Even for a repeat winner like Max Ollieu, facing thousands — literally thousands — of beautiful dahlia blooms is seriously daunting.
“You’re looking at all these perfect flowers. You’re looking at a sea of blooms. How could mine be the very best?”
Dahlia judging is a matter of starting with a perfect score, 100 points, and then starting to make deductions for whatever’s not perfect, Ollieu said. What if the petals don’t close tidily around the stem? Ding. What if the center of the bloom is a little oblong rather than a tight little “bullet” shape? Another ding. What if the color isn’t so bold or the whole bloom isn’t uniform as can be? Great big dings. Points are dropping off your score like, well, petals off a flower.
But not off Ollieu’s score. The prize-winning Battle Ground dahlia farmer recently hit it as big as one of his great big blooms: His Trengrove Millennium, a big yellow burst the size of a softball, took first place and “Best in Show” for what’s called a fully double bloom; and his single-bloom Chimacum Davi, a smaller pink orb, was “Best Miniature Ball.”
Ollieu is still a little stunned by his wins. The longtime member of the Portland Dahlia Society confessed that the really great dahlia-growing conditions are north of here, up in Snohomish County and around Seattle — where the competition is consistently “withering.”
In the friendliest way, that is. This is the kind of competition where your opponents are more than likely your buddies, Ollieu said. And there’s a good chance they’ll be guys. Garden clubs tend to attract women, he’s observed, but there’s something about this kaleidoscopically diverse genus of flowers that seems to fascinate men.
Why so diverse? Dahlias contain eight sets of chromosomes, Ollieu said, instead of the usual two. “The possibilities of different sizes, shapes, colors — it’s endless,” he said.
This from a former U.S. Forest Service worker who barely used to know what a dahlia was, he said. Then, in 1991, he and his wife retired to 6 beautiful acres south of Tukes Mountain, where some neighbors presented them a handful of tubers that just wouldn’t quit producing bright red blooms.
Ollieu, who grew up on an Idaho farm, started talking to nearby dahlia growers and got interested the possibilities. “I’m not a mechanical guy. I’m a biological guy,” he said.
His garden has grown as many as 200 varieties, but these days he’s down to about 60. He doesn’t hybridize his own varieties, he said; that’s for those lucky growers up north. He prunes with meticulous care and strategy, with an eye out for the perfection he knows the judges — like the ones at this weekend’s Portland Dahlia Society annual show — will demand.
“What I like to do is take the very best and make it even better,” he said.
The Portland Dahlia Society annual show is 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds, 694 N.E. Fourth Ave. in Canby. Admission is free. Visit www.portlanddahlia.com to learn more.
Bits ‘n’ Pieces appears Fridays and Saturdays. If you have a story you’d like to share, email bits@columbian.com.
