“What can I say, I just truly love Dahlias”
My mom bought me a 3 pack of Dahlias 9 years ago when I started a garden in the yard of my apartment, and they have been multiplying ever since. I bought a property of my own in 2019 and that is when my accidental farm project took root. What started as a couple of rows of Dahlias quickly grew into my wife and I’s entire front lawn. Shannon and I have since submitted to my dahlia obsession, and she even had my incredible flower-stand built for the corner of our property for a birthday gift. People will come every morning during the blooming months looking for cut flowers, so I make sure that I do everything I can to put flowers out on the stand every single morning, rain or shine!
Since all of this took off I began to attend farmers markets on my Friday nights. Sure enough, I kept coming home from markets with no flowers left, No flowers on the stand, and no flowers left on the plants! Good thing dahlias are quick providers. Real life florists even began sourcing their dahlias from my sweet little micro farm! Since people love the blooms so much, I figured they would love the Dahlia tuber option even more! Turns out my hunch was right. We sold every last extra tuber last season by word of mouth, and planted 584 more in the patch that year.
My only form of marketing is a sign next to the busy road that says “Flowers!” and my personal instagram account where I do a fun show called GardeningLIVE. On GardeningLIVE people get daily updates on the flowers. I’ve since started a youtube page, and in 2024 we planted 851 tubers in the ground.
What can I say, I just truly love dahlias. My little hobby that became an obsession, an obsession that became a flower stand, and a flower stand that has since become a website. Could a website become a farm?
Time will tell… Follow along to see how it all unfolds!
Much love, Dahlia Mandrew.
I’ve carefully cultivated a collection of my favourite dahlia types over the course of 6 seasons, and have finally grown enough to provide others with the worlds best varieties of Dahlia plants according to the Dahlia Mandrew.
