DLP Profile
Dahlias and life are about adapting to change.
By Jean Sorensen
Long-time dahlia grower, exhibitor, and senior judge Wally Kurth looks at life like a journey of change, just as the dahlia has emerged over the years taking various shapes and forms.
Wally Kurth has embraced change as he worked as an educator in the public school system during a long 60-year teaching career, a volunteer firefighter and taking on executive and judging roles in the Vancouver Dahlia Society (VDS) and the former Fraser Valley Dahlia Society. He is also trained as a dahlia judging instructor and has taught candidate judging classes for over 10 years for the Federation of Northwest Dahlia Growers and is serving on the Federation’s executive and administration. “I always told my students that they could be anything they wanted,” said Kurth, who taught Grades 3 to 7. He looks back at his own childhood and remembers himself as shy and skinny. “I wasn’t made a teacher; I became a teacher,” he said of a transition that developed gradually like the unfurling of a dahlia bud into bloom.
Change started for Wally when the Kurth family became part of the great post-WWII exodus of immigrants leaving Europe. At age nine, Wally arrived with his parents in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley area known as Sumas Prairie, mainly an agricultural area. Sponsored by the Mennonite community, the family took up residence in a little house, their first Canadian home. His father, a former teacher in Germany, went to work at Buckerfield’s, a well-known feed and garden supply store. By the mid-1950s, the family had saved enough to buy a small farm in the area which was a small mixed farm community, located between Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Land prices were low. “You could buy a farm for a minimal amount,” he recalls.
It was at this new home that Wally, then 12, saw his first dahlias as his mother, who loved gardening, was gifted some tubers. “My mother always grew dahlias,” he said, as he looks back over the years and those few tubers started a family legacy. Like many of that era, she gave them the basic treatment, digging up the clumps in fall, storing the clump whole and then putting the clump back into the soil in spring.
At the same time, Wally was experiencing a number of changes in school. His German first names Wolf Jeurgen was deemed not acceptable and like many who came from foreign countries to North America, their names were Anglicized. The school principal changed it to Walfried, which became simply Wally, at age 24 while attending summer school at the University of B.C. (UBC) with friends.
A high school aptitude test showed that he had the skills for teaching and it became the start of his journey to becoming a teacher. He attended UBC, became more confident as he shed his shyness, graduated, and with a newly-minted Bachelor of Education degree began teaching elementary school students in 1964. But, he wanted to go further.
After years of attending night and summer school classes, he obtained his master’s degree in education which helped him become a principal at the elementary school level.
After the teaching career was launched, marriage, and building a home followed later in life. “In 1974, I got my first dahlias from my mother,” he recalls. The torch was passed. He bought more dahlias, began growing the different forms during those early years. There was one he especially liked, named Deutschland (large brilliant red decorative) which he grew but eventually lost and still looks for. Again, he followed the old practice of dealing with dahlias in clumps rather than dividing the tubers.
It was during a visit to a tuber sale in April 2000 where he met other dahlia growers who convinced him he should join a group of dahlia growers. The same year he joined the VDS and later the Fraser Valley Dahlia Society. He served as president of the VDS from 2005 to 2008 and on the Fraser Valley group’s executive until it ceased functioning in 2023. He has served as the representative to the Federation for both clubs and continues to serve as the liaison for the VDS. While the clubs expanded his knowledge of dahlia propagation, from cuttings to hybridizing and dividing tubers as well as staging and showing, the societies also led him into judging.
Moving into Judging
After becoming a candidate for judging, he took the American Dahlia Society’s (ADS) novice course offered by thru the Federation and taught by well-know grower and judge Richard (Dick) Parshall. Again, he was hooked. “I’m the kind of person, who likes to keep going,” said Kurth as he climbed the judge’s ratings to eventually gain his ADS senior judge credentials. He became an instructor for the candidate judging classes which he has taught for the past 10 years. He has also been a regular judge at the VDS and Fraser Valley Dahlia Society shows as well as the Whatcom County show (formerly Skagit Valley show) and Snohomish Dahlia Society show.
His love for teaching also made him an ideal candidate to host VDS teaching sessions, which were held at his rancher-style home in Langley, where he has an acre of land. New dahlia growers interested in achieving their novice judging credentials have come to his home to learn the art of judging dahlias on presentation and the various forms. He has a wealth of dahlias growing in his garden to use for the sessions. Kurth said that in the past years, accreditation sessions for judging were also hosted at his home, with former president Norm Sharp of the now-folded Fraser Valley Dahlia Society working as his partner. “We were able to do it all in Canada,” he said. While Sharp has now retired, Kurth continues hosting teaching sessions, eager to bring new entrants into the judging circle.
