The story below is from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Editor's Note: Read our colorful blog post pairing on the Blue Ridge Flower Exchange allowing Roanokers even more access to beautiful blooms!
In Southwest Virginia, a fresh crop of flower farms is coming up roses.
Courtesy of Tony Hensley / Sky Pics
The Beaver Dam Sunflower Festival attracts about 20,000 visitors annually — a boon to the local economy.
On a windswept winter day almost six months ago, Laura Stump walks through the frost-hardened rows of her small Catawba flower farm, Lark & Sky. A watery sun is skimming the tops of the mountains beyond, the last of its pale light catching on the stubbled ground. But where visitors might see only cold, bare earth, Stump sees something more:
Courtesy of Laura Stump
Laura Stump of Lark & Sky loves offering visitors fragrant, hard-to-find blooms: “I try to have things that people don’t often see in the grocery store,” she says.
“Early Spring, we’ll have calendulas, Bells of Ireland, feverfew, snapdragons … I try to have things that people don’t often see in the grocery store,” she says.
Sweeping her hand to the rows beyond, she gestures to an unassuming mound in the earth.
“These are the dahlias. A lot of people will dig them up, store them over the winter,” she explains, “but for two years now, I’ve been using the no-dig method, and they’ve been coming back.”
In May, Stump will peel back the tarps and unearth the plants from their protective layer of mulch, and they’ll serve as showstopping stars of her farm’s you-pick offerings for the summer.
“We’re all about beautiful survivors here,” she says. “They have to be tough.”
And perhaps it’s that exact quality – the stubborn persistence of beauty in hard places – that defines this new era in American flower farming, which, after decades of decline, has been experiencing a powerful resurgence.
Business is — quite literally — blooming.
In many ways, the boom can be traced back to pandemic-era lockdowns, when quarantined customers experienced a sudden hunger for self-care.
“I definitely feel COVID helped people understand the value of having fresh flowers in the home,” says Thornfield Farms’ Susanna Thornton, who says she planted 8,100 tulip bulbs last autumn for her spring harvest.
Courtesy of Kate Thompson
Susanna Thornton of Thornfield Farm is just one of several growers launching the Blue Ridge Flower Exchange — a co-op that connects customers with locally-grown blooms.
But during the worst of the pandemic, there was one big problem for flower lovers: international supply chains — which had in recent decades connected Americans to the vast majority of their cut blooms — had suddenly snapped.
Enter the neighborly flower seller at the farmer’s market, who sold fragrant bouquets wrapped in brown paper or stuffed into antique blue Mason jars. Their flowers were available, affordable, unique and locally raised. Combine those factors with a growing consumer desire for more sustainable choices, and you had the perfect opportunity for an All-American success story.
Courtesy of Petal and Pail
Ashleigh Kritzberger of Petal & Pail founded her business from a decommissioned dairy barn on her family’s property.
“I think a lot of people have started paying closer attention to their product origins and have realized there is a lot out there locally,” says Ashleigh Kritzberger of Petal & Pail in Buchanan, who started her operation from a decommissioned dairy barn on her family’s property. In fact, Kritzberger is currently launching a floral co-op program — Blue Ridge Flower Exchange — with Thornfield Farm, Lark & Sky and Yonderyear Farm. “There’s been this revitalization,” she says, “and it’s cool to be a part of it.”
The local industry that’s emerged from the trend is a varied one. Some farms, like Petal & Pail, grow and arrange flowers for local weddings. Others offer agritourism, with smaller locations like Stump’s centering on you-pick opportunities, and larger properties, like the now-famous sunflower fields at Beaver Dam Farm in Buchanan, throwing huge annual festivals at bloom time. In fact, according to Candace Monaghan, who runs the Beaver Dam festival on her family’s farm, the event attracts about 20,000 visitors annually, allowing vendors to achieve some $365,000 in sales last year – a benefit to the local economy.
“Some of the vendors walk away in five days making $20,000,” Monaghan says. “That’s huge for a small business!”
