Connie Young -Davis
Golden Jubilee Dahlias honor a Queen’s Visit
By: Jean Sorensen, October 2024
Connie Young-Davis remembers the day in 2002 when her mentor came looking for dahlia flowers for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s visit to Victoria celebrating the monarch’s 50th year on the throne.
Inland Dynasty dahlias, large semi-cactus yellow blooms, were needed for functions that the royals would attend at Government House marking their Golden Jubilee tour of Canada. Master-gardener Harry Van Dyke, who had greenhouses and was known for his dahlias, was to provide 50 blooms but he was short. “He called me to ask if I could help out,” tells Young-Davis, who told him to come over and take what he needed. Young-Davis, who for years had been a student of Van Dyke’s work both studying his methods and listening to his advice, was happy to provide the needed blooms and Van Dyke put her name onto the contributors list for the royal visit.
But, Van Dyke was also impressed with how skillfully Young-Davis had taken his knowledge and techniques and turned her garden into a showcase. “He used to tell me that if he had to compete against me, he would be out of business,” she said.
The Beginning
Young-Davis and Van Dyke were to forge a mentor and friendship that would span almost a decade until Van Dyke – whose vehicle license plate read DAHLIA – passed away in 2005.
It began with Connie dropping off her youngest son at preschool in 1996. She saw a man working in an empty lot near the school growing beautiful flowers. “I love flowers,” Connie Young-Davis said. She was drawn to the man’s garden and would sit in her vehicle and watch him garden for hours whiling away the time her son was in school.
Conversations were struck up as Young-Davis continued returning to the lot; a friendship blossomed, both drawn to their mutual love for flowers. In spring, 1997, Van Dyke presented her with approximately 30 tubers and she planted them in her garden. She doesn’t recall the names but they were the older generation of dahlias that were common at that time.
Over the years, Van Dyke took her to showcase gardens such as Butchart Gardens, to retailers who received new stock and with whom he dealt, and shared his knowledge and love of plants. He grew approximately 400 dahlias – a number that Young-Davis would rival and surpass over the years.
Today, she grows 800 dahlias and, as well, she also participates in shows in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria and Washington State. She is a hybridizer with 13 new dahlias credited to her name. Her blooms can always be found at the head table at shows. She no longer takes home ribbons as the walls and halls of the downstairs recreation area no longer yield any more space.
“A lot of what I learned from Harry, I keep going back to,” she reflects, adding that while she has tried new techniques many of Van Dyke ’s ways have stood the test of time.
The joy she receives from growing the dahlias is also shown in her professional life as an executive Red Seal chef at The Wellesley, a retirement community. Throughout the growing season vases of show-caliber dahlias decorate the buildings’ tables and halls. “If someone is not feeling well, I will take them a bouquet for their suite,” she tells. Occasionally, she will have a request to supply flowers for a function.
Whether it is her work ethic or growing dahlias, it reflects her goal of achieving her best efforts. As, she has said, at the end of the day, she wants to look back and know she has done the best she can.
How she does ‘best’
“I don’t plant my tubers in the ground right away,” said Young-Davis, whose full-time job can make that a time-consuming task. As well, the spring can bring uncertain weather with abundant rains leading to rot and slugs. Instead, she starts waking up her tubers in late February as they are stored in Styrofoam boxes. She brings the boxes inside her home to the basement where the home’s heat gently arouses the tubers from their winter slumber. Once she can see eyes and growth, she places the tubers in one-gallon pots and takes them to her greenhouse. From there, once they have grown shoots (and she has taken any cuttings she wants), she moves the pots to a cold frame to harden up.
Not all the dahlias go into the cold frame at the same time as each plant has a different time line for growth with some sprinting ahead of others. By May, she is beginning to place the potted plants from the cold frame in the ground. Because they are established in the pots, she digs the hole according to the pot’s requirement and covers the hole with an inch of dirt. She uses rebar to support the dahlias; planting one dahlia per hole with one piece of rebar to support each dahlia plant.
Young-Davis also watched Van Dyke take thousands of cuttings. “He never kept all the tubers,” she said, as he would seek out two or three that looked good from each type of dahlia and then discard the rest. He would then use the tubers for cuttings. “I would always get cuttings from him each spring,” she recalls and he would tell her – “I might not be here next year, so you will have to learn how to do it.” Her first attempt saw only a 25 per cent survival rate but she now has mastered the technique and her cuttings all survive.
