Module One of the Floret Flower Online Workshop was all about clarifying and setting goals. What are your goals? How can they be broken up into smaller, more doable steps? What inspires and/or motivates you? How do you effectively achieve these goals? These were all questions we were encouraged to ask yourselves. Through this lens, Erin answered all of these questions for herself and outlined how she achieved her goal of creating and running a successful flower farm and floral design business.
Created by Allie Kuppenbender
Additionally, we “visited” nine different flower farm/floral design businesses to get a better understanding of the wide variety of potential business models out there and how different people are growing flowers and cultivating relationships around the United States. This businesses include:
North Field Farm, owned by Geraldine Kildow and situated on 1.5 acres in Ferndale, WA where she grows peonies for wholesale.
Triple Wren Farms, owned by Sarah and Steve Pabody and situated on 6 acres also in Ferndale, WA where they grow a variety of flowers for wholesale and mixed bouquets for grocery stores and direct to DIY weddings.
Little Boy Flowers, owned by Angie Tomey and situated on 1 acre within a larger 15 acre organic vegetable farm (Mountain Bounty, owned by Tomey’s husband) in Nevada City, CA. Tomey grows for weddings, wholesale, and as an add-on for her husband’s CSA.
The Flower Hat, owned by Julio Freitas and situated on 1/4 an acre in Bozeman, MT. Started as a floral design business, Freitas began growing flowers when he was unhappy with the selection from the wholesaler he was previously working with. All of the flowers grown are used for weddings he is commissioned for or sold to other florists in the area.
3 Porch Farm, owned by Mandy and Steve O’Shea and situated on 3 acres in Comer, GA where they grow for farmer’s markets, florists, and weddings (and are entirely solar-powered and use waste vegetable oil to power their delivery vehicles with the intent to be entirely carbon neutral).
Whipstone Farm, owned by Shanti and Cory Rade where they have an 18 acre vegetable farm with 3 acres designated to flowers in Paulden, AZ. They sell their flowers at farmer’s markets, within their larger vegetable CSA, and some wholesale for DIY weddings and florists.
Shoving Leopard Farm, owned by Marina Michahelles and situated on 1.75 acres in Barrytown, NY where she sells her flowers in a u-cut CSA, for DIY weddings, and to charities.
Tarrnation Flower Farm, owned by Vanessa and Reggie Tarr and situated on 2 acres in Sugar Hill, NH where they del at a farm stand, to a CSA, wholesale, and to DIY weddings.
Sassafras Fork Farm, owned by Stephanie Hall and J. Ed Hall, this father-daughter duo has 40 acres on land devoted to pasture for a meat and egg business, with 2 acres for flowers and located in Rougemont, NC. The flowers, Stephanie’s passion, are sold at farmer’s markets, wholesale to grocery stores, and for onsite weddings.
RESOURCES
Floret Online Workshop, Module 1: Getting Clear