Fresh Cut Flowers for Sale

by Shannon Bond
“Look at all this space, you know what we could do!” It’s 2020 and Michele Vaughan is having a light-bulb moment with her husband. Fast forward as she looks out across her field of flowers explaining it all. She didn’t set out to start a flower farm. She and her husband, John, were simply aiming to spread out a little after the kids flew away from their nest. The goal was to find a country home with some land and a lot of peace and quiet. But keeping the entrepreneurial spirit down for these two is a tall order.

“John’s always been an entrepreneur, and most of the time, I ended up being whatever the situation needed. You go where the need is. You see where there is an opportunity, and you jump on that opportunity, and you work it out,” Vaughan says. Besides Sunrise Flower Farm, they own The Sewer Doctors with their son, a company John started in 2015.

Vaughan’s epiphany struck her shortly after moving into the new house in Holt, Missouri. She planted a patch of sunflowers for a family portrait, thrilled to spread her wings after living on a small patch of land, as she describes it, in Independence for years.

“We did this little 35 by 40 patch of sunflowers, and we only did it because I wanted to have a field of flowers we could have a family portrait in.” She planted the flowers in what was obviously a garden area used by the previous owners. “We took some beautiful family pictures, and after seeing the sunflowers grow, I hadn’t thought of it, even though I’d been a florist for all those years, I hadn’t thought, ‘let’s have a flower farm,’ but once I grew those sunflowers, it was like a light bulb went on.” After that, the flower-growing business started to bloom.

That first year was about exploring. Vaughan didn’t sell anything, but she planted a 40×50 crop in an old hay field next to the house with about 5500 plants and figured out what worked. She started with a Back to Eden Garden that evolved into a no-till garden. But, she wondered, how do I connect with people in the local market? To solve this, she joined the Chamber of Commerce and started selling at the farmer’s market in Kearney, Missouri. That was 2021. Now, she sells directly to event planners, and some florists, and has started a subscription service, which is her main focus. She still sells at the farmer’s market and believes it’s the best way to meet people and make connections.

“I was just blown away at the community support. Everybody here is just so nice. I tell everybody that it feels like I’m finally home, you know, these are my people, and I found them at 55.”

But why flowers and how does it all work?

It’s complicated and full of Excel spreadsheets, but nothing she can’t handle. It’s clear that this is a multi-business home, as when driving up to the farm, visitors see cars wrapped with colorful Sewer Doctor logos. She explains that, along with running the flower farm, she does the management part for Sewer Doctors while her husband and son are out in the field inspecting, repairing, and appraising the plumbing. For the flowers, she has three part-time workers and nearly 20,000 plants in the ground.

When she first started, she explains, she had a lot to learn, even after being a florist for 20 years. “I had to find ways to sell that maximized my profit and gave me the time I needed to not impact the other business negatively.” What started as a patch has grown into about half an acre. Flowers don’t have to have wider rows like vegetables, so she can pack them in. For marketing, selling, and distribution, she uses social media, the Kearney Farmer’s Market, and her budding subscription program, which directly connects her to customers. Joining the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers has helped with florists.

She started in floristry when she was 16 years old. “It was an after-school delivery job. Then, I think it had to be Valentine’s Day, they were swamped, and they were like, ‘Come here, Michele, you’re going to learn how to make rosebud vases.’” And the next 20 years were filled with flowers. The 20 after that, she did it just for friends and family as she raised the kids. That’s what makes the flash of inspiration so poignant, it’s a return to her roots and a new adventure in an industry she only knew from the retail side.

“There are lots of things outside of floristry, but what’s in the middle? [How do flowers move] from grower to wholesaler, to florist? I didn’t know about those things. I didn’t really put it all together. I think we do that a lot. Things just exist. Oh, there’s flowers at the checkout stand. I don’t think about where they come from. They are just there, you know.”

And flowers are part of a self-care plan, she says, describing a Harvard study that demonstrated that simply having or being around flowers improves mental health. “That’s my favorite thing to hear when people are buying flowers. Who are you buying them for? I’m buying them for myself. Yes! I love that, a little self-care.” But it’s not just the impact on oneself; buying flowers from Sunrise impacts the local economy, too, and that’s what her primary customers understand. “It’s mostly people that say, ‘I love flowers, I want my kitchen counter to have a vase of flowers on it, fresh, every single week, and rather than buying it at trader Joes or Price Chopper, I’m going to buy locally.’” To get her flowers, customers have a few options. One, they can find her at the Kearney Farmer’s Market most Saturdays. Two, they can look her up and cruise by the farm where bouquets of fresh flowers are for sale in a flower stand. Or three, they can subscribe to her flower service, which is her favorite option.

“We call it the Flower Club. Our members get the pick of the field, the top. They are my VIPs, they get the bouquets every week, [and] they get a special on-farm day during the summer. That’s a big thing. Everybody wants to come to the farm. I’m like, ‘Really, you want to come to the farm? What about my weeds?’ But they don’t even care.” Looking around the tidy farm, one would be hard-pressed to find substantial weeds, but Vaughan alludes to the romanticism behind farming. “If they can think about the romance, I’ll think about the dirt under my nails,” she says with a smile. To check out her flowers, subscribers can find her online or social media, where she does most of her organic marketing outside of the Farmer’s Market. And the flowers don’t stop in the winter. They plant seasonal flowers all year and deliver to drop-off points throughout the metro.

“We have locations in Lee’s Summit, Excelsior Springs, North Kansas City, and on our Farm in Holt.” To start a new pickup point, subscribers can recruit their friends and once there are five people in an area, Vaughan will find a local business and make a deal for them to serve as a pickup point.

What’s the Plan?

At first, there wasn’t a business plan, but eventually, she sat down and wrote it out. “My dream would be to have workshops in our barn on a regular basis. I’m a florist for Pete’s sake, surely people would want to come and learn how to design flowers. Maybe they’d want to learn how to make Christmas wreaths. I can show them how a professional does that. Maybe it’s prom time and they want to make their own corsages, they need a professional to show them that. Maybe they just want to play around with their girlfriends, you know, and they just want to come and drink mimosas. You know, we’re going out to Walnut Creek and we’re going to do a workshop there. A design and bottomless mimosas type of day. I’d like to see that but on the farm at some point in the future.”

For now, she’s building her subscriber list, delivering flowers herself each week to drop off points and florists, and making connections at the Kearney Farmer’s Market. To order flowers or subscribe, you can visit Sunrise Hill Flower Farm at www.sunrisehillflowerfarm.com. Do it for a loved one, or more importantly, do it for your own self-care.