Dahlia fans blooming in area

SANDPOINT — You have to really love dahlias to grow them.

Just ask Diana Mays, who has 150 of the flowers planted in several long rows at her Dufort-area home, Diana’s Weeping Gardens, two-plus acre gardens aptly named for the exotic weeping trees she planted throughout the grounds.

Two years ago, inspired by flowers grown by other local dahlia growers like Delsie Marienau and Richard Neuder, Mays planted her first 20 dahlias.

Why would a the master gardener and local farmers market vendor who sells cut flowers at the Hope Farmers Market on Friday, Sandpoint Farmers Market on Saturday, and has more than enough to do in her garden that she pays a neighbor to help her, want to take on the persnickety plant?

“They’re beautiful,” she said, fingering the middle of one red-petaled Stella, which is not of show quality.

Dahlias come in many varieties — formal and informal — flowers with anenome-like petals, vivid colors It seems that dahlia societies have standards for the flower, just like the American Kennel Club that standards for purebred dogs. A show-quality dahlia’s center should not show — just like a the spunky Maltese dog should not have anything but a black nose.

The flower Mays examines is one of only a handful of plants that has bloomed in her garden this year. The late winter and relatively cool summer have not been to their liking.

In fact, she hopes she will have enough dahlias to display at this weekend’s North Idaho Dahlia Society show  set for Saturday and Sunday at the Bonner County Fairgrounds.

Last week, Mays chose not to attend a dahlia show in Montana because she did not have any plants in bloom.

Dahlias are finicky — a bit like the lead character in the children’s fairy tale, “The Princess and the Pea.”

They do not like cold for one — once it freezes, the tuberous plant must be dug up and stored in a frost-free area for the winter.

In Mays’ case, that can be as early as Sept. 15. The lovely Hidden Valley where she lives usually is the first place to frost in the county in autumn and the last to elude heat up in spring, she said.

Dahlias also need to be divided, either when they are dug up or before they are planted in the spring. Mays likes to divide hers in the spring because she has far too much to do in the fall preparing her gardens for an extended winter nap.

They also are a favorite tree of gophers that linger along the perimeter of her gardens. Mays treated the dahlia beds and the top of the plants this spring with several types of gopher repellents and watched the critters move down the hill from the beds because they disliked the stuff.

“This is not an organic flower bed,” she said.

To cut down on the extensive work it takes to raise that many dahlias, Mays had permanent above ground sprinkler system installed in the flower bed.

She just has to be careful not to puncture the water system tubing when it comes time to dig up the plants.

With all of Mays’ love of dahlias, she has one variety that has eluded her green thumb, a shinkyoku given to her by Neuder.

The spidery-looking plant may not like the cooler weather in the valley.

“That empty hole is his,” she said, pointing to a visibly naked spot in the flower bed.

Editor’s note: Diana Mays sells dahlia tubers in the spring at the Sandpoint and Hope Farmer’s Markets.