Memphis' Tulip Takeover: The Dixon's 50-Year Legacy

Episode 79: Pocket Change Podcast

What's the story behind the Dixon Gallery & Gardens?

Established in 1976, the Dixon was the estate of Hugo and Margaret Dixon. Hugo moved here from England, where he met his American southerner wife, Margaret. They both loved gardening and French Impressionist artwork, so the Dixon was born out of their passion in Memphis, Tennessee.

How is the Dixon celebrating their 50th anniversary?

2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the Dixon's opening! They are planting 50 trees for 50 benefactors along with 650,000 spring-flowering bulbs (mostly tulips) to celebrate the big anniversary. A new documentary premiered on WKNO in January 2026, and the garden was also recognized in the March 2026 edition of Southern Living Magazine.

A new tulip variety from the Netherlands has been named after Margaret Dixon for the anniversary. It blooms white, then becomes a deeper yellow as it matures.  

How did the Dixon's tulip tradition begin?

What started with 10,000 tulips has now grown into thousands more as the Dixon garden's popularity has grown over the years. Tulips are difficult to grow in the Mid-South due to the weather and climate, so these exhibits offer a unique and fun activity for people to enjoy in West Tennessee.  

When is the best time to see the tulips?

There are three different types of tulips planted at the Dixon: early, mid, and late-blooming tulips, so visitors can enjoy a variety of tulips all spring long, depending on the weather. What one guest will see one week might be different the next! Weekdays or weekend mornings tend to be less busy. 

Learn more about the Dixon Gallery & Gardens by visiting dixon.org. 

The Pocket Change Podcast is presented by Leaders Credit Union. To learn more about Leaders, visit leaderscu.com.  

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Full Transcript

Shea:

Hey, this is Shea.

Carrie:

And this is Carrie.

Shea:

Welcome to the Pocket Change Podcast.

Carrie:

Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save and invest and take control of your financial journey.

Shea:

So today's guest brings one of Memphis’, you know, beautiful spaces to life each year.. He’s from the Dixon Gallery Garden.

Carrie:

That's right. And he's going to tell us all about their 50th anniversary this year, and a special tulip that they brought in just for that celebration.

Shea:

It’s a limited time. We want everyone to check it out. Go see it for yourself. And, enjoy the spring that we have here in West Tennessee.

Carrie:

That's right. We're excited to welcome our guests today, Dale Scaggs, Director of Horticulture at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Welcome to Pocket Change, Dale.

Dale Skaggs:

Well, thanks for having me.

Carrie:

Yes. So can you tell us a little bit about how about yourself and how you got to the Dixon?

Dale Skaggs:

Well, I've been interested in plants my entire life, and I grew up in Memphis growing plants. I went to, Bartlett High School, and we had, a vocational agriculture program, and, in that program, we didn't really have much farming at that time in Bartlett. It transitioned into sort of a bedroom community to Memphis. And, so we focused on what we knew, which was horticulture. And we grew poinsettias and Easter lilies, and it was a great, a great experience for me that sort started my trajectory towards, coming to the Dixon. So, I worked for nurseries in high school and, really, immersed myself into that world. And then, I went out to Oregon to go to school, Oregon State University and University of Oregon for grad school in botany, horticulture and landscape architecture. And, when I moved back here, I ended up working for the University of Tennessee in charge of the Master Gardener program. And, now, I've been here at the Dixon for about 18 years, and, it's been a been a good place to land. And I've got to use a lot of my experience, for all the way from, growing flowers that I learned at Bartlett High School to huge landscape designs of public gardens that I learned at University of Oregon. So, yeah.

Carrie:

That’s great.

Shea:

So the Dixon's been a big staple in Memphis. So for those who may not be familiar, tell us the story behind the Dixon and the Dixon family that, really got this started.

Dale Skaggs:

Yeah, the Dixon is a, institution that was started in 1976. It was the estate of Hugo and Margaret Dixon. Hugo was from England, and he was in the textile business, and, he moved here to be in charge of the McFadden Cotton Company. Margaret Dixon was from Mississippi, living in Memphis. And, I guess you can say he fell in love with the Mississippi girl. And that's the reason that, the Dixon, ended up in Memphis.

Shea:

Yeah.

Dale Skaggs:

They had no children, and, Hugo loved gardening. Margaret as well. And they had a penchant for collecting French Impressionist artwork and were collecting some major masterpieces. And so they, when they passed away, they already had the mechanism in place to, create an institution that would, a nonprofit institution that would, celebrate the art in their collection as well as promote horticulture. And, as our charter says, with equal vigor.

Carrie:

So that's great. So, this is a big year for the Dixon. It's the 50th anniversary. Can you tell us a little. Yes. I'm sorry.

