About Us

Hi there! I'm Sarah, and I am the face behind the dahlias.

We are located in the beautiful PNW in Arlington, Washington. In 2014, my husband Steven and I purchased our 7.5-acre dream property about 7 miles out of town. He and I have been married for almost 20 years, and he is the muscle behind the blooms. I say things like, “I think I need a greenhouse,” “I have an idea for some additional rows,” or “We really need irrigation here,” and somehow, he ends up building, digging, installing, or stringing something together. I have the ideas; he makes them physically exist. He is my favorite person, and I am so thrilled to be able to do this with him when he is not working his dream job as a paramedic/firefighter. I couldn’t do it without him, and it surely wouldn’t be as fun. We have two kiddos who like to help when able. They are rock stars at picking up spent blooms when I toss them to the ground, and our 9-year-old son’s favorite thing of all time is putting together those treat bags you will find in your order.

 

Dahlias have always been a big part of our family. My grandfather lived in Birch Bay, Washington, overlooking the water, and always had a beautiful dahlia garden. I vividly remember walking amongst his dahlias while he gently cupped each bloom and spoke about them. If you were lucky enough to be there, you could feel his great love and admiration. He grew mostly ball varieties, and I remember, as a child, being mesmerized by how symmetrical and perfect they were. So many petals, all perfectly placed, unlike any flower I’d ever seen.

He never fussed over the tubers; they stayed in the ground year after year. He never pinched, pruned, pulled, or divided them; he just let them be. He passed in March of 2021 at the age of 93, just as I was really getting into growing and selling dahlias. He would be flabbergasted to see my bins and bins of dahlias, all separated by variety at the end of each season and stored in a temperature-controlled environment with bottles of bleach scattered around. He grew dahlias by essentially saying, “Eh, they’ll be fine.” I apparently chose the other extreme. He truly loved dahlias, and the way he grew them is a testament to the fact that dahlias are more resilient than we think. My brother even named his first daughter, Dahlia, after my grandpa Dan.

 

My mom lives next door and walks through our garden almost every day during the growing season. Watching her walk through the dahlia garden while taking pictures and repeatedly saying, “I think I found a new favorite!” is what really brings this hobby-turned-business so much joy. Seeing how excited and mesmerized she is by every single bloom reminds me so much of my grandfather and how much he loved these flowers.

 

Willow Rock Acres officially launched in 2024. We are licensed and inspected by the Washington State Department of Agriculture every year during the growing season. We grew around 1,000 dahlias during the 2024 season and 2,200 in 2025. We sold and shipped hundreds of rooted cuttings all over the United States in 2024, upped our game for 2025, and almost quadrupled the number of cuttings sold and shipped in 2026.

Every single clump is dug, divided, and labeled by me. I am a small enough operation that I can get my eyes on every single dahlia tuber and cutting that is shipped to you and know you are getting the highest-quality dahlias. Nothing leaves our place that isn’t something I would be thrilled to receive myself.

 

I want you to open your box and think, “YES!” not, “Well… I guess we’ll see what happens.”

 

Our gardens are not open to the public. There are a small number of people allowed to harvest blooms who are trained in all the sanitation practices that I follow. Our kiddos sell flowers at a stand at the bottom of our driveway every summer to put money into their savings. However, most of the blooms are shared with friends and family, dropped off at assisted living facilities in town, and donated to the local food banks. We focus mainly on selling tubers and cuttings, not cut flowers.

 

Along the way, I have had the privilege of growing some very special dahlias hybridized by some of the most talented breeders in the industry. I believe the work hybridizers do is incredible and deserves to be recognized and compensated. Although not required by any of them, a portion of all sales from these varieties are sent back to the hybridizers to support their future releases and breeding goals.

The best part of growing this business has been the wonderful people I meet along the way. I have had the privilege of working with so many kind and genuine people, most of them starting out as customers. I can’t thank you all enough for supporting my business and my passion. I pinch myself every day, asking myself how I got so lucky to be able to do something I truly love.

 

I know you have so many options for where to source your dahlias, and I am deeply honored and grateful that you trust me to supply you with healthy, beautiful dahlias every year. Every single order means the world to my family.

If you ever wonder who is digging, dividing, labeling, packing, worrying about the weather, talking to the dahlias like they can hear me, and probably overthinking something that absolutely does not need to be overthought…

 

Hi. It’s me.

I wish you the very best growing season!

 

~ Sarah