But if there’s one thing that most of these farmers seem to have in common, it’s an ability to look at challenging landscapes and see possibility, with many reclaiming farmland that would otherwise be unprofitable or unused.
Courtesy of Little Otter
Max Lagasse, head flower farmer at Little Otter Flower Farm, practices no-till regenerative farming methods to improve the soil at his Bedford-based family farm.
And then there’s Little Otter Flower Farm in Bedford, run by Jennifer Kohn and her son, owner Max Lagasse, who has autism. Kohn is quick to admit that others once saw a limited future for her son – perhaps some part-time work, or even life in an institutional setting. But she saw the chance to help him build a family business.
“The expectations for folks like Max, I think, are too low,” Kohn says. “Our message is, look what folks with autism can do!”
After founding the farm in 2020, Kohn quickly moved many job duties over to Lagasse. In addition to being the primary flower farmer, he now takes care of the books, sells bouquets at the farmer’s market, delivers his favorite “Random Acts of Kindness” throughout the community, and collects and analyzes farm observations to help improve the business and the soil.
But perhaps his favorite part is creating lush, loose arrangements, which he’s dubbed with a special moniker: “Riots of Color,” he says. “I like using more than five colors in them and more than five types of flowers … They’re gorgeous!”
And while farming is physical, dirty work, each bouquet is a testament to the practice of looking at a muddy patch of ground and seeing – with a little time and care – what could one day be a field of flowers … and a thriving business, too.
To find out more about the local co-op mentioned in this story, go to blueridgeflowerexchange.com.
Seven Simple Tips for the Perfect Floral Arrangement
Courtesy of Kate Thompson
Ever wonder how to create a gorgeous arrangement from that fresh bouquet? Follow these tips from local flower farmers for lasting, beautiful blooms:
1. Select the right vase. When it comes to the right vessel, Susanna Thornton of Thornfield Farm has a simple suggestion: “You generally want your flowers to be two-thirds higher than the size of your vase,” she explains. “That’s a good rule of thumb.”
2. Add a flower frog (or maybe just some chicken wire). If you’ve ever struggled to make a small bouquet look lush (especially in a wide-mouthed vase), you might need a flower frog – a florist’s mechanic that helps space out blossoms within the vessel. Don’t have one on hand? No problem, says Ashleigh Kritzberger of Petal & Pail: “Take a ball of chicken wire, crunch it up and put it in the bottom of a vase … It’s a little secret of the industry.”
3. Give your stems a fresh clip. Even if your bouquet was recently harvested, you should still give the stems a second shearing, says Candace Monaghan of Beaver Dam Farm. This is also a great time to strip off greenery that would otherwise sit below the waterline, causing bacteria growth. “When we make bouquets, we’ll take most of the leaves off the stem,” she says.
Courtesy Petal & Pail
4. Think in odd numbers. Especially when it comes to your focal flowers – big, bold blooms like peonies or dahlias – it’s best to work in threes and fives, says Thornton: “Often your eye is able to focus when you have that asymmetry.”
5. Don’t forget your greenery. While it’s easy to overlook the leafy supporting actors of your bouquet, Lark & Sky’s Laura Stump recommends being generous with the green stuff: “A third of your bouquet should probably be greenery,” she says. “It makes your flowers pop!”
6. Change your water regularly… and add a little homemade sanitizer, if you like. One of the most important tricks to a lasting bouquet, advises Thornton, is to change the water often. Many flower fans also whip up a homemade solution to keep the water clear, she says, with recipes that might include lemon juice, bleach, sugar, or other components. “It’s very Googleable,” she says.
7. Finally, take a deep breath and enjoy! While arranging flowers can sometimes feel intimidating, perhaps the cardinal rule is simply to create something you love.“While there are lots of principals and there are rules,” Stump says, “I think just about anybody can pick flowers and put them together in a way that makes them happy and beautifies their home. You can’t mess it up!”
The story above is from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!