The dahlia garden outside the Greenside’s home is meant to bring joy to the neighborhood, but a man ripped off hundreds of dahlia heads and threw them in the street.
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — A dahlia garden known for being full of color and flowers outside Zach and Susan Greenside’s home in Federal Way is nearly bare after someone ripped off hundreds of dahlia heads, throwing them into the street.
“It’s still pretty shocking to see how many are out here,” said Zach Greenside, looking at the flowers on the ground. “That somebody could do this.”
Zach’s wife Susan is the gardener who has a passion for growing flowers, turning her garden into a neighborhood centerpiece, for everyone to enjoy. She enters her flowers into competitions at the Washington State Fair and sells her flowers at a small roadside flower stand outside their home. He said her goal is not to make money, but to make people smile.”
“She’s just trying to help the neighborhood feel charming,” Zach said. “To give something for people to enjoy.”
Her favorite flower, by far, is the dahlia.
“She loves her dahlias,” Zach said with a smile.
But those beloved blooms became the target of a baffling act on Tuesday night. When Susan pulled up, she saw what had happened, and called Zach who had been inside.
“She had called me and said, ‘Hey, did you see what happened to my flowers?’” said Zach. “She sounded panicked.”
When he walked out he saw the hundreds of dahlias strewn across the road, picked off one by one. The Greensides and their neighbor then saw a man emerge from the garden.
“I followed the gentleman for a moment and said, you know, ‘Hey, why? Why would you do that?’” said Zach. “And I really couldn’t get a good answer as to why he did it.”
The Greensides estimate that the man spent nearly an hour in their yard, damaging between 200 and 300 flowers.
Zach said he felt shocked, but mostly just sad for his wife.
“I know how much time she spends tending to the flowers, cutting them, and how much she enjoys seeing them out here and seeing other people enjoy them,” said Zach. “And so for me, it was just really just disappointment and confusion, like, why? Why would somebody do this?”
Despite the damage, Susan already arranged the few surviving dahlias into cheerful bouquets for the community.
Dahlias are flowers that do grow back, so the Greensides are hoping they will rebloom in the next couple of weeks and that they can get one last harvest of flowers for the season.
“Most people treat it respectfully, come out and just enjoy them,” Zach said. “That’s all we can really hope for.”
The couple did call police after the incident.
“We weren’t really looking to have him taken in or anything like that,” said Zach. “We really just wanted him to not come back and not do any more damage to the flowers.”
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