About Sea-Tac Gardens:

The first dahlias I remember were growing in my Aunt Nona's garden in Wilcox, Nebraska. It's pretty warm for dahlias there, but she had a lovely garden growing on the north side of her house.

A neighbor lady gave me some tubers in 1955, just before I moved from Aberdeen, Washington to Seattle.

The late Henry Newbom invited Patti and me to join the Seattle Dahlia Society in the early 70's. We became involved with exhibiting, and were lucky enough to win a few ribbons. The late Ed Corning was a member of SDS at the time and was impressed with our enthusiasm. He invited us to his place and gave us 65 exhibition quality tubers from his storage barrel. So it was his fault that Sea-Tac gardens had its beginning. With his tubers, we had good luck exhibiting at the shows.

Along the way, we have had the acquaintance and have been influenced by many great dahlia people, including Harold Miller, Phil Traff, Les Connell, Roger Walker, Jack Peterson, Cor Geerling, Cyril Higgo, Kieth Hammett, Stella Newbom, Dick and Susan Ambrose, Tom and Twyla Ball, Dick Mathies, and many others who attend, exhibit and judge in the Vancouver, B.C. to Eugene Oregon corridor. We attended judging classes held by Willis and June Collins.

In 1979 Patti's mother Jackie was staying with us. She wanted us to have a roadside stand and sell the cut flowers. People still talk about her sitting under the big umbrella and talking to them about the flowers. After she moved back to the California coast, we changed the roadside stand to a self serve unit. It is a popular stopping place for local traffic during the blooming season.