Dale Skaggs:

No.

Carrie:

Go ahead. I was just going to say. Can you tell us a little about what's happening at the Dixon this year to celebrate?

Dale Skaggs:

Well, it is our 50th anniversary. As I said, 1976 to 2026, is a milestone of 50 years, and it's just a great time to look at where we've come and what we've done and what we've been able to accomplish, and sort of start thinking about the next 50 years and where we can, go ahead from there. So we pause for a moment to, look into we sort of that a deep dive in the archives looking at, our historical, you know, nature of things that the everything from correspondence in the gardens, correspondence with Hugo Dixon and his sister and developing the gardens and just seeing a lot of, a lot of archival photos and things like that, which was really, really powerful for me. I've always wanted to really take a deep dive on that. And I've had a cursory look over the years. Like I said, I've been here for about 18 years, and, but this provided an opportunity for me to just do a deep dive on that, which was very rewarding. But, with that, we're doing a lot of unique things here at the Dixon in the gardens, especially. We are, we planted 650,000 spring flowering bulbs, mostly tulips, which is a huge increase from our normal numbers. And, we're planting 50 trees for 50 benefactors that are, helping to shore up the endowment, that Hugo Dixon left, and, we have amazing, art exhibits that are, very relevant in the community and, created by, our own staff. So they're Dixon originated exhibits rather than canned exhibits that you would, see a lot, a lot of museums bring in these prepackaged exhibits, but it's a lot more effort, on the curators part to put these things together. Instead of just buying something that's already out there and hanging it on the walls.

Shea:

I think y'all have a, documentary too. I'm sure looking at all that archival material, I've put the other documentary that's out there.

Dale Skaggs:

Absolutely, absolutely. We have a great documentary airing on WKNO, for the entire year. I think. It rolled out… I think our first showing was in January. And, I know they're, playing it quite a bit and they've expanded the market. I think they've sort of, the reach of it is much further than just the Memphis market. So, hopefully we're getting a regional, if not a national, awareness of the Dixon and what we're doing here with that.

Shea:

And y'all have a lot of awareness in different publications, especially behind what you mentioned about the tulips being such a big, part of the Dixon this year, especially with the, the 650,000 versus your, usual amount. So tell us about, how all that came to be and, and what people, can expect from the tulips this year.

Dale Skaggs:

Well, yeah, last year we were featured in the March edition of Southern Living, which was really good to get some national press on what we're doing here. But, as you said, that was a move, planting, a lot fewer, bulbs. We normally plant between 200,000 to 250,000. So, say a quarter of a million tulips. This year, we're, we've amped that up to 650,000, which is a big number. But the number is really just, it's just that a number. I mean, it's just every place that we can find to put tulip bulbs, we have these big sweeping, grand, displays of tulips. And, I think everybody's, welcoming it after the winter that we've had. So, it's in full bloom as we speak, and, anyway, it's a time to, to really just reflect on where we've been and, and look at, celebrate things. And no other flower that I can think of is celebratory than the tulip. I mean, it's just everybody loves it.

Carrie:

It's true. So at what point did you realize that this had become something more than just a seasonal display?

Dale Skaggs:

Well, I mean, we started out, with about, 10,000 tulips in the cutting garden. And that was when I was about five years in here. Like I said, I've been here about eight. I've been here about 18 years now. And, and people really just respond to the tulips like nothing else. We, you know, we've always had great horticulture here. We've had the cutting garden. We planted about 10,000 in the cutting garden, and the response was kind of overwhelming. That was back when we charged admission. Now we're free admission. So, and we would have free Saturdays, and on the free Saturdays, it would be just so packed in the gardens with people just coming to see 10,000 tulips. And so, we, you know, tulips are not really well suited to the Mid-South, and I think that's part of their appeal. Nowhere else can you see them in this kind of, quantity. In the Mid-South. It's actually, I think, one of the biggest, in the region, if not in the nation of tulip displays. So, but, we have grown every year. I think the next year we did 20,000 because the response was so good. We had a, a benefactor and, a, just an amazing human being that, helped develop the Dixon into what it is today financially and just our organizational structure and all of that. Joe Orgill is a very prominent Memphian, and he had a lot to do with the well-being of the Dixon today. And, but he, he was there on that Saturday that I was referring to that the Saturdays when we planted the 10,000, flower bulbs and, and he pulled me aside. He said, Dale, I think people really respond to this. You're on to something. And, you know, I'm smart enough to know that if, if Joe Orgill tells me something, I better listen. So that's why we ended up to 20,000, and then it went 30,000, then 50,000, a 100,000. And then, we just we're just kind of off the rails, I thought at 250,000. So this is just really, really, huge effort for our staff. But we do it for people to enjoy. If you're here over the weekends, you can see just people… it brings great. It's a great bright spot to the city and brings just lots of joy to a lot of people. You can't help but look at them, and it's going to make you smile. I guarantee you.

