In a former hayfield on the outskirts of town, Dianne Reitan diligently cares for her babies.These babies aren't of the giggling and drooling variety. These babies are organic dahlias, some upwards of 6 feet tall, which point their crimson, yellow, orange and pink fractal faces toward the sun while soaking up the well water and nutritious soil on the 28-acre property of the nonprofit Western Museum of Mining and Industry.
"I love how much joy they bring me and, more importantly, how much joy they bring everyone else," said Reitan, owner of Dianne's Dahlias. "People just light up." Her babies have beautiful names: Cafe Au Lait, Pooh, Cornel, Bohemian Spartacus, Canby Crazy, Coral Gypsy. And they're prolific.
Reitan has 900 plants in 350 varieties, which produce 20 to 50 blooms per plant. That equation equals bountiful bouquets that she sells Mondays and Wednesdays at a farm stand near the museum dedicated to the mining history and industrial technology of the Western U.S.
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