Kyle Cassidy tried roses first. The deer ate them. Then he grew tulips. The deer ate those, too.
“One day, I thought, ‘I’m not buying anything more that the deer will eat,’ ” Cassidy recalls. “Then I walked into Menards and saw the display (of dahlia tubers), and the first thing I noticed was the little deer icon with an X through it, which means the deer don’t like them, so I tried a few.”
That was about 10 years ago.
“I went from a few dozen to a few hundred,” Cassidy said of the varieties he grows. “Then it was 200. Then it was 300. Now, I’m at 550.”
To say Cassidy likes dahlias — a member of the botanical family that includes asters, daisies and chrysanthemums and originated in the mountains of Mexico — is an understatement.
Creekside Dahlias, as he calls his growing operation, has taken over much of the 4-acre lot in Ham Lake on which his home sits. A watering system makes sure the dahlias — a notoriously thirsty plant — stay hydrated. Gardening tarp keeps weeds under control between rows and rows of neatly labeled plants, some which are protected by umbrellas from sun bleaching and hard rains.
“It’s unbelievable, it’s inconceivable — I don’t know what other adjective you want to put on it,” said Minnesota Dahlia Society president Chuck Krueger. “It’s impossible that one human being has done what he’s done out there this year.”
“Kyle is by far the biggest dahlia grower in the state of Minnesota at the time,” Krueger said. “I can say that with great confidence. Nobody can compare to Cassidy.”
Cassidy enters his dahlias in shows and, last winter, took a nine-week course to become an American Dahlia Society-certified judge. As such, his standards are exacting. On a recent tour of his garden, he pronounced blossoms that, to the untrained eye, looked flawless as “past their prime” or “not up to standard.”
Dahlias, which can bloom from July until frost, aren’t necessarily difficult to grow, Krueger said. With good soil, adequate drainage and plenty of sun, they can mostly handle themselves — unless, like Cassidy, a grower wants his dahlias to compete.
“If you’re going to grow to show, that’s the hard part,” Krueger said. “Are the stems at a 45-degree angle? Are the blossoms the size they should be? Is the color right? It’s never-ending.”
HOW HE DOES IT
Cassidy, 53, is a contractor for a living, but dahlias are more than just a hobby.
“It’s a full-time job after my full-time job,” he said.
Cassidy typically starts work at 6 a.m. and goes until 2 p.m. or so. On his drive home, he says, “I’ll be thinking about dahlias all the way.”
Some of Cassidy’s dahlia plants grow taller than most adults, so they require staking and tying. Diseased plants have to be quarantined. Watering, weeding and amending soil take up most of Cassidy’s daylight hours. He no longer golfs and gets to the gym only in winter. Dahlia tubers have to be dug in the fall, and last autumn, Cassidy enlisted his wife, Lisa, and their two daughters in order to clean and store 2,500 of them.
Cassidy sells tubers in the spring and cut flowers to florists and at St. Paul Farmers’ Market sites, but Creekside Dahlias isn’t a business yet.
“If I could do it all day every day, I would,” he said.
Julie Burgart of Julie’s House of Flowers in St. Paul met Cassidy at a farmers’ market and recently bought some of his dahlias to use in a wedding arrangement.
“They’re fabulous — absolutely beautiful,” she said. “He takes very good care of them, and he’s extremely knowledgeable about what he’s selling.”
Cassidy admits there are times when the time commitment seems overwhelming, but he said the feeling never lasts too long.
“I don’t really know what it is about them,” he said. “They just put me in a place where everybody should be.”