Shea:

How many guests y’all anticipate this season?

Dale Skaggs:

I don't know, you know, historically, just to kind of put the numbers in context, when I started here 18 years ago, we had about 50,000 visitors a year. And, you know, now with our display as of last year's numbers reflecting somewhere around 30,000 visitors for the month of, March and April, and this year, not only do we have that, we have the Memphis Flower Show, which is another big draw here. So I think we'll have some pretty good numbers this year. And it's, yet remains to be seen. Mother nature, you know, can make this a really long show. Or if it gets up in the 80 degrees, it can end very quickly. So, anyway, right now, at the rate we're going, I'm hoping we can break that. And I think we will break that, that number of 30,000 visitors. I think, the numbers last week in or north of 10,000 visitors, for last weekend. So that's pretty good. So I think we're, definitely resonating in the community. It blows up on social media. We really don't have to advertise. Everybody sees all these beautiful blooms and they want to come see it. You know, we, I jokingly said I was we were going to plant this many tulip bulbs and we would have, traffic jams on Park Avenue. And it actually came into fruition this past week here.

Shea:

Wow. Well, we want everyone to check it out. I know it's just a small time frame depending on the weather, but hopefully many people in the region in West Tennessee and other surrounding states can come see it. But, there's a special tulip y'all have, for the 50th anniversary. Tell us about that. And the naming of that.

Dale Skaggs:

Yeah, it's the, we named it for Margaret Oates Dixon. And, so it's a yellow tulip. It sort of starts out as a real soft, almost white yellow tulip, and then it changes to a deeper yellow as it matures. It was bred in the Netherlands. And, I went last spring, I had the privilege of going over in search of a grower that had an unnamed variety that had the quantities that we needed. And, we had several choices, and I think we picked a wise choice. It's a great cut flower, which is a tradition here at the Dixon. And the fact that it starts out white is really good, too, because, Margaret Oates Dixon's favorite flowers were white flowers and, and then it fades to gold, which this is our golden anniversary. So it just seems like it all just clicked. And, we have we only have a less than a thousand of them planted here. The rest are in the Netherlands, where they're bringing... They'll grow them and keep producing more and more and more. And, we hope, hope that it's ultimately, sold in the trade. And it's a popular one. It's a good grower, which is always important, for the for the Dutch flower growers. They want something that's going to produce really well and has a lot of disease resistant qualities. And it was bred for a cut flower. So I think I think it's got a lot of potential. And we certainly love it here and we're proud of it and we're celebrating it this year. Our, on the 28th of March, the christening of the of the flower bulb… With Dutch, authorities here. Quite an event. So, anyway, yeah, it's registered with, with the, Dutch, registering body. And so it's, it's officially named Margaret Oates Dixon. So we're excited.

Shea:

Yeah. I didn’t know so much went into the just the background, of getting that, tulip and the special naming rights for that. So that's really special for the celebration.

Carrie:

Yeah. Sounds fun to be the one to choose it.

Dale Skaggs:

Well, you know, the probably started it.

Go ahead.

Carrie:

I was just going to say it sounds fun to be the person that gets to choose the special tulip.

Dale Skaggs:

Well, it's not a responsibility that I take lightly, but, yeah, I will say, you know, this happened… this flower was probably bred ten years ago. Because if you think about it, you do a cross, you take the pollen from one to another, and then it takes three years before you ever see any blooms. And then after that, you have to bump up the numbers to get to where we have. And there's like 6 or 7000, maybe, of these, that exists in the world. So, took many years to get there. And the fact that someone hadn't already scarfed it up and named it was pretty remarkable as well.

Carrie:

I can't wait to see it. So, you've mentioned that one of the unique things about the Dixon is that there's free entry. So how did that come about?

Dale Skaggs:

Well, we had, we had another, generous, benefactor of the Dixon that, you know, after we had Covid and we all experienced Covid, we were all in lockdown. It was a tough time for everybody... And after Covid, they basically said, hey, what is your gate revenue? How much how much money do you make on the turnstiles when people coming through the gate? And, we gave them a number that we made every year and they said, well, if we make it, if we give you that amount times three, can we make it free for the next three years so that everybody can sort of, you know, immerse themselves in art and horticulture in a healing way for the city? And, that was, that was we initially did it. And since then we've continued to do it. And we will continue to seek out people to support what we're doing. We thought it might have some impact on our membership, because the biggest thing that people like about their membership is they get to get in free. But as it turns out, the community is has been steadfast and they continue to support it. They want to make sure that it's they like the fact that it's free, and they think that it's great that we're, really a resource to the community. And, and, it's amazing what a, you know, an $8.50, admission fee… What a barrier that is to some of the mid-southerners here. And, so we want as many people as we can to experience the wonderful art and horticulture that we have here.

