Ready for another Business in Bloom profile? This one’s a good one!
I’ve loved meeting so many students in our classes and workshops over the seasons, but none are quite so warm and lovely as Evelyn Lee at Butternut Gardens in Southport, CT. Evelyn is one of those bright souls that makes the day better for everyone around her. I can only imagine how delightful she is to work with as an anxious bride, in need of a fairy godmother. Actually, that sums up Evelyn perfectly: fairy godmother! She’s also a super savvy business woman who is keen to grow her small flower farm into a thriving enterprise that beautifies and supports her community and the environment. Evelyn is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met, and I know she’s going to do big things with her beautiful blooms! I would gush on and on about her, but I think her delightful Q&A will give you a good amount of insight.
Evelyn also just wrote this really cute blog post over on Field To Vase. Just love the way she looks at life!
So, let’s meet Evelyn!
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Tell us a little bit about your business, business model and clientele. As a flower farmer and wedding florist, I am an anomaly in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Butternut Gardens is the only flower farm in the county and I have nestled my farm into an well-to-do suburban neighborhood (home is where you hang your hat; farm is where you happen to live). My initial focus, as a startup farmer in 2012 was farmers’ markets, individual deliveries, a flower subscription service (CSA), presence in a small local grocery store and scattered bulk deliveries. In 2013 I added a few weddings and did holiday wreaths as well. At the time, I wanted to try it all and never say, “No” to any flower-related request. Partly as a result of your workshop, and partly as a result of the natural evolution of Butternut Gardens, I am now phasing increasingly into weddings and events, which I absolutely adore because they allow me to pursue significant personal relations with wedding couples and their families, and they enable me to do my most creative design work as well as grow flowers. I am moving increasingly away from farmers’ markets due to time constraints and time conflicts, although I miss my regular customers and am looking to establish an on-site alternative. I have dropped the individual orders, am expanding my subscription service (CSA) and will soon incorporate workshops on both design and flower growing. My subscription service is flexible, with weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and a mini-subscription option, and I personally deliver to my subscription members’ doorsteps. My clientele loves fresh blooms, but I think more importantly, enjoys beautiful and sometimes unusual blooms, and also is quite enthusiastic about supporting a local farmer florist. Many are experienced gardeners themselves, so we have much to discuss! I love being a local farmer florist in this sort of environment, as I believe it is not only a meaningful business, but is a good and positive addition to my community. My goal is to give back to my community through fabulous garden-fresh designs as well as through workshops to help others grow and arrange amazing fresh flowers. So, in a few short years, I have moved Butternut Gardens from a start up farm, which was trying to be something and everything to everyone, to a more focused (and improved) flower farm and wedding design studio. The missing piece will be fulfilled when I begin to share not only flowers, but also knowledge (and love of flowers) through hands on workshops.

What got you into flowers in the first place? Little do you know how loaded a question this is! In a sense, I was born into flowers because one of my middle names is “Flora” after my paternal Grandmother, Florence. As a child I was surrounded by my family’s beautiful gardens and at a very young age I both became quite adept at weeding as well as gathering garden and field flowers to assemble into floral bouquets (and marvelous floral crowns in hardware cloth of all things (you know, the hard wire mesh with pointed metal ends once cut – yikes)). I think in those days all, or at least most, children were so-called “free range children” though the term had not yet been invented. Over the course of a number of decades I worked at a florist and plant nursery, studied floral design in Connecticut and at FlowerSchool New York in Manhattan, studied horticulture at New York Botanical Gardens, and studied for my Master’s degree from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Some years ago, I saw an article in a magazine (I think I was on an airplane) about a flower farmer, and I have kept the wonderful image of the person, with bundles of fresh cut flowers hoisted on their shoulders, in my mind all these years. Little did I know how much hard work goes into each of those bundles. Through Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers conferences and regional meetings, along with lots of reading, I felt ready to turn over the first soil, plant some official flower rows and begin my garden-inspired designs. Clearly, I was not meant for long-term work in an office, despite any positive environmental impacts it might have had.

You attended our Business of Local Flowers Master Class at Love ‘n Fresh Flowers this past spring. When you signed up, what were you looking to gain by coming to our farm? Social media knowledge, business planning, some sort of affirmation that “I was actually doing some things right” because who among small biz owners does not need this even if they are, in fact, doing many of the “right” things, and a marketing plan boost were items on my agenda. Thankfully, they meshed beautifully with the Master Class offerings! One of the hardest aspects for me in running a business is the fact that I am, by nature, introverted, which makes it far easier for me go grow flowers and make awesome designs than it is to market my flowers or myself. Good way to go out of business, yes? So, first and foremost, I was eager to learn how to optimize my scant business background and my limited self-promotional mindset to find the audience I know exists so that I could increase the number of weddings I do each year, make a meaningful profit and let those who want Butternut Gardens flowers and designs know the flowers and my services exist. Jennie is an outstanding plants person, an excellent business person, and has really honed in on what makes her flowers, designs and business special, valuable and sought-after in her small town city of Philadelphia. She has created a business and brand and products – her flowers, designs and herself – which are top end, and recognized as such. Who better to learn this from? As well as needing to learn how to spread the word better about what I do and double check and improve what I was doing budgeting- and operations-wise, other desired outcomes of the workshop were a better understanding of best plant material for weddings and events versus farmers’ market growing choices, best ways to move my business into the new directions I have chosen, and any other tidbits that might ring a bell for future success.

