Flowers for the People
Salt Spring in the summertime is a land of colourful abundance, where buckets of hand-harvested flowers stand alongside freshly picked produce at the Farmer’s Market and roadside farm stands. The appetite for bringing hand-tied bouquets home to adorn dining tables is strong, and local florists have responded by offering seasonal flower CSAs, with weekly or bi-weekly deliveries.
As public interest in florals has grown, intrepid farmers are organizing new activities to meet the demand, from flower workshops at Bullock Lake Farm and Alchemy Farm to DIY wreath kits from Flowers by Tali. You can take farm and garden tours, learn about helping bees and other pollinators thrive, or be schooled on how to dry flowers and build gorgeous winter wreaths.
Claire Jutras of Earth Candy Farm has spearheaded a wholesale flower collective, with flowers from several farms making the weekly trip over to the United Flower Growers auction. Claire initially pursued her interest in architecture and landscape design while working at Finnerty Gardens after acquiring a degree in Biology from UVic. She then interned in Belize, Hawaii, and eventually Salt Spring, which offers an ideal growing climate for many foods and flowers. “By this point, I was like, grad school is out the window. I want to be a farmer for life. This is what's meant for me.”
At first, Claire and Molly Wilson from Bullock Lake Farm worked together to educate themselves on how to develop a cutting garden, taking workshops off island, and then threw themselves into weddings. At the time, there were no options for local flowers, no full service farm to wedding service. While BLF still offers full service wedding planning with flowers, Claire moved into wholesale flower growing and a schedule that better suits life with a young family: “I've gotten back to flowers for the people. Like, let's just get flowers on everyone's table.”
Her wholesale flower business not only enables other local gardeners to explore their love and creativity for growing, but also directly employs several people each year. “I find that flower growers have a lot of passion for it, and I want people to continue to have a place to sell their flowers so that they can just grow tons of interesting stuff.” The rationale of the flower collective is that individual growers can experiment with rarer varietals, and each can dial into their own niche (ie. weddings, farmer’s market, CSA programs) and there’s less waste overall because their efforts are distinct but coordinated. The safety of the collective means each individual has more room for creativity and fun in the garden, plus, there’s the emotional support within the group: “We talk all the time and share information, and we're all at each other's farms all the time,” says Claire.
These farmer florists have come forward with offerings like asters, ranunculus and peonies from Salt Spring farms, a departure from the roses and daisies that are grown en masse by largescale commercial growers. At first, Claire wasn’t sure if the flower auction was the right place for the flower collective, but many of their florist customers were shopping there anyway, so it made sense to explore that option. “There's such a huge demand for the stuff that we were growing. I wasn't expecting that, [because] we have small quantities and weird things. But they turned out to be really perfect.”
While esteemed florists across BC might be showcasing some of Salt Spring Island’s prettiest petals, there’s plenty to go around. If you aren’t signed up for a flowers CSA from one of our local farms, you can be sure to find beautiful bouquets at the Farmers Market, farm stands, and at many independent retailers across the Island. Next time you have a bouquet in your home or on your dining room table, take a moment to really observe the flowers and see how the bouquet changes from day to day. And don’t forget the smells!
Find flowers, workshops, flower CSAs and more at these Salt Spring farms:
Heyday Farm
Small Earth Farm
Ambledale Farm
And if you’re interested in starting your own cutting garden or flower business, this is Claire’s sage advice: “Just grow what you love, and you'll do a good job of it.”
Saltine: A Salt Spring Zine, June 8, 2021 (Images by Brette Little)