ROYAL CITY — The first annual Columbia Basin Dahlia and Cut Flower Festival is coming next month. 

“Cut flowers and dahlias have become a huge thing, whether it's the backyard cut flower person or somebody that's making a small business out of it,” said Lisa Villegas, owner of Seed Cupboard Nursery in Royal City, which is hosting the festival. “I think it happened during COVID, where people just became fascinated with it.” 

The festival is a two-day event, Villegas said. It starts Friday morning with people dropping off their dahlias at the nursery for judging, and then those who want to can board a bus for a tour of four local flower farms: Bloom + Bundle in Royal City, Farmland Florals and Rue & Sage in Moses Lake, and Family Ties Farms in George. 

“All the flower farms are dahlia farms, but very different in style,” Villegas said. 

At 11 a.m. the festival starts in earnest, with classes in things like filling a pumpkin with dahlias and the medicinal value of flowers. There will also be vendors set up at the nursery, and lunch will be available from Seed Cupboard’s on-site cafe, Garden Grill. 

At the end of Friday there’s a "wine down,” where folks can cap off the day with a glass of wine and some live music. 

The festival resumes Saturday morning with vendors and more classes, winding up with dinner catered by Classic Grillin’ of Othello and a dessert bar by Jade Made It. Dinner will also include two speakers: Brenda Warner of Orchard Bluff Flower Farm, and keynote speaker Lindsay Williams of Chelan Butte Dahliary. Williams will talk about the challenges and rewards of running a dahlia farm. 

“It’s nonstop work,” Williams said. “We had 5,000 planting spots and … it was 70 hours a week for us, both my husband and myself. There was just so much to do between keeping track of varieties and all the physical labor, we cut it in half this year. We planted about 2,500 and were hoping it would be about half the work, but it didn’t scale out that way. (It’s) probably about two-thirds of the work.” 

Williams and her husband have been growing dahlias full-time for seven years, she said. Dahlias are a specialized merchandise, but even so they’ve had trouble keeping up with demand from the very beginning. 

Dahlia lovers take their favorite flower very seriously, Williams said. 

“They're addictive,” Williams said. “They really are. It’s like how some people are with roses or lilies. You just fall in love with them. They're generally a thick flower and hold up pretty well. They're not they're not soft and (prone to) fall apart. Florists absolutely love them. There are so many colors, so many forms; that's another thing that makes them very unique. If you weren't really familiar with dahlias, you wouldn't know that by looking at one and then looking at a different form that they were both dahlias.” 

You don’t have to be a flower expert to enjoy the festival, Villegas said. 

“It's not only for those enthusiasts,” she said. “It's just going to be a really fun two days of enjoying the beauty of it. One of the things that you (can do) during the festival is make a dahlia crown. So, if you're out with friends, everybody can make a crown and wear a dahlia flat crown all day and get their pictures taken. It’s just going to be a fun two days to celebrate it all.” 

Columbia Basin Dahlia and Cut Flower Festival

Royal City 

Seed Cupboard Nursery 

12543 Road H SW 

Sept. 26-27 

seedcupboardnursery.com 

    Part of the appeal of dahlias is the wide variety in sizes and colors, according to expert Lindsay Williams, who is the keynote speaker at the Columbia Basin Dahlia and Cut Flower Festival next month.
  

    The Columbia Basin Dahlia and Cut Flower Festival Sept. 26-27 will include classes, crafts, wine and a bus tour of dahlia farms.