Lost Dreams of a Flower-Filled Backyard (& Flower Farm)

Three years ago my husband and I started transforming the back yard of our third-acre property into a small scale flower farm. We have a tricky yard. We live at the base of a mountain, so our backyard goes uphill and has 4 separate tiers. Those 4 levels of yard contain twenty-three 4×8 beds. And three 4×6 beds, plus additional shrubs and vines and trees. I’m sure you can imagine that it’s a ton of work to fill all those beds with compost every year, re-work the drip, and start enough seeds to fill all the beds, plus care for the additional plants growing profusely throughout the yard. But that’s what we’ve done for three straight years. People who come into our backyard have called it the Garden of Eden. We were creating something truly beautiful.

The first year of growing was really just a trial run to see what I might want to grow. It was also an opportunity for me personally to create with flowers and take lots of pictures. It was more my own secret garden of joy than anything else. And I did enjoy it. It flourished. But toward the end of summer I got sick repeatedly, and the rest of the season was shot.

Year two we did the same hard work, but I had a lot of setbacks with my seed starts. I sold some bouquets and dried and pressed a lot of flowers that I ultimately sold, but again in the fall (after travelling) I got sick, and the illness dragged on and I couldn’t tend the garden. I started to realize this wasn’t my path.

This year I worked really hard at making sure my starts would flourish. Maybe I wasn’t a flower farmer, but I could still have this beautiful abundant garden! We poured money into special soil combinations and replaced all the drip. I got my seeds planted and was really on top of the weeds and care of the backyard. I felt good about where this season was heading, but then another health issue emerged that kept me from sleeping for several months. Of course after a few weeks of no sleep I was physically unable to take care of my yard, and it is currently a wild and weedy bit of chaos. I am currently undergoing treatment for the issue preventing sleep, but pretty much the season is shot. ..again.

Clearly, flower farming is not my path, and clearly a very large garden also is not my path. And as much as I love flowers, I have come to the point where I am happy to let it go. I will still grow some things, but on a much, much smaller and manageable scale, and only for joy, not for sale. We are currently making alternative plans for our yard and even that will be a rather big ordeal and lengthy process, but in the end it will free me up from the stress of having something I repeatedly can’t take care of.

Could next year finally be better? Absolutely! But the dream no longer burns inside of me. I long for simplicity. Sometimes it takes repeated setbacks for the heart to embrace the message of redirection, or to know if you really want something bad enough that nothing will stop you. Clearly I don’t want it that bad!

So, for those of you who know how much I love flowers and feel bad that I can’t pursue this path, please know, I really am okay and happy to embrace a different journey. And thank you for your support! Here is the last floral arrangement I created this season before I couldn’t go outside anymore. I imagine there will be others in the future, just simpler. And that feels really good. 🙂