“When I began planting dahlias for my own enjoyment I had just four types,” Mark Harvey, Old House Dahlias owner, said of the starter plot he planted in his backyard inside Portland city limits in 2004.
That garden grew to 80 varieties when he started selling the flowers a couple of years later to supplement his income as a fishery technician for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Business blossomed and Harvey eventually quit his job and moved to Tillamook last January.
“When the demand for dahlias became too great to accommodate from within the city limits, I moved the farm to 14 acres in Tillamook” he said. “We started our business as a little backyard dahlia farm in the city and it I built it into this.”
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