By Aurelia C. Scott
Photos by Hannah Hoggatt
From our September 2023 issue
Retired school superintendent and educator Judy Stallworth believes that teachers never stop learning. So in May 2012, she was delighted to receive a box of dahlia tubers from a neighbor. “I’d never tried growing any before, but I thought, ‘What fun! Let’s get planting!’” She dug them into a sunny perennial bed and, two months later, was rewarded with a rainbow of abundantly petaled flowers that bloomed until the first frost. “Then I found the website DAHLIAaddict and that was that,” Stallworth says. “Dahlias last a long time in a vase, and in the garden, deer don’t eat them. What’s not to love?” Today, more than a hundred of the sunflower relatives bloom from June to October beside the modern West Bath home she shares with her husband, Ernie.
Clad in soft-gray board-and-batten, the home sits unobtrusively on a pine-forested ledge on Winnegance Bay. The garden, laid out by now-retired Bath landscape designer Jackie Barrett, blooms in an 800-square-foot yard between the house and the water. A crazy quilt of color surrounded by grass paths, it encompasses a trio of kidney-shaped dahlia beds and three more beds of dahlias interplanted with other perennials, including iris, lambs ears, and peonies.
“My lawn is disappearing and the garden beds are growing,” Stallworth says with a laugh. “So, if you want to mow as little as possible, succumb to dahlias. Plus, you’ll have all the diversity you want in one plant.” Dahlia varieties range from 10 inches to four feet tall, with flowers from two to 10 inches in diameter. Found in every shade except blue, the blossoms take many forms, from a loose mop to a stiff pom-pom to a single row of sunflower-esque petals.
Organized more or less by color, Stallworth’s dahlias dance in the breeze off the bay. This year, she’s especially thrilled with Ivanetti’s cupped maroon petals and Black Satin’s velvety scarlet ones. Willy Willy’s star-shaped ivory flowers resemble orchids, while Tartan’s feathery blossoms are painted burgundy and white. Emory Paul’s rosy-purple blooms are the size of dinner plates and Elijah Mason’s petite pale-orange ones are speckled red. On a bright morning last September, Stallworth leaned over to cup one of Café au Lait’s fluffy pink heads. “Brides adore these,” she says.
Dahlia grower Judy Stallworth suggests planting tubers in June, when the ground is 60 degrees or above, and digging them up after the first hard frost. Rinse, allow them to dry, and trim individual tubers from the central “mother root” that will sprout weak-stemmed blooms before storing them in a cool, dark place for the winter.
Stallworth grows more than 50 dahlia varieties to ensure there’s always something in bloom to give away. She cuts bouquets for visitors, the weddings of friends and their children, and the Portland restaurants owned by her son, Harding Lee Smith. A member of the Bath Garden Club, she gives presentations on growing dahlias with Suzanne Bushnell, of the Harpswell Garden Club. And in the fall, she bags up tubers for friends and garden-club fundraisers, passing on the gift that started her own dahlia journey.
