Hi! My name is Erin, and welcome to my crazy little internet garden. If you’ve found your way here, you’re either very lost and continuing out of pure curiosity caused by doom-scrolling… OR (my preferred option) you’re wondering what exactly happened to this person to make her get this into flowers and you now want to find out! Regardless of your “how you got here,” I’d like to tell you about mine.

First things first—I used to HATE gardening. Yep. I said it. (Bet you didn’t expect that in an intro.) I’m now a full-fledged, badge-wearing believer in dirt, but back then? Growing things was not my thing and usually ended in one way…plant death.

My conversion began when I took over my Grandma’s garden while she recovered from surgery. Now she is a real gardener. That woman can grow a tomato plant as tall as Andre the Giant in a concrete bucket with a thimble of water. (Yes, I probably just dated myself with those references. No, I do not care.)

So when she and my mother asked me to tend Grandma’s pride and joy for two months, my immediate response was: “Do I have to?” and “Are you sure?” Up to that point, everything I touched plant-wise had died a swift and dramatic death. But bless their hearts—they must have seen some hidden green potential in me, because they insisted…(and they were right!)

I hated it at first. But then the little green sprouts appeared. Then the vines started climbing. THEN the giant blossoms of zucchini, zinnias, and tomatoes began budding. And just like that…I was hooked.

It also didn’t hurt that my Grandma was absolutely blown away when she walked through her garden and realized I had kept most of it alive. We were both thrilled at the thought of a massive harvest.

BUT. (Because of course, life wouldn’t just let me have that kind of a Win.)

A couple weeks after she fully recovered and I handed garden duty back over, tragedy struck. One of my Grandpa’s prize bulls got loose in the middle of the night. The bull broke down the garden gate…and ate everything.

And I don’t mean delicately nibbled. This guy threw a full-blown rave. He tossed tire planters full of zucchini like frisbees, trampled the sunflowers before eating them, rotor-tilled the carrots, beans, and corn, then rolled around and took a nap in his den of garden sin. We never got to enjoy a single thing from that garden.

I’m told the burger was delicious, though. (Just kidding…kind of.)

Despite the outcome, I had officially caught the gardening bug. I started with potted plants on my apartment balcony, my mother became my plant-dealer, teaching me where and when to buy. And with each new home, my garden space grew bigger and bigger.

Fast forward to 2016. My same feisty, garden-loving Grandma handed me two old pots “with dirt and stuff in them.” To me, they looked like well…dirt. She assured me there were plants in there.

She did not disappoint .

Inside were two GIANT clumps of dahlia tubers that hadn’t been divided in at least three years. They looked like terrifying dirt-covered tentacle squid monster things and weighed at least 20 pounds each. At the time, I didn’t know what a tuber was, what a dahlia was, or honestly what I was doing at all.

With a little research, a lot of “doing it wrong”, patience, and some very sharp snippers, I divided and grew my first dahlias…..and that was it! I was hooked. What started as a small experiment has now turned into a full-blown obsession, with 300–400 varieties blooming each season. Now I’m sharing my fun and stories…..offering tubers for sale, along with tips for success, and hopefully a little garden mischief to help get you growing too.

(I still grow some of those same purple and white dahlias today in homage to my Mom and Grandma, in honor of my early ignorance, and proof of just how much I’ve fallen in love with these ridiculous flowers.)