Carrie:

That's wonderful.

Shea:

Yeah. Releasing the barriers is, I'm sure, helpful to a lot of families and individuals. And so for the tulips specifically, you know, it's kind of a short time frame to see them. So at the time of the podcast or we got to, you know, a few weeks left to, see the tulips. So what's the best time to, to see the tulips? And what can the visitors expect if they come to see the tulips in bloom?

Dale Skaggs:

Well, I would say the weekdays are a little less crowded. The weekends, be prepared to spend some time getting parked and prepping for getting out here.

Shea:

Traffic jam on park avenue.

Dale Skaggs:

Yeah. So, but so the weekdays are probably better if you can steal away during the weekdays. Probably first thing in the morning is probably the best time. By afternoon. We're pretty much, filled up. But, it is just an amazing display. You know, I liken it to, sort of slow acting fireworks. I mean, it's like you plant this... They're very ephemeral, they're fleeting, and you see these beautiful displays. But it's also ever changing because we have three different kinds of tulips that we plant. We plant early tulips, mid tulips, and late tulips. So a visitor on any given Tuesday, the next Tuesday they come, they can experience something totally different, than what was experienced before, which is, pretty magical. So it's a living, work of art, really?

Shea:

That's great.

Carrie:

So how do you think that the Dixon positively impacts the Memphis community?

Dale Skaggs:

Undoubtedly, I think that Memphis has a lot going well, and so I think the Dixon is a real bright spot that illustrates that and shows what it can look like for community. I think we are so relevant, in the Mid-South. Just to give you an example, we have our plant sale in April, and, and it's all volunteer run. It generates about half of my garden's budget, actually. And, it's a three day sale… Friday, Saturday and Sunday and, we have about 6,000 volunteer hours, at the Dixon. And so it leverages our small staff, but I think it is really reflects something bigger and that we are relevant in the community. If people are willing to give up their time, to this institution, people might not have the resources to donate huge money to the Dixon to keep this going. But a lot of people have time, and time is our most precious thing. And the fact that they're willing to give of their time to this institution, I think we're knocking it out of the park. We’re relevant. People support it, people want it, and they feel like we're doing good things. So, that's for sure.

Carrie:

That's great.

Shea:

Yeah, not just time volunteering, but time spending at the Dixon, learning more and becoming knowledgeable about tulips or about the artwork that's on display. So that's really, positive. All right. So this is a financial podcast. And so we want to ask you, like we ask all of our guests, what's the best financial advice you've ever been given?

Dale Skaggs:

I've got two pieces of financial advice. One is live within your means. And, don't try to overextend yourself. And the other is, start investing early, for retirement and things that, on down the line because it's the, the magic of compounding interest. And, and especially with some of these tax sheltered, tools that we have to build wealth. I think that's the best advice. So, I mean, it's a huge difference if you start in your 20s versus starting in your 50s, trying to save for retirement and other things that you're trying to do in life.

Shea:

That’s right.

Carrie:

That's a great advice. Well, this is the Pocket Change Podcast, so we like to ask if you found some extra change in your pocket, what would you spend it on?

Dale Skaggs:

Probably spend it on plants.

Shea:

Makes sense!

Dale Skaggs:

I'm an avid gardener, and either plants or books.

Carrie:

Books about plants?

Dale Skaggs:

Books about plants. And, I mean, I do have other hobbies. I like to fly fish as well, and, fly rods are pretty expensive, so I might save that change for a nice fly rod.

Carrie:

That sounds fun to. Where do you like to fly fish at?

Dale Skaggs:

The Norfolk in the White River. They're pretty amazing. Fisheries right here in our back, not too far away. So, you don't have to go out to Montana to get some really good, big fish.

Carrie:

I love the White River. That's a great place. Well, thanks so much for, being on our podcast today. We enjoy learning all about the tulips at the Dixon Gardens. And, we want our listeners to make sure that they go and visit and see the special 50th anniversary tulip that you've selected.

Dale Skaggs:

Yes. And visiting year round. We always have things in bloom here at the Dixon. It's not. There's a lot more to it than just the tulips. So, I hope you'll come frequently and really just get to know this Memphis treasure. And there's no reason not to. It's definitely worth the price of admission.

Shea:

That's right.

Carrie:

That’s true!

Shea:

Check it out!