Flower Farming Starts and Finishes

One the the things I love about LoCoFlo is our close connection and relationships with the farmers we work with. On any given week, I see and talk with the growers more than I do my friends and family.  This is a business that requires regular contact by phone, email,fax and visits to the farm and farmers markets. It’s easy to become…friends.

This past week I was excited to meet and spend time with Talmar Garden’s newest employee: Brindley Fisher. Brindley will be my regular contact at Talmar for ordering flowers. Ordering flowers from local growers is different than calling up a wholesaler or emailing an online distributor and making an order. One call or click and your done. Not so in our world.  Brindley will be the person who lets me know what’s growing each week. It’ll be Brindley that walks me around the greenhouses, hoop houses and fields to show me what will be available in the coming weeks. It’ll be her that emails me, texts me, calls me to let me know how many lisianthus are blooming, in what shades and what the stem lengths are.  It’s farmers like Brindley at Talmar that provide the beautiful flowers, herbs and greens for our weddings and events. They make our work possible.  I’m excited by Brindley’s  enthusiasm for her work-and for the human connections that come as a result of the work. I’m looking forward to working with her this year.

I was also saddened this week to find out that one of my favorite growers has decided to stop growing flowers and leave “the business” all together. After some health problems slowed him down last season, he decided, after much consideration, to stop growing. I’m sad for so many reasons. This is a man so full of information about flowers that was ALWAYS so generous with his time to walk me around the farm and TEACH me. I have learned so much from him. I’ve shared coffee with him, made crafts at his house and cut flowers in the field with him. He has been a huge supporter of LoCoFlo and while I know that won’t change, I’m saddened to lose that weekly, sometimes daily connection with him. 

As we start our 4th year, I want to say how grateful I am to all of the growers we work with. Grateful for the beautiful flowers they provide. Grateful for everything they teach me (and they are teaching me all the time). Grateful for their support of LoCoFlo. Grateful for the relationships we have built. Grateful to call them my friends.