Flower Farming Internship
If you had told me a year ago that I would become a flower farmer, I wouldn’t have believed you. But life (and in this case, COVID-19) is full of unexpected surprises, and this was a BIG one for all of us. Twenty months later, COVID-19 is still disrupting our daily lives. But this is one example where truly — when one door closes, another window opens.
During those first few uncertain weeks of shelter in place (SIP), all weddings and events were canceled. Like many of us, my entire livelihood was put on hold. And even when micro-weddings were allowed to continue, I wasn’t completely reassured as I worried about the global flower supply, and our inability to get access from our growers and wholesalers. I heard horror stories about farm staff getting sick or dock hands unable to unload shipping containers. The entire global supply chain - not just flowers, but all global goods - was turned completely upside down. I had always enjoyed gardening, but never had it felt this critical and important to be growing my own materials. So a few months into SIP, and like so many others - I started buying more plants and sowing flower seeds, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they did well. And one thing led to another, we bought some land and we now own a flower farm!
Given the extended lockdown, we had a lot of time to pour into our new farm. We planted hundreds of unique roses and sowed thousands of tiny seeds. And everyday, we would wake up early to dig new rows; plant bare root roses; nurture each tiny plug; and battle the gophers and weeds that threatened our delicate baby plants. And as the baby plants began to grow heavy with blooms - we still didn’t feel relived. It wasn’t until local florists, who were also facing the global supply shortage, started showing up at our door begging for flowers for their intimate weddings and events. And through word of mouth, we grew the farm AND our customer base. We now have regular floral designers coming to us for our collection of dusty Distant Drum, Koko Loko Roses, and Honey Dijon roses, as well as dainty cosmos, scabiosa, phlox, corncockle, and sweet pea.
Unlike large commercial flower farms that have to cut blooms very young to avoid damage during shipping, we are able to harvest our flowers at their peak so they are the most beautiful and have the longest vase life for our customers. One of my goals in creating this farm is to bring beautiful, unique blooms to our local community. Our old world growing techniques (completely organic and by-hand) yield the most special flowers, like those only seen in an old Dutch masters painting. But now, those blooms exist in the real world, and I want them to become accessible to everyone.
If you share our love of flowers and this vision, for the next growing season, we are looking to bring on 1-2 farm interns. We'll get our hands dirty and experiment with growing different varieties of flowers from seeds, plugs, corms, bulbs, bareroots. We’ll learn about each flower’s preferred growing conditions - we’ll see what germinates and what thrives - and we’ll experiment together.
The chosen intern(s) will receive plugs (baby plants) for their own personal garden, as well as a bucket of flowers each week when they are in bloom. You will also receive one-on-one instruction with me on how to create floral arrangements full of movement, texture and soul. This internship is for 7 months (May 2024 - December 2024), with a commitment of 2-3 hours a day for 2 days per week.
To sign up, please submit the form below and I’ll get back to you ASAP. I look forward to meeting all of you soon!
All photos courtesy the talented Ditto Dianto!
