Our History

For the last several years Dahlia growers in Middle Tennessee had been asking for a local group to share their love for dahlias. Jan King and Gia Card had both started to independently research starting a group around 2021. They met each other in the middle Tenneessee Dahlia growers group and decided to combine their efforts. they set up and hosted 3 annual tuber swaps and then decided the time was right for the middle tennessee Dahia Society to be was born!

Team Members

Jerri Seigrist

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Audrey Wynkoop

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Jan King

President

Jan King discovered gardening as a child. Her father and mother both loved to grow lavish vegetable and flower gardens. She is a master gardener and the founder of Donelson Community Gardens in Nashville. She has been growing dahlias for several years and founded Middle Tennessee Dahlia Growers in 2022 to connect growers in the area and as a first step to creating a dahlia society in Middle Tennessee. Jan lives in College Grove and has two adult children. She is the founder and owner of Starry Night Flower Farm and Jan King Couture Design.

Dawn Lipski

Treasurer

Dawn Lipski is the owner and flower farmer behind Fleety’s Flowers. She was introduced to dahlias just two years ago and quickly became obsessed with their incredible variety, beauty, and personality. What started as an introduction to these beautiful flowers has grown into a passion for growing and learning more about dahlias with every season.

AnnChristine Johnson is a hobby dahlia grower in the Nashville area. She has been growing dahlias since 2019, and typically tends around 200 plants a season. She is passionate about sharing dahlias and inviting others into trying their hand at growing them too.

Starting around 2023, Brandon discovered a brand-new passion: growing dahlias. He quickly became fascinated by these unique flowers, especially since there are always exciting new varieties and colors to choose from. For Brandon, gardening is about more than just spending time outside in the dirt. His main goal is to grow bright, beautiful flowers so his wife can use them to decorate their home. He loves being able to bring fresh, homegrown bouquets inside for her to enjoy every day. Brandon didn't have to figure it all out on his own. He learned the ropes from his wife's aunt, Jan King. What started out as a few helpful tips turned into a great friendship. Now, the two of them are officially "garden buddies" who love to laugh, swap advice, and share their gardening stories with each other. Now that he's hooked, Brandon wants to keep learning everything he can about how to care for dahlias. His big goal for the future is to keep hunting down new and different types so he can build an amazing, colorful dahlia collection right in his own backyard.

Kristen Faulkner is a home flower grower in Fairview, Tennessee, where she tends Bluebird Haven Blooms, her small home flower farm. Her interest in dahlias quickly grew from a few plants into a collection of more than 100 varieties. She loves the incredible range of colors and forms dahlias offer, but has a particular weakness for the big AA guys.

Kristen grows primarily in containers and raised beds and enjoys experimenting with varieties and learning what performs best in Middle Tennessee. Her garden also includes roses, peonies, sweet peas, and other cut flowers, with an emphasis on supporting pollinators and backyard wildlife.

She is currently completing the Tennessee Extension Master Gardener program and volunteering at the Giving Garden. When she isn’t gardening, she can usually be found researching another flower variety she absolutely does not have room for.

Audrey left a career in corporate energy infrastructure in 2022 to pursue entrepreneurship and launch Worm Bucket, a small e-commerce business focused on making vermicomposting simple and accessible. Her entrepreneurial journey even led to an audition for Shark Tank, where Worm Bucket advanced through three rounds of casting. In 2026, her work was recognized when she was named Small Business of the Year.

Originally from coastal Rhode Island, Audrey moved to Nashville in 2015 and discovered a love of gardening and growing flowers. She first discovered her love of gardening as a young child, spending time alongside her grandparents in their backyard garden. That early connection to growing things stayed with her throughout her life. She became a Master Gardener in 2024 and especially enjoys growing dahlias—which she considers some of her favorite flowers, even if they are also among the most challenging!

Gia Card is the owner of and grower at Blue Willow Farm in the Bethesda community of College Grove. In 2016, together with her husband and children, she left behind friends, family and her landscape design business on the east coast and headed to Tennessee in search of a better life. She had a dream to own a farm and continue her passion for growing. They soon found the perfect piece of land, built thier dream home, and started a regenerative flower farm and in 2017, she discovered a passion for growing dahlias. She now grows about 300 varieties as well as countless seedlings that she loves. She does event work, delivers flower subscriptions and donates bouquets throughout the season. It is safe to say she has found her happy place and learns more about growing and hybridizing dahlias with each passing year.

Gia Card

Vice President & ADS Representative

Jerri Seigrist

In 2022 Jerri started growing 15 dahlias on her horse farm just north of Nashville. Over the next couple of years she increase the numbers to several hundred. She started her dahlia farm-Digging Dahlias in 2026. In addition, her love of growing and learning about dahlias has lead her down the path of becoming a candidate judge and attending many of the southeastern shows and ADA National Show.

AnnChristine Johnson

Secretary