By Andrea Rodriguez-Ortiz
Nowadays, subscription services are available for almost anything. With the click of a button, people can expect weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly rotations of groceries, dog toys, clothes, razors, makeup, jewelry, and even candles. Although there are hundreds of subscription services that deliver nationwide, Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery has introduced a new subscription service named “Flower Share.” “Flower Share” provides High Country locals with beautiful, local flowers and arrangements that can be delivered weekly to your front door.
For over 30 years, owner of Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery Susan Wright has been growing flowers. Wright started the business with landscaping services in 1986. However, after some experience with flower growing, Wright started to lean more towards flower cutting and design. Now, Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery specializes in growing and designing cut flowers for the High Country region of North Carolina.
As a florist, Wright needs to be experiences and properly educated in the field in order to do her job properly. With her Masters in Biology from Appalachian State University, Wright is able to help her gardens and nursery flourish. Initially, Wright wanted to become a biologist but has now been a florist for over 20 years. Being a successful florist doesn’t come without a lot of hard work. Wright’s job includes hand-weeding, dividing, potting, overwintering, and watering.
In addition to the work that requires Wright to get dirty, she also is the bridal consultant and floral designer behind the beautiful designs that Shady Grove Gardens provides. At Shady Grove Gardens, Wright does all the bridal floristry work and works with bridal parties to ensure that the floral designs meet the expectations.
Wright operates Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery alongside her husband Brent Cochran. Together, Wright and Cochran have over 40 combined years of experience with flower growing and gardening. Cochran is head planter and flower cutter of Shady Grove Gardens and works for the gardens full time. Cochran also has a degree from Appalachian State University and, with his expertise, takes care of and manages Shady Grove Gardens’ farm in Creston, North Carolina. The farm allows for Wright and Cochran to experiments with new plants and techniques for the gardens. At the farm, Cochran also takes care of the surrounding forest and cultivated acres.
Shady Grove Gardens offers a variety of services to flower lovers in the High Country. Since 1986, the gardens has been offering all local flowers including wildflowers, sustainable bulk flowers, buckets of flowers, garlands, petals, reception decor, hanging pieces, and, of course, wedding packages. Wright is the floral designer and bridal consultant and is the person behind the beautiful designs put together for the gardens.
Moreover, Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery has also been attending the Farmer’s Market for 30 years. Now, with the introduction of their new “Flower Share” subscription service, they also announce their departure from the market. Although their absence from the market will be noted by the regulars, Shady Grove Gardens has so much to look forward to as their new subscription service begins its rounds the first week of August.
Wright, concerning their departure from the Farmer’s Market, said “We just wanted to supply better service to our wedding clients and we didn’t feel like we could do both successfully. With the arrival of our “Flower Share,” we can still provide beautiful flowers to the same clients who came to see us at the market as well as provide better service to our bridal orders.”
The new “Flower Share” service at the gardens works like a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture. Community Supported Agriculture describes services where people pay up front for farm products. The farmers, in turