The gift of flowers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/12/2022 (1382 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This holiday season, you may be planning to give flowers to someone on your holiday gift list. Flowers give comfort, lift spirits, and make us happy.

For Kendall and Joel Penner, owners of H&H Floral Fields, growing flowers has been a healing and transformative experience.

After years of struggling with infertility, Kendall suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage and the loss of twins in 2020.

“It was at the start of the pandemic,” she says. “I was very depressed; I couldn’t get out of bed for a long time.”

She realized that she could not return to her office job. “I had to try to do something to finally get back to life. The only joy I could really find was in growing flowers.”

So, Kendall and Joel moved from their home in Steinbach, purchasing a 10-acre property in the rural municipality of Ste. Anne and wholeheartedly invested themselves into starting a flower farm business.

H&H Floral Fields was named for Hunter and Harper, the twins they lost.

There is no shortage of demand for locally grown flowers by consumers, as well as wholesale and retail florists. But growing cut flowers is a challenging proposition. Kendall wanted to grow seed-grown cut flowers as well as dahlias, ranunculus, anemones, and peonies. She set out to develop the skills she would need to accomplish her goals.

Floret Flowers, an internationally known flower farm located in Washington’s Skagit Valley, is a significant model as well as resource for aspiring flower farmers across North America. Applicants from around the world apply for a Floret scholarship, which includes tuition-free enrolment in Floret’s six-week online course. Kendall was awarded a partial scholarship. She also completed other training programs and spent long hours experimenting with growing bulbs, tubers, and corms.

“When I first tried growing Italian-bred anemones and ranunculus, I failed miserably,” says Kendall. “But I love them!” She persisted and learned how to successfully grow these early flowering beauties that thrive in cool temperatures.

In fall 2021, Kendall ordered 36 different varieties of lilies from the Lily Nook in Neepawa. Two of the varieties included Bud Light, which has very large frosty white petals with a bright yellow ray illuminating from the centre, and Nightrider, which has lustrous, deep black-red blooms. “Lilies are a great focal flower in market bouquets. This was a test year for us to see which varieties our customers like.”

She also purchased 350 bare root peonies from Unicorn Blooms, a wholesale supplier in Ontario that sources its peonies from Groot & Groot in the Netherlands.

One of the peonies, Pastel Elegance, also known as Pastelegance, is a highly sought-after fragrant variety that is a cross between Lemon Chiffon peony and Salmon Dream peony. The rare bloom colour makes this an expensive cut flower variety but it’s also an investment, says Kendall. Pastelegance was named the 2022 American Peony Society Gold Medal winner.

When they were unable to get onto their newly purchased property last fall in time to make raised beds and plant the peonies, they planted them at the property of Joel’s parents instead.

Last December, in preparation for the 2022 spring launch of H&H Floral Fields, Kendall started 17 different varieties of lisianthus from seed. She selected varieties in shades of light blush pink and apricot which are most in demand by florists.

Lisianthus grows slowly at first, but by March she was busy pre-sprouting anemone and ranunculus corms. She and Joel also started 18,000 flowers from seed — cool-season annual varieties such as snapdragons, stock, foxglove, feverfew, carnations, etc., followed by heat-loving varieties including cosmos, zinnias and sunflowers.

Flower farmers must be both visionary and fearless. When it became clear that the spring of 2022 was on track to be one of the wettest recorded in Manitoba history, Kendall planted her anemone and ranunculus corms in black plastic bulb crates that allowed for good drainage. She purchased another 100 lilies from the Lily Nook and planted those in crates as well, and started hundreds of dahlia tubers in pots for planting out in flower beds once the soil was warm and dry.

My first conversation with Kendall was on June 1. By then she and Joel had discovered one-third of the peonies they planted had not survived the sopping wet start to the growing season.

Nevertheless, there were many other successes and local florists were eager for their fresh cut flowers all summer long. The anemones, ranunculus, sweet peas, snapdragons, dahlias, and zinnias and more were glorious. A roadside flower cart they set up near the entrance to their flower farm was an astonishing success.

Now, Kendall and Joel are busy preparing for next year. In October, they planted another 250 peonies, including 37 Pastelegance peonies, which they hope will be ready to flower in 2025. But they are also planning to grow their flower farm business through diversification.

Flower farmers source tubers, corms, and bulbs from the same suppliers and competition is fierce. Some varieties, such as Peaches n Cream dahlia, sell out within seconds.

“Demand for dahlia tubers by flower farmers is so high,” says Kendall, “that’s it’s dahlia-mania for certain varieties like Peaches n Cream.” Kendall was fortunate to obtain Peaches n Cream dahlia but the frantic demand for dahlias has inspired a new direction for their fledgling business.

In April, to test the potential of selling and shipping rooted dahlia cuttings to customers across Canada, H&H Floral Fields offered rooted dahlia cuttings free to a select number of people, asking only that they provide feedback on the viability of the cuttings. She and Joel also gave away dahlia tubers from 10 varieties they trialled in their dahlia patch in 2021.

Now, they have plans to grow 2,000 dahlia tubers in a mix of varieties that they will overwinter and propagate so that they can sell farm-grown dahlia tubers to customers across Canada.

“We will have quite a few sought after varieties available online for Canada wide shipping,” says Kendall. “I will also be bringing dahlia tubers as well as pre-sprouted, potted dahlias to the St. Norbert Farmers market next May.”

Next spring, H&H Floral Fields will also offer exclusive, fresh-cut Italian-bred anemones and ranunculus. Plus, they plan to sell Amandine Chamallow ranunculus corms to home gardeners next fall.

The uniqueness of specialty cut flowers from seed is one of the things that make them so popular. Kendall says that H&H Floral Fields is also going to offer seed packets for sale. “We will be offering home gardeners the opportunity to order some of our cut flower varieties for their own cutting garden.” Available varieties will be listed at hhfloralfields.com in January.

Gift cards can now be purchased through their website for 2023 bouquet subscriptions and can be picked up at locations in Ste. Anne, Steinbach and Winnipeg.

“Growing flowers gave me an outlet at a very difficult time in life,” says Kendall. “Flowers brought me a sense of hope and joy that we want to share with others.”

colleenizacharias@gmail.com