Wanna be a witness to a dream come true?
“Why ruin a perfectly good hobby by turning it into a business?”
That’s an important question! Short answer: I’ve never been this passionate about anything in my life.
Second answer: I noticed that people craved being able to follow my pursuit of this dream.
So here’s me attempting to let you “peek through the window,” if you will, of me following this crazy dream of mine!
THE BEGINNING
The most common question I get asked is “What got you started into growing flowers?”
Here’s my elevator speech (I don’t wanna bore you!) on how it all started.
I used to have an obsession with Joanna Gaines (duh, who didn’t?) and her Spring 2018 copy of the Magnolia Journal featured a flower farm in Washington state–Floret. Ever heard of it?!
There was Erin Benzakein (The OG flower farming queen) holding a bucket of dinner plate dahlias and I was FLOORED. I had never seen anything like it.
You can grow stuff like that?! I’d only ever heard of roses, mums, and babies breath going into bouquets!
I asked for Erin’s book, “Cut Flower Garden,” for Christmas, read it in a day, and promptly bought three packets of seeds to plant that spring.
And, wonder of wonders, they actually grew. (Mind you, I’ve killed every house plant I’ve EVER owned, so this was truly a miracle).
FAST FORWARD
Over a year passed and I continued gardening during all seasons of the year.
I was about to graduate from my Masters Degree in Curriculum and Instruction when I told my husband, Dwight, “I actually think I want to start a flower farm.”
He said, “Okay.” (WHAT?!)
Once I graduated, I continued working as a reading specialist part time.
Every. Single. Penny. That I earned as a reading specialist went straight to a savings account for “seed money” (pun intended!) to start this flower farm.
THE PLUNGE
I began devouring books on farming, flowers, floral design, marketing, business, etc. I was reading every spare moment I had (more on that in another post).
I also stopped listening to music for a while, and was instead listening to every podcast that had anything to do with flower farming.
Oh, and I stalked lots of blogs and social media pages (again, I’ll tell you all the good ones in another post!)
Soon it was time to take the plunge and start spending the money I had saved for the last three years. You may have heard the phrase, “It’s always the scariest right before you start.” Yep! That about sums it up!
The scariest step was buying land–crap was getting real now!
And the next scariest plunge was getting a water well dug–which was a DISASTER (but that’s a story for another time).
My family and friends helped me prepare the planting beds, and I started planting thousands of seeds.
SPOILER ALERT: I’ve killed more plants than have actually grown, but I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes. And hey, what started out as a far-off dream in a magazine spread has become A LEGIT THING!
Okay, that was a really long elevator speech, but there ya have it.
The dream is happening, friend! Can’t wait for you to witness it.
