About us

Our Story

Stunning dahlias. Virus-tested. Women-owned. Most dahlia growers are working with infected stock and don't know it — or do, and have given up. We haven't. Our plants come from virus-tested mother and grandmother stock.

We grow on a small farm on Sauvie Island, just outside Portland, Oregon, where every season begins with a deep respect for the land. Woman-owned. Five percent of profits support Indigenous women working to end violence against women and girls in Guatemala, the birthplace of the dahlia. Buy dahlias. Grow something bigger.

Meet Our Founders

Lisa Shannon, Co-Founder

Lisa Shannon, an award-winning author and human rights activist, spent 30 years flying around the globe to end violence against women and girls.

For seven years, she'd been living in her fiancé's Seattle home. In the months leading up to their wedding, she started sneaking in color: pots, planter bags, fifty dahlia varieties. Three weeks before their wedding, he called it off. She had 48 hours to leave.

She left with a U-Haul headed for her hometown of Portland, stuffed with sixty-five dahlia plants. Instead of a wedding, she ripped out the backyard of her old craftsman and put in raised beds. The next season her back yard was not so much a garden as a dahlia forest.

That's when she realized dahlias are generosity in flower form. A love language all their own. She gave away armloads of blooms every week, and hundreds of tubers at the end of the season.

Lisa eventually left her job as CEO of a global women's rights organization, officially entering her self-declared Joy Chapter. She's swapped her suits for overalls, the halls of the United Nations for dahlia trenches, her laptop for her camera and a shovel.

Today, few things give Lisa more joy than thinking of your own Joy Chapter filled with Kaya Blooms dahlias providing you armloads of flowers and tubers to gift to those you love (and maybe those you don't!) or building your own virus-free dahlia empire.

Akefa Raza, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer

Ever the voice of reason in the madness, Akefa is Kaya Blooms' business head, keeper of systems, wise counsel, and the person most likely to ask: “Have we actually budgeted for that?”

Lisa and Akefa have been partners in the global women's rights world for nearly a decade. Apparently, fighting for human rights wasn't enough adventure for one friendship — so naturally, they decided to take on dahlias.

Akefa grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan's famously green capital, in a 200-year-old estate home surrounded by 3.5 acres of manicured lawns, fruit orchards, and flower beds tended by three generations of women: her grandmother, her mother, and Akefa herself. Some of her happiest childhood hours were spent tucked under a 100-year-old black plum tree with a book while her mother worked nearby in the garden, working through beds of prized, award-winning ranunculus, the rhythm of shears snipping away spent leaves, and folk songs sung to the plants as they worked.

At Kaya Blooms, Akefa bridges the ordinary magic of growing with what she does best: rigorous operations, financial strategy, and fiercely protecting our values and culture. For Akefa, Kaya Blooms brings together her favorite things: beauty, friendship, feminism, flowers, and just the right amount of madness.

Ann Shannon, Resident Gramma

Let's be real about how this whole dahlia obsession started: Mom.

Lisa's mom Ann has filled her last 20 years of widowhood with an unruly gramma's country garden: dozens of pounds of tomatoes spilling out of her parking strip, roses and lavender galore, but the crowning glory: her dahlias. Gramma Ann (she is absolutely everyone's honorary Gramma) is known far and wide for running bouquets across town and giving 3 am rides to friends and strangers as needed.

Almost 80 years old, Ann now serves as Kaya Blooms' Resident Gramma, helping out with cuttings, arranging flowers, and talking dahlias with just about anyone.

Our Core Values

Ordinary Magic & Awe
Through flowers, we awaken wonder in nature's quiet brilliance.

Freedom for All
Our work is rooted in justice. We grow for a world where all women and girls are safe, free, and thriving. When women thrive, we all thrive.

Collective Flourishing
We thrive together. Our work nourishes interconnection, and blooms through shared abundance and joy.

Generosity
We give freely — of beauty, spirit, and intention. This includes giving away a lot of stuff.

Creative Spark
We think outside the box. We treat flower, story, and service as an unfolding expression of something bigger.

Stunning Craft
We pair horticultural rigor with respect for nature's individuality.

Wabi-Sabi Wonder
We celebrate the zippy, jolie-laide magic of individuality and nature's genius. Unruly beauty, offbeat elegance, soulful imperfection. We balance craft and quirk.