What did you find most helpful about your time in the class? Where there any surprises? Jennie’s willingness to open up her initial budgets to us so I could see how numbers and small business planning panned out in a successful model was particularly helpful in reaffirming that I was, after all, doing ok. Jennie’s fine-tuned progression of interaction between Love n Fresh flowers and potential and, eventually, client brides, was also vey helpful. While essentially every bride wants flowers, not every one wants your flowers or your signature designs, and it is far better for all involved to establish this quite early on. Being able to suggest an alternate florist is an important part of the equation, and one of Jennie’s great tips. Jennie has developed, and shared with us, a very meaningful and well-organized method of taking on and creating beautiful weddings and a fabulous workflow model for each wedding. She also provided great knowledge related to methods for handling client expectations, pricing (it is OK to charge for what your work and design skills are worth, even though it is sticker shock to me). In terms of marketing and expanding social media presence I took away very helpful information on creating a “look book” of designs, benefits of having a good portfolio on hand and also information related to Facebook and Instagram, which, by the way, I now LOVE!

Can you give us a specific example of something you learned and then implemented into your own business once you went home? Being a flower farmer as well as a floral designer makes it difficult to make major changes mid-season due to time constraints. So, small steps during the growing season, and more major changes in the off-season, were my goals. I did create an Instagram account and created a good-looking “look book”, which has already been quite useful in bringing in more weddings. I made changes to my contract and also took steps to formalize my wedding workflow using Jennie’s model. I have done initial reassessments of flower needs, plant types and seed and plug needs to better reflect my expected shifts in sales, which will emphasize weddings. My website is also undergoing some revamping with individual Spring, Summer and Fall wedding galleries just added to better reflect my shift towards increased wedding design, but I now recognize more than ever my need for better photography. I am making use of local online newspapers to advertise my flowers and design services. Networking with others in the wedding industry, taking steps toward a greater social media presence and exploring QuickBooks on line as a new accounting method are part of my winter game plan, along with establishing more professional photography options.

How has your business changed over the past several months since the class? From an internal standpoint my daily activities are more efficient and organized, as I am setting more limits on what I do, how I do them, and when I do them. From a bottom line standpoint, just from the few steps taken already, I have more weddings signed up for 2015 than I did for 2014 at this time, and I have more subscription members ready to receive flowers next year than I did at this time last year. It seems every little step, if it is a smart step, makes a positive difference! Each year I become more strategic in terms of what I plant and how much since I have greater personal data from which to draw and make these decisions and I can now draw upon Jennie’s recommendations as well.

Have you stayed in touch with any other students from the class? Because we had from this workshop and another a number of students from my geographical area who have great ambitions, ideas and talent, I would love to set an off-season/off-holiday get together or chat to do a group check and brainstorm. I am following some on Instagram and I had a chance to meet up with some of them at the Delaware ASCFG conference.

Time for the “big question”! Where do you see your business going from here? A healthy business is always evolving. What’s that process look like for yours? Ideally, over the next year or two, I would have Butternut Gardens and Evelyn Lee Floral Designs become in Connecticut a well recognized and highly sought floral and event alternative with its very unique floral compositions and design style. Garden-fresh or farm-fresh flowers are very special, and I can cultivate so many interesting varieties, though I am not totally averse to incorporating others as requested or as accents. My preferred and, therefore, signature design style is definitely freer flowing than that of many other designers. Most people describe it as “wild flower” although my so-called wildflowers are cultivated and the finished look can be quite elegant and more or less tight in form. Think sophisticated Victorian or Renaissance floral still life paintings. Sigh. Many brides quickly gravitate to this type of rich garden-inspired design style once they see it and realize it exists. My charge is to increase awareness of availability and increase awareness that “garden alternative” does not equal “cheap, inexpensive alternative” but, rather, “individualized, specialty gem.” I truly wish to introduce more clients to the beauty and worth of garden bouquets and arrangements but will retain the 1-wedding-a-day limit to which I currently adhere so as to provide my best efforts and service in a personalized relationship with my wedding couples. I hope to build slightly my subscription service so that more local community members may enjoy locally grown flowers. I will begin workshops in the spring to both provide an educational resource as well as grow a cohesive flower-loving and garden-knowledgeable community within my community. Do I have any other longer-term goals than this? I still have something else up my sleeve, but it’s going to stay under wraps for now!

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