Connie fertilizes her dahlias and uses different fertilizer strengths to provide the blooms with the nutrients needed at the various stages of growth. The NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) strengths foster different areas of growth with nitrogen for leafy greens, phosphorous for roots and blooms, and potassium for long stems with resistance to pests and overall vigor. “When I plant, I always fertilize,” she said, adding that initially she uses a water-soluble 24-8-16 and then switches to a 20-20-20 blend for summer and finally moves to a 15-30-15 later on. “I don’t fertilize heavily,” she said, preferring to fertilize every two weeks. But, much depends upon whether the plant is happy or unhappy, she said.
She uses a drip-irrigation system but only in the mornings to ensure that mildew is not encouraged. With 800 plants and another 100 seedlings in pots, confusion can occur, so Young-Davis also double labels her plants; she uses a large roll of tape to tag the rebar and the stock of the plant.
Her favored tools in the garden are a pitch fork for loosening the soil both for planting and removing tubers as it can loosen the soil gently and less traumatically than a shovel. She uses a hand pruner for daily maintenance on the dahlias but when cutting blooms for show or for display, she favors the large-eared Chinese scissors that she buys from Lee Valley
Continual maintenance is the most important feature of growing show-worthy blooms, she feels. That includes pinching the tops through to de-budding and later removing the lower levels so more energy is directed toward the blooms and there is air flow between plants. “Maintenance is non-stop,” she said. She also carries out daily patrols visiting the dahlias to ensure that no pests are present.
Hybridizing New Connie Varieties
Young-Davis has 13 new Connie varieties to her credit, including one named in honor of Van Dyke. Connie Harry is a small formal decorative light blend, hybridized in 2015.
Connie selects the plants she wants to pollinate and then prefers hand-pollination using a paint brush rather than opting for natural pollination which often involves grouping like varieties and allowing wind or bees to do the work. By controlling the pollination, she says, she is able to get more seeds from a plant than may occur if bees or wind carried out the process. “I can get up to 40 seeds,” she said, adding that other means may only yield 15-20 seeds. Once pollination has occurred, she covers the bloom to ensure there is no contamination.
She starts the seeds in the greenhouse and then moves them to the cold frame before finally placing them in large 30-gallon Chinese pots. Each of these pots can hold two or three seedlings and she has 20-30 pots where the seedlings are trialed out to determine if they should be kept.
In 2023, Connie won the Derrill W. Hart medal from the American Dahlia Society for her 2023 Introduction, Connie Dohuahua BB C Y, scoring 90.02 in the trial garden. The medal is awarded to the fully double cultivar that has the highest average trial garden score in the accredited trial gardens located across the United States and Canada during the previous year in its’ size classification.
Her hybridized blooms carry her first name. They are: Connie Denise 2401 B IC W; Connie Dohuahua 3302 BB C Y; Connie Grace 3202 BB SC Y; Connie Harry 3010 BB FD LB; Connie Jean 2410 B IC LB; Connie Liz 3210 BB ID LB; Connie Margaret M FD DP; Connie Marilyn 9613 S DR; Connie Marion 4001 M F D W; Connie Pei Yang 4002 M FM Y; Connie Quan Dee 6110 MB LB; Connie Sophie 3202 BB SC Y; and Connie Trishonnie 3210 BB SC LB.
Each year, when the Connie dahlias bloom, they are a reminder of people or pets that have touched her heart, Young-Davis said. “As well as people who have inspired me and encouraged me to follow my passion to create something new,” she said.
Putting the Tubers to Rest
Unlike other parts of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia – where Connie lives and gardens – has a mild climate. With 800 plants to dig out, the moderate temperatures provide her with a longer window of opportunity to harvest tubers. After the first frost, usually in October, she begins lifting the tubers, after cutting down the tops and then digging out the clumps. “I only cut what I can do at one time,” she said, as the whole process can take up to five to six weeks to harvest. “I dig them with as much soil as possible,” she said, just as most growers provide a wide circle around the plant to prevent breaking off any tubers. Once out of the ground, she can remove more of the dirt, trim the roots and then wash the clump clean before she divides the clump for viable tubers. She does not bleach the clump or tubers but instead uses a sulphite to dust the tubers after the clump has been divided and cuts have been made. She usually waits a day or two before dividing the clumps after digging and washing to ensure the tubers are dry. Once the viable tubers are dry and the name written on the tuber, they are packed in the storage medium – half vermiculite and half wood shavings – in Styrofoam boxes in layers. She can get 40-50 tubers in each box. The closed boxes are stored under the house deck where her husband has built an insulated and sheltered enclosure. The radiating heat through the house walls is enough to keep them from freezing until late February, when the cycle begins again.
