Midsummer Flower Farming: Lessons in Patience, Joy, and Gratitude

It’s finally starting to warm up and feel like summer in Paonia. With unusually chilly evenings (for recent times), the flowers are LOVING it, just at their own pace. This update is one part “What’s Bloomin?....” and one part mushy-flower-loving-joy-filled-gratitude.

The sunflowers are just starting to show their happy faces, while the delphiniums seem to enjoy the cooler weather in gorgeous shades of indigo and iridescent lilac (earning a new favorite position in my book.) The pink, white, and deep maroon dara ammi are getting taller by the day.

I wasn’t sure if the ranunculus would make it before the heat came, and while they’re just starting to show, their growth and variety of colors are quite impressive. The cosmos took their sweet time this year, but man, the color and variety of these self-seeded beauties continue to surprise me every year. A few bulpereum have self-sown and are showing up across the rows.

The rudbeckia, echinacea, yarrow, and my favorite - perennial sweat pea vines seem to be catching up as the days warm. Lilies in various shapes, sizes, colors, and scents are getting going as well.

While it may be midsummer, this week is just starting to feel like the start of summer. Lamborn is holding a patch of snow, today, July 11th. Typically if there's snow up there on the 4th, it’s something to celebrate. Bets are being placed on the remaining days for that patch… Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a frost that ironically boosted my confidence in how behind in the season I had felt. Had I been on time, I likely would have lost quite a few rows of dahlias and other cold-sensitive plants that are typically a worthy risk in this climate.

Gardening, flower farming, growing something from the earth . . . it continues to surprise me with lessons of patience, gratitude, fortitude, peace, frustration, eagerness, admiration, exhaustion, and awe.

At the beginning of the season, I was lucky enough to deliver not one but two birthday bouquets. I was late, and it was perfect. Rather than getting the bouquets to the lovely gifter on time, I had the pleasure of handing the bouquets directly to the recipients, at a restaurant patio, where the staff (and most guests) had just finished singing Happy Birthday. It was early in the season, and when the order came in, I was nervous. Would I have enough stems? Would I (the flowers and bouquets) meet the expectations of the gifter, myself, and the recipients? The smiles I received as thanks have fueled me through one of the harder seasons of “flower farming” I have yet to experience.

Dew Lily’s mission statement has and will continue to be “to cultivate unique blooms & bouquets to spread joy.” I can’t say thank you enough to each and every person who has supported that mission over these past few years. It means the world to me, and to each person whose day is brightened when they receive flowers that are grown and gifted with love, passion, and joy. THANK YOU!