for only that year.
Margaret has been the chief hybridizer and selects the plants to be crossed and carefully hand pollinates them. We both
enjoy evaluating the seedlings and mark many of them for retention each year. Those seedlings are evaluated a second and
third year before we consider selling a new variety. We take lots of pictures of the seedlings and do post them to the
website. In recent years, we have done less hand pollinating and have depended on planting our favorite seed producers
near pollinators. We grow about 1200 dahlias from seeds each year and keep only the best of them. It takes about 4 years
to develop and test a new variety.
We are both dahlia show judges and exhibit in numerous shows each year. Margaret loves to show dahlias in the
arrangement classes. Be sure to check this web site for pictures of her arrangements that usually feature Hollyhill
varieties. She also likes to show baskets of dahlias when she has time and again we feature varieties originated by
Hollyhill in the baskets. Margaret has won best arrangement and best basket at several of the National Dahlia shows.
We no longer sell cut flowers but did so for over 20 years. Selling cut flowers has helped us identify new seedlings that
have cut flower potential. We specialize in selling the varieties we have originated and occasionally other selected varieties.
Recently, we have been working on varieties that are good for flower arrangements and have released several of them.
These arrangers flowers are very special and Margaret enjoys using them in her design entries in the dahlia shows. Many
of the them have won best in show awards. We also are working on waterlilies, giant dahlias(very difficult to breed), and
miniature balls and formal decorative types along with the semi cactus and cactus types. One of the newer forms that we
are breeding are the "bidnest" incurved cactus types. We do not grow any open center type dahlias.
If you are interested in our "works in progress", check out the seedling section of the website. We are not set up to
accommodate visitors to our gardens but in some years we do have an open house for our dahlia club members.
Ted & Margaret Kennedy
been growing dahlias since 1988. Our primary interest is breeding new dahlia varieties and entering these new varieties in
trial gardens and shows. We are not a large commercial venture and have no employees. As we get older(we are in our
70s), we sell fewer and fewer tubers and especially fewer of our older introductions. We do not sell many tubers overall
and are always sold out within days of our opening date that has been about mid December in recent years. We advise
people to buy the older Hollyhill varieties from other sellers. Occasionally, we will offer stock of a difficult to find older
Hollyhill variety but do so for only that year.
Margaret has been the chief hybridizer and selects the plants to be crossed and carefully hand pollinates them. We both
enjoy evaluating the seedlings and mark many of them for retention each year. Those seedlings are evaluated a second and
third year before we consider selling a new variety. We take lots of pictures of the seedlings and do post them to the
website. In recent years, we have done less hand pollinating and have depended on planting our favorite seed producers
near pollinators. We grow about 1200 dahlias from seeds each year and keep only the best of them. It takes about 4 years
to develop and test a new variety.
We are both dahlia show judges and exhibit in numerous shows each year. Margaret loves to show dahlias in the
arrangement classes. Be sure to check this web site for pictures of her arrangements that usually feature Hollyhill
varieties. She also likes to show baskets of dahlias when she has time and again we feature varieties originated by
Hollyhill in the baskets. Margaret has won best arrangement and best basket at several of the National Dahlia shows.
We no longer sell cut flowers but did so for over 20 years. Selling cut flowers has helped us identify new seedlings that
have cut flower potential. We specialize in selling the varieties we have originated and occasionally other selected varieties.
Recently, we have been working on varieties that are good for flower arrangements and have released several of them.
These arrangers flowers are very special and Margaret enjoys using them in her design entries in the dahlia shows. Many
of the them have won best in show awards. We also are working on waterlilies, giant dahlias(very difficult to breed), and
miniature balls and formal decorative types along with the semi cactus and cactus types. One of the newer forms that we
are breeding are the "bidnest" incurved cactus types. We do not grow any open center type dahlias.
If you are interested in our "works in progress", check out the seedling section of the website. We are not set up to
accommodate visitors to our gardens but in some years we do have an open house for our dahlia club members.
Ted & Margaret Kennedy
An assortment of Hollyhill Seedlings
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| Margaret hand crossing dahlia flowers |
| Ted in 2020 |
| Margaret and Hollyhill Finlandia |