Dahlia Grower Hats

Dahlias are the cult flower of the 2020s home garden, and the people who grow them have a vocabulary of their own: tubers, clumps, eyes, dinnerplates, pompons, buckets. Tuber sales sell out in minutes and buyers set alarms for them. One tuber yields 2 to 20 new tubers a year, small-farm tubers run $8 to $45 and new introductions $30 to $50, which is how a few tubers in spring turn into a problem by May. As one grower wrote, "I don't know when my fascination with dahlias started, but by May I knew it had gone too far." The effort is the joke. After frost the tubers come up and go into storage at 40 to 50F. Earwigs forage at night, so extension guides tell you to check with a flashlight. Cafe au Lait, the classic wedding dahlia, blooms up to 8 to 10 inches across, which is dinner-plate class. The Kitsap Dahlia Society, founded in 1923, counts one grower with more than 350 plants of 100 varieties. These dahlia grower hats give three badges (grower, farmer, mama) and five lines about the dig, the divide and the flashlight patrol. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat, for the grower and the person who buys them a gift.