In this Team Flower Business Model Highlight, we're featuring Angela Hall of Meadow Farm Florals, a small flower farm offering a unique community program for cut flower growers: Grow Together. Meadow Florals can be found online at www.meadowflorals.com and on Instagram @meadowfarmflorals.

We all know how unexpectedly and abruptly our world changed during this "covid season" that we have found ourselves in.

When it became clear that in-person opportunities would be suspended locally and globally, we seemed to collectively and instinctively turn elsewhere for the connections we were missing out on. As a result, many of us turned our attention outdoors.

Vegetable and flower seeds were selling out across the country in record time. Greenhouses and garden centers couldn't keep up with demand. People who had never grown a plant in their life were tearing up their sod to grow gardens.

When I took a step back, it seemed that many of us recognized, either knowingly or otherwise, that there was a relationship that we may have been neglecting long before the pandemic ever hit. A relationship that was forgiving, that we could nurture, and that couldn't be taken away.

This relationship was with nature.

As a small-scale flower producer, I saw an opportunity. My email and social inboxes were filled with questions from first-time growers. Many were indicating that they had no idea how to start growing, never mind what to do once they did start!

I found that I was answering the same questions over and over, and it became clear that something had swept across the minds and hearts of people. Suddenly people had time to garden. They weren't vacationing. They had empty social calendars. They might have even noticed some temporary food shortages. Whatever the reason, people wanted to get outside and get growing but didn't exactly know how. A light bulb went off in my head. Why not do it "together"?

Of course, we couldn't physically do it together, but with so much moving onto online platforms, I figured there must be a way to move growing online as well. Enter: Grow Together.

Grow Together

Grow Together is a growing club that I launched to my local community this past winter. To market the program, I first highlighted "the problem" in an email to my email lists as follows:

If 2020 taught me anything, it is that the outdoors provide. When stores, cafes, restaurants, gyms, and community centers closed last spring, the outdoors stayed open.

When I couldn't venture afar to explore, I found new ways to explore in my own backyard. It turns out I wasn't alone. Nurseries and commercial greenhouses sold out in record time. Seeds flew off the shelves of garden centers. Potting soil became a highly sought-after commodity. A shift took place. The collective appetite became insatiably hungry for all things outdoors.

This year is already proving to follow suit. Extreme delays on seed orders are already in effect. Suppliers have entirely cut off purchases for home gardeners, reserving their seed stock exclusively for commercial growers and farmers. A long list of restrictions and limitations exists along the supply chain, and wholesalers face record-breaking demands from retailers and growers.

Many cut flowers (flowers specifically bred for their ability to be cut and hold up in a vase) are native to more tropical environments, and as such, they have a long window of growth before they bloom. Once established, they grow well in our northern climate.

But this long growth period necessitates the plants to be started indoors—preferably under grow lights or in a climate-controlled greenhouse—if they have any hope of putting on blooms before our early frost settles in. This limits the average home gardener as to what they can grow. Often the next best solution is looking to a commercial greenhouse for seedling starts. Greenhouses dominate the world of bedding and house plants. However, their cut flower selection is limited, and demands are, at times, outrageous.

Common seeds can be found at local garden centers. Still, again, their cut flower offerings are limited, and the seed packs normally contain 50-100 seeds (if not 500!) per package which can often feel wasteful as most home gardeners are not set up to grow such high quantities of a single variety.

Next, I offered a solution!

I launched "Grow Together," a community of local growers. As a GT member, each grower would receive the following:

• A planter's package in May that contains approximately 30 of our favourite, hard-to-source cut flower varieties, potted and ready to transplant. This package will consist of perennials, biennials, and annuals. Additionally, the package will include one pre-sprouted dahlia. Dahlias are a tuber that, if done so properly, can be dug up in the fall and stored to be replanted the following spring. This dahlia will multiply each year that it is grown.

• Direct sow seeds. These are seeds that either resent being transplanted, have a quick maturation date, or both. As a result, these varieties prefer to be sown directly into the ground. The seed packets will contain just the right amount for your home-sized cut flower garden.

• A printed booklet with all the growing, transplant, seed sowing, harvesting, and post-harvest tips you will need for the varieties you receive in your GT package.

• Direct access to Meadow Farm Florals and the rest of the GT growing community via a WhatsApp private chat group from May Long Weekend until the end of the growing season. This is where the magic will happen. This group is extremely beneficial not only for your learning, but also for community building. We will send out frequent tips, info, pictures, videos, and check ins—with friendly reminders like "Have you pinched your snapdragons yet? If not, this is the week to do so, and here is how!"

• A branded Grow Together canvas waist apron with pockets to hold your garden gloves, notebook, and pencil for your garden notes, your Meadow Grow Together Garden Guide, and phone for all the amazing pictures you'll be taking.

I opened up 30 spots, and the program sold out in a weekend. I didn't trust that I could physically start any more plants, so I cut the full membership off but continued to offer partial membership for access to the growing community online as well as for the seeds, shipped in the mail, to direct sow in home gardens across Canada.

The group has been wildly successful. We have built a community online that now, as restrictions lift, can translate to real life. Together, we have celebrated our wins. And we have commiserated over our losses. If you keep a garden, you know that there is no joy like sharing your knowledge and interest with others.

When the unexpected inevitably occurred with our plants or gardens or growing seasons, we had a group of people to turn to who were invested in our successes and who were willing to share their shared experiences.

Truthfully, it has been the most beautiful way to be together.

From a business standpoint, we suddenly had a guaranteed market for 900 starter plants. We have gained social exposure online from our members. We have converted members into repeat customers with other sales avenues. To date, I cannot see any downfalls of the program.

Creating a template for how the program would work this year took a serious time investment. Developing the growing manual and putting systems in order to streamline the processes certainly took work.

However, those same things won't require nearly the same amount of time in the coming seasons. Going forward, the program has the potential to become one of our most important revenue streams and has the potential for massive growth.

Cut flowers, as an end product, are magical. If you're here reading this blog, you likely will agree. However, growing cut flowers, especially while being supported by a community of fellow flower lovers, is a whole new level of magic! I couldn't be more glad to offer the materials, a bit of knowledge, and the opportunity for us to all make magic as we Grow Together.

All photos by Karmen Meyer Photography.