Over the years my sis­ter Mary Lynn and I have passed a won­der­ful prop­erty near her home in Rochester, Michi­gan. Set back from the street in a com­mer­cial area, it con­sists of a charm­ing white house and about 2 acres of sheep and dahlia gar­dens. Last Sep­tem­ber after our trip back east (see Gar­den Travel), we couldn’t resist stop­ping and intro­duc­ing our­selves. And this being the mid­west, we were made to feel wel­come by the owner, Mr. Wil­son Gar­ner. Our first ques­tion was “how come you have so much land next to all these mini malls?” It seems he has been there since 1965, when

the busy road out front was a dirt lane. He has had a small flock of sheep for many years that he breeds and shears. But his real pas­sion is dahlias, which he raises and shows. There are 9 types of dec­o­ra­tive and cac­tus dahlias and he has them all in every color, shape and size. I wish I could have pho­tographed every sin­gle one of them.

Mr. Wil­son with dahlia in hand

Dahlias are tuber­ous rooted peren­ni­als native to Mex­ico and Guatemala. They thrive in full sun in all but the hottest areas. Ini­tially they can be grown from seed but after the first sea­son the tubers need to be dug up and stored and planted in the gar­den in the spring. SoCal nurs­eries carry dahlias in the spring and sum­mer. They do require some spe­cial care but next spring I’m going to take a leap of faith and buy one and hope to be wor­thy of these beau­ti­ful blooms.

PS: Sheep love to eat dahlias!

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