As well being known for expertise in judging and teaching sessions, Wally is known for his great sense of humour. “He is a funny guy and is always making jokes and adding brightness to any group he engages with,” said Anne Maria Jacobson.
How he does it
In late fall, Wally will cut off the tops of his dahlias and leave them for a few days to a week, a process that helps to define the tuber eyes. He likes to leave about four to six inches of stalk on the plant as he finds these stocks provide a good grip when dividing tuber clumps. “I will then dig the clumps, wash them, divide the tubers and then let them dry for two days,” he said. He stores his tubers in containers with vermiculite in his barn where they can be kept cool over winter without freezing.
He grows approximately 60 different varieties and each year plants more than 200 tubers. Like most growers, he has some favorites such as Kenora Jubilee (a large white semi-cactus), Kelsey Sunshine (a yellow collarette) and Taratahi Ruby (a red water lily). His favorite form, though, are water lilies.
Planting in the spring
Kurth’s takes pride in organize his planting rows making sure they are straight and perfectly aligned. He measures out where the holes and stakes should be at two foot intervals. At each planting spot, a metal, four-foot stake is driven into the ground to support two tubers. “One on each side of the pole,” he said. The holes he digs are three inches deep and he mixes 4-10-10 fertilizer with the soil he scooped from the hole and part is returned to the hole. The tuber is placed horizontal with the eye visible. “I leave the eye just slightly up at first,” he said. The remaining soil is then packed around the tuber, but not covering the eye. As the tuber eye grows, he packs more soil around the base to support the stem growth.
Early in spring and prior to planting, he rototills the planting area and may churn in some aged manure on occasion, but once the tubers are planted with the 4-10-10 or some similar fertilizer, he does not do any further fertilizing, leaving the nutrients in the enriched ground to serve as a growing base. A drip system is used for watering and watering intervals will depend upon the weather, he said.
His favoured tool when working the garden is his rototiller, which takes much of the initial hard work out of preparing the soil while he favors his long-handed spade for digging holes. Kurth has done some hybridizing and has originated two new varieties, dedicated to the women in his life. Betty-My-Love, a red waterlily with a yellow centre, honors his late wife and the mother of his three children. Elizabeth Anne (Betty), who was also a teacher, shared Wally’s passion for growing dahlias but succumbed to cancer in 2007. Kurth later remarried and WK-Erica, a red and yellow collarette, now honors the woman who now shares his life.
One of his joys of growing dahlias is seeing what emerges from new tubers grown for the first time or old favorites reappearing in the garden. He captures these images with his camera. “I love photography,” he said and the images he captures with friends and other dahlia addicts.
Show Time
While Wally has long participated in tuber sales and as auctioneer for specialty tuber sales held later on, the season’s best blooms from his garden land at local and U.S. shows. And, he is no stranger to walking off with ribbons. There are two wins he is especially proud of. In 2010, Kurth’s Kenora Jubilee, a white semi-cactus that can grow six to eight inches, earned him Best in Show at Whatcom County’s dahlia show. The win was a surprise to him as he had been out sailing with friends during the day and then rushed home cut the flowers and headed south to the show. He hadn’t expected much but when he came to the show venue later on, he was surprised to find his Kenora Jubilee had been moved to the best bloom in the show spot at the head table. At the Vancouver Dahlia Society’s 2023 show, Kurth walked off with the Best in Show trophy for his Hamari Accord, a stunning yellow semi-cactus that has six to eight inch blooms. He also won largest dahlia in show with AC Ben, a big (AA) soft yellow and orange semi-cactus beauty.
Transport tricks for showing
Once the show blooms are cut and placed in their appropriate show containers, he places these show containers in a large container and ties the show containers to larger containers so that the larger container can keep the smaller containers in place while travelling to the show.
The Perfect Flower
Looking back over 70 years from the time when he first saw those tubers handed to his mothers, Wally is amazed at the popularity the dahlia has gained in the home owner’s garden. While neighbors once passed treasured tubers from one to another and judiciously dug and wintered them over, there is now a myriad of forms and colors sold at Federation tuber sales, through the Internet, and garden centres. But, he considers them the perfect flower in many ways and well-suited to taking to friends in hospitals as they have no scent.
“I love having visitors to our one acre site once the tubers are in bloom. Visitors are so delighted when they leave with an armful of colorful dahlias – the most beautiful of garden flowers,” he said.
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