Going to the Shows
Each year, Young-Davis participates in four shows put on by the local and regional dahlia societies. The shows are in Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo and in Washington State. She used to participate in a Fraser Valley show until the dahlia society there folded in 2023. She regularly attends the American Dahlia Society’s national shows when they are held in the Western region.
Over the years, she has won 40 Best in Show for a single entry and 27 Best in Show for a triple entry. But each new show brings its own challenges of hard work, anxiety and no guarantees all will go smoothly. “I am usually up until 3 a.m.,” Young-Davis said as she stages flowers at home for those that go to local shows or where a venue does not accommodate a staging area.
For shows that are further afield, she has the advantage of her husband Colin Davis’ skill as he has crafted structures that help in the transport of hundreds of dahlias in the family SUVs. The first was dubbed Dahlia Mobile I, which operated from 2012-2017, and was able to accommodate an enclosed container which could be slipped into the SUV’s rear end and fit under the tailgate door. It provides insulation, air conditioning plus Styrofoam to buffer the blooms so they can travel safely in buckets of water without sustaining damage. When the first Dahlia Mobile was retired, the couple purchased a Honda Pilot, and again an insert was crafted, but this one was more like a recessed box, which allowed pots to stand firmly together for transport as well as provide support for those between the front seats and the box. Dahlia Mobile II now transports hundreds of blooms in the vehicle to shows where Young-Davis enters 100-120 classes. (See photos of Dahlia Mobile I and Dahlia Mobile II).
Crossing the border to attend U.S. shows is always a challenge and in 2012, the Dahlia Mobile I was loaded with hundreds of blooms to participate in the 46th American Dahlia Society show in Portland. At first, the border crossing inspectors were not sure if the blooms should be allowed in as there was uncertainty of whether they were agricultural products. Young-Davis did make it through and took Best in Show with Trengrove Millennium.
But, the win that she recalls with the most pride was in 2008. She was a novice going to Washington for a show. She was coming from Victoria, opted for the Peace Arch crossing. However, the authorities would not let her cross with all her blooms. Instead, she went through the truck crossing, a longer route that affected a portion of her blooms. Despite suffering a loss of blooms, she was still able to put together entries with one winning Best in Show. “My husband heard someone say that a Canadian novice had won Best in Show,” she said.
“Travelling is always a risk and it comes with mishaps and challenges that can’t be foreseen.”
Despite the unexpected, there is still the pride of winning Best of Show, introducing a new Connie variety, or watching entries land on the show’s head table. In 2021, at the Victoria Dahlia Society’s show, the Top Single entry in the show was Clearview Cameron (B C LB) entered by Young-Davis. That win in the show took the Perpetual Trophy that year. The trophy is awarded annually to the Best in Show with the name of the grower, flower and year engraved on it as the trophy becomes a way of honoring growers as well as keeping a historical record.
Clubs and Credentials
Connie is a member of the Vancouver Dahlia Society and the Victoria Dahlia Society. In the past, she has served as the Victoria club’s representative to the Federation of Northwest Dahlia Growers, which has members in the Pacific Northwest. She holds senior judge credential from the American Dahlia Society, and regularly judges at shows she attends, but like anyone who judges at a show where that person has entered blooms in a class, she will recuse herself from judging that group.
The Dahlia’s Attraction
Connie is drawn to dahlias because of their variety. “I’ve found that there are so many different forms and colors,” she said as opposed to other flowers. Also, the dahlia is a flower that keeps giving. “The more you cut the flowers, the more you get compared to some flowers such as the rose where you get one bloom stem for the whole growing season,” she said.
But, also the dahlias have no scent and as such, don’t aggravate her allergies. Also having no scent makes them ideal for sharing at the Wellesley retirement community where the elderly or staff may have allergies.
Her garden is where she spends her leisure time during summer and it has become a showcase with her award-winning blooms. During the summer, she hosts an afternoon tea in her garden for members of the retirement community where she works. “This is a popular outing and we set up a table and tent in the afternoon. She added that the longevity of the dahlia’s blooming period over summer and into fall, provides the Wellesley’s residents and other visitors with the opportunity to see the wide variety and color those dahlias can bring forward. She also hosts a second tour of her garden when her local Victoria Dahlia Society club members attend each year. “Everyone seems to enjoy it,” she said of her garden that is a kaleidoscope of color in summer and early fall.
Best in Shows
