I'm Jen, the Iowa Dahlia Lady. It all started with an impulse purchase of a pack of dahlias from a big-box store in 2018. Back then, I didn’t know variety names or forms or anything, really. All I knew was the photo on the package was beautiful.
The next year, I grew a few more. And then I discovered Floret’s book “Discovering Dahlias”. Game over. I bought almost 200 varieties that Fall and spent the 2022 growing season discovering which ones took my breath away.
I’m a novice-ish grower, but I’m endlessly curious about soil biology and regenerative agriculture practices and the interconnectedness of everything (human and non-human). Kristine Albrecht (of Santa Cruz Dahlias) and LeeAnn Huber (of Coseytown Dahlias) are just a few of the great matriarchs in the field I take my lead from on issues of disease and pest management, plant nutrition, breeding, and dahlia care.
I grow half of my dahlias at home, and as I’ve ripped out more and more lawn to plant dahlia beds I came to be known in the neighborhood as “The Dahlia Lady.” The name stuck. I grow the other half of my dahlias at Mustard Seed Community Farm, a unique and wonderful community farm whose mission is to make healthy food accessible to everyone.
Dahlias and flower-farming take up a good portion of my life, but I am also a professor, a mother, an artist, a writer, and a musician. I guess you could say I traffic in beauty of all kinds for a living.