Rebecca McConnell is a dahlia cut flower farmer, author and the hybridiser behind the Serenade Dahlias breeding prefix. Her Serenade Farm is located on Tamborine Mountain, in the Gold Coast hinterland of subtropical Queensland, Australia.

She lives and grows on the farm with her husband, Jon, and their two pups, Scout and Daisy. Together they grow 4,000 dahlias each season, supplying florists across South East Queensland.
In parallel, Bec is hybridising and assessing her own line of Serenade dahlia cultivars, and writes books and educates on growing and breeding dahlias. She has a devoted instagram following from all over the world at her account @serenade_dahlias

Rebecca’s story doesn’t follow the usual script

Bec didn’t grow up dreaming of being a flower farmer. Like a lot of people, gardening came to her early through her family, and by the time she reached adulthood, growing and nurturing plants had become central to who she was, but back then, it was all about growing organic food.

When Jon and Bec married in the late ’90s, they spent time in the UK working on organic farms, then came home and enrolled in horticulture courses, with a plan to eventually buy land and live sustainably.

Life had other plans. Two decades running an entertainment business came before they finally bought their Tamborine Mountain property in 2016. But the original vision did arrive in the end. They became deeply involved in a local growers’ co-op, supplying organic veggies for several years, including through the intense demand of the COVID years.

It was during this time that the flowers started creeping into the veggie patches. It began with edibles and pollinator-friendly plants, but the dahlias kept claiming more space and the best spots in the garden. Bunches of fresh-cut dahlias went out on the roadside honesty cart (and still do). They found dahlias to be bountiful and adored by customers, and they’d captured Bec’s heart completely.

The dahlia seedling that changed everything

After about five years growing from tubers, Bec decided to try her hand at growing her own dahlia seed. That first year, she grew 350 seedlings and was delighted by the range and quality of blooms that came out of them. She kept around 100 that first year. She attributes this more to enthusiasm than discernment at first, and only a handful have survived the years of assessment since, on top of brutally wet seasons, a freak tornado, and a tropical cyclone.

One of the very first seedlings to flower that year was like nothing she’d seen before: layers of peach-toned petals with unusual pink coloured mini-petals inside each petal. She later learned these were called petaloids. The bloom had an open centre and weak head attachment, so it was useless as a cut flower, but it had done its job: her curiosity was piqued. She kept it anyway and later named it ‘Serenade Curiosity.’

That first batch of seedlings also presented with petal shapes and colour combinations Bec hadn’t seen anywhere else available. She started digging into the science on dahlia breeding and learning as much as she could to optimise her outcomes. There was no turning back — she’d found her way into dahlia hybridisation, and she was all in.

The next year she grew over 2,000 seedlings. Since then, many thousands more. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Dahlia Breeding, books, and what drives her

Bec’s work blends a flower farmer’s practicality with real curiosity about the science and biology behind what makes each seedling unique. She’s become known for her contemporary approach to dahlia breeding, in particular her distinctive multi-layered fully double petaloid forms, and for cultivars bred specifically with cut-flower growers in mind.

Her first dahlia breeding book, Cultivating Curiosity: Growing Your Own Unique Dahlias from Seed, grew out of this work. It is a thorough guide for anyone wanting to grow their own dahlias from seed, observe what comes up, and learn to evaluate and refine their own selections. It weaves in science principles with very practical strategies to optimise hybridisation outcomes with the complex dahlia genetics.

Her newest book, Beyond Curiosity: Dahlia Breeding Through the Seasons, is a stand-alone volume that continues where Cultivating Curiosity left off, taking growers deeper into the breeding process across a full growing year. Where the first book was general principles, this new book dives deep into specific examples and the way she applies the science to her own dahlia breeding.

Bec regularly shares what she’s learned on Australian and international podcasts, offering practical, grounded guidance on breeding and growing dahlias, and is a regular speaker at the Australia Dahlia Society national conference, and at other gardening events.