The Beginnings of the Flower Farm

When my husband and I moved back to the St. Louis area from Colorado in 2017, I was so excited to have my own backyard to start a vegetable garden. My husband built an 8x8 foot raised garden bed and I used it to grow vegetables and herbs - tomatoes, basil, and lettuce were my favorites to use, but I tried a little of everything.

My first garden in our current backyard

The previous owner of our house had already established large garden beds as part of the landscaping, and I slowly cleaned them up and added more native plants to them as I started to learn more about the ecological benefits of natives.

Echinacea in the front yard

We ordered raised beds from Vita, many, many yards of soil and compost, as well as lots of woodchips for paths between the beds. We spent several weekends shoveling and carting all of the soil until the garden was finally ready to go.

We layered cardboard beneath all of the beds and walkways

My husband was amazing and shoveled the majority of the soil and compost

At the start of the 2024 growing season, I had no plans to start a flower farm out of our backyard. In fact, the only flowers I planned to grow were some of the natives I already had growing, as well as two packets of seeds from Floret - a packet of dahlias and one of zinnias. Otherwise, I only planned to grow veggies and herbs.

As the season went on, I found that the flowers were by far my favorite part of the garden. The more I had, the more I wanted. And I started experimenting with cutting zinnias, sunflowers, and dahlias, as well as my native flowers, and making bouquets.

Cutting stems became my favorite way to spend evenings

I LOVED making bouquets. So my plan of starting a flower farm started to take root, and I spent the remainder of the season reading everything and anything about growing cut flowers, experimenting with different varieties, learning how to grow the best quality flowers I could, and figuring out how to get the longest vase life possible.

A bouquet for a friend

I’m so excited going into 2025 to have almost my entire garden space planned for cut flowers (I’m still leaving a little room for tomatoes and herbs) and I can’t wait to continue experimenting with which Missouri native plants make for the best cuts. 

Thanks for coming along with me!