Starting Dahlias From Seed: Planting Hope in a New Season

Some seasons of life feel like starting over. New house. New routines. New soil under your feet. This spring, while unpacked boxes still sit in corners of our home and the weather can’t seem to decide if it’s winter or summer, I found myself planting dahlia seeds under grow lights and hoping for something steady to grow. Gardening has always been a quiet reminder that even in the middle of chaos, tiny roots still find their way.

Sometimes we plant seeds when life still feels unsettled.

New home.
New state.
Two children needing new services.
Making new friends.
And somewhere in the middle of it all… a small mom identity crisis.

Check, check, check, and double check.

Here we are in a new place. It’s March, and some mornings it’s barely 30 degrees outside. Other days it’s somehow 80 degrees by 9 a.m. I guess Mother Nature might be having a bit of an identity crisis too.

Yet somehow I’ve been feeling like I’m already behind in planting my seeds.

Truthfully, it probably has nothing to do with the calendar. Life has simply felt a little chaotic lately, and I’m craving something steady and peaceful.

Starting a garden has often been that place for me.

A few years ago, during a particularly difficult season of life that I won’t share much about right now, gardening became a kind of refuge. It was something small I could nurture when everything else felt outside my control. Watching something grow reminded me that even when life feels messy, new things can still take root.

It also helped that in a garden, if something becomes diseased, you can pull it out and stop it from spreading. There’s something oddly satisfying about that kind of control. And on a lighter note… I also knew I was far too pretty for prison.

Gardens have a funny way of reminding us that good things take time.

Making friends in your 40s can sometimes feel less appealing than it used to. I still push myself to be social now, because I know eventually it will stop feeling like work and start feeling like an adventure again.

After all, even after nearly twenty years of moving around, I’m still best friends with women I met when I was barely more than a young doe myself.

This year I’m especially excited about what’s growing in my garden because I’ve become a bit obsessed with dahlias.

If you’re familiar with flower farming at all, you’ve probably heard of Floret Farms. I’ve followed their dahlia journey for years now. I bought one of their books a while back, and I still find myself going back to it again and again. Their research and passion for these flowers is contagious.

While I certainly don’t grow them on the scale they do, I’ve started saving my own seeds and dreaming about future gardens.

One day, wherever we finally settle down, I imagine my yard filled with rows and rows of dahlias in every color imaginable.

For now, my “field” is much smaller.

At the moment my dahlia seeds are sitting on a warming mat under grow lights while the temperatures outside decide whether spring is ready to arrive yet. Every night I find myself asking Google what the low temperature will be. If it drops below my personal threshold of the 50s, the plants come inside.

Right now, as I’m writing this, they’re tucked safely under their lamps while I sit nearby like a knight in shining armor, protecting them from curious children and an overly enthusiastic dog.

Realistically though, I do let the kids investigate. After all, they’re my own little plants too—grown straight from me, the parent. Watching them learn about seeds and soil might be my favorite part of gardening.

And that’s really the point.

Gardening, much like life, doesn’t come with a perfect instruction manual. There are plenty of books and guides out there, and I absolutely encourage you to read them and learn from them.

But you don’t need every special tool, the perfect soil mix, or the most expensive setup to grow something beautiful.

Sometimes all you need is a little dirt, a bit of curiosity, and the willingness to try.

Perhaps a little yelling at the plant when she’s being particularly stubborn. You learn that as a mom.

Make the garden your own. Let your children dig in the soil beside you and make a mess. Plant the seeds anyway—even if life still feels a little unsettled.

Because we only get so much time with our kids, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sometimes the most beautiful gardens begin in uncertain seasons.

You might be surprised by what grows.