The story behind The Wildflower Cottage

Hey there flower friend! I wanted to take a little time to share the story of The Wildflower Cottage and why this farm holds such a big part of my heart. So let's start here; Like for so many, my most cherished memories are spending time with my grandparents. For me it’s the time we spent in their gardens. My paternal grandmother, who only answered to Meme, would spend hours in the garden with me and my cousins. She would tell us the names of flowers, have us pick ripe berries from the vine that were warm from the sun, and have us crush herbs between our fingers to release the fragrant oils to smell. We would gather bouquets to set the table for our tea parties of home made pies and lemonade. She would help us press flowers in books and do leaf rubbings with our broken crayons. With her it was always about making memories.

As a kid we moved a lot. My dad was military when I was a baby and toddler then entered into oil and gas. We never stayed in one place more than a year or two. The garden, and my memories I made there, literally helped me feel rooted in a world that was often changing. I can look back & realize that being in the garden with my hands in the dirt really are some of my most favorite childhood memories. I think we all have core memories tiedback to the earth in some way. Maybe you have similar stories.

“Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers."

LadyBird Johnson

With my family constantly moving being in the garden help me feel rooted. That feeling and love for being in the garden never left me. As I got into my teenage years I continues to help my parents create gardens in our rental homes. A trick that my parents taught me that I still do to this day is squeezing the bottom of 6 packs of annuals to swap out colors or skimpy plants for more robust varieties. My mom would often even pinch off seed heads that formed on annuals still at the store.

In college I found a job working at a local nursery. My knowledge of the plants that did well in our area or how to care for tricker varieties grew immensely. Not only was I getting to spend my days playing with plants but the 50% discount helps to feel my love. I began building my own garden in pots on my apartment balconies. During this time I even signed up for some gardening magazines, I’m telling you I came into my grannie hobby era early, and I remember reading one of them that a small farm had started a flower CSA (community supported agriculture). That was the first time I realized flower farming was an actual thing and my secret dreams of flower farming took hold. When my husband and I bought our first house can you guess what the selling feature was? That’s right, the big beautiful backyard with a koi pond and a lot of potential for me to grow both literally and metaphorically. And grow I did. In that first house we got engaged, married, started our little family. I kept dreaming of our next move being to some land where we could start our farm. However, when my oldestwas 15 mo old I felt like something was a little off. We had her evaluated though our state early intervention program but felt pretty confident we would be told we were fine. When our answers to the questions kept coming up as ‘no’ we got concerned. That day we were told she screened at high risk of autism and shortly after was diagnosed with moderate developmental delays. At the time I was 7 month pregnant with our second. I felt so scared and lost. Everything changed.....

"May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day."

- Native American Proverb

We welcomed our second into our family and life was barely manageable as it is when a family grows. Our oldest began an intensive early intervention program 4 days a week. Within just a few months of that we got in with a psychologist where she got her official diagnosis of not only developmental disabilities but also level 3 autism. I started realizing that we would need to monitor our younger daughter’s development as well since instances of autism within families increased with siblings. When my younger daughter was 8 months she also screens with delays & would later receive similar diagnosis. With 2 children with profound developmental disabilities, my days became consumed with dr appts, therapy, & IEPs. At time, I felt like my dream had died. Depression followed as often does to caregivers of disabled children that are fighting constanly for their kids. I turned to my garden for respite & found peace there among the blooms. It always took me back to simple times. My children began joining me & I found flowers brought them joy too. The more time we spend among the flowers together hope came back. Every time I saw the pure joy in them when we harvested bowls of berries or a big bouquet for the kitchen table I realized my dream didn’t die. It changed. It wasn’t not centered on me anymore. It held my children at the center. It could be a safe place for them to learn life skills & blossom into who they are meant to be. I realized this was even bigger than our family & we could serve other families like ours. We could create opportunities to share the joy of flowers, the peace they can bring, & the wonder of sowing a seed & watching it grow into something beautiful. It didn’t just stop at my family. This could be something I shared with other families like mine. This could bring joy to anyone suffering a loss or grieving a life that shifted from what they thought it was going to be. I started to see that what I wanted out of the farm was to build community. I wanted to connect with others and share the hope and joy that flowers seem to bring. After all flowers are symbolic of shared life. They are give at the birth of a child or the death of a loved one. At milestones like birthday or people coming together in marriage. Flowers bring people together and in our world today, who doesn’t need need more connection?

If you’ve hung in this long, I think you know just how powerful flowers can be. Maybe they have had an impact on your life in a similar way to me. I hope more people will view flowers as more than a luxury purchase. I mean they aren’t food for survival, but they do feel our soul. They encourage us to slow down and savor the precious fleeting moments in a world that is often telling us to hustle and rush from one thing to the next. I hope that in reading this you will join this community we are building to share the joy with others too. Thanks for reading Flower Friend.