This time last year, passersby would have seen Deborah Dietz, the president of the California Dahlia Society, at the Dahlia Dell in Golden Gate Park, accompanied by a flatbed truck or utility vehicle, planting hundreds of small Dahlia tubers and cuttings and cataloging their positions and types. Each of these horticulturists has an impressive level of commitment to high-level Dahlia competitions and all of them have unique growing techniques that they swear by.
But, due to COVID-19, the local public gardening scene has been put on hold, especially in Golden Gate Park. This year, the dahlia experts’ access to Dahlia Dell was stymied by measures to combat the coronavirus epidemic when Mayor London Breed cordoned off vehicle access to all Park and Recreation properties.
The Dahlia Society, founded in 1920, plants and takes care of the Dahlia Dell of San Francisco. Dahlias are generally planted in late April and bloom during the summer. However, this process has been stopped in its tracks with the current road closures.
The dahlia, which has extravagant, vibrant blooms, is a tuberous plant—it forms a large root, or tuber, similar to a potato, from which the next generation grows. Dahlias also can be propagated by cuttings from a parent plant. Cuttings are made by taking a short section of a green shoot off the plant and rooting it in soil.
When Golden Gate Park’s roads were closed, many dahlia cuttings, which are large and bulky, could not be carried into the park easily. Fortunately, the members of the Dahlia Society remain undaunted and have been walking into the park with smaller plants propagated at their homes from cuttings.
Tinnee Lee, the Dahlia Society’s former president multiple-time winner of their Best in Show award, said, “It’s really frustrating when we put so much work into growing the plants in our kitchens and backyards in cut out milk cartons for months, then to load them into our cars and be turned away by the park police.”
Although the garden was planted, the Dahlia Society is threatened economically. The Dahlia Society of California missed its annual cutting and tuber sale due to COVID-19 and has lost the bulk of the annual revenue.
As an alternative to the large scale, members of the Dahlia Society started to sell dahlias out of their garages in May. The society was able to make around $3000 from the effort. They sold plants raised for the sale from their home nurseries and from the Golden Gate Park Greenhouse.
“The cutting team was asked not to return to the greenhouse mid-March,” Pat Hunter, a veteran dahlia grower, said in the Dahlia Society’s newsletter.“For the present, the remaining greenhouse crew has promised to keep what is there watered. Cross your fingers. Some early cuttings were potted up into 4×4’s before that time, but so very few. We are all in discussion pondering our options.”
Another important event that will be canceled is the state dahlia competition. The flower competition is similar to a dog show in the sense that there is a large variety in the appearance of dahlia blooms. The flower-themed outfits of the growers alone are worth making the trip to see. The event is usually held every August when the flowers peak.
You can visit the Dahlia Garden this summer from late June to early September to see the Dahlias in full bloom, although you may have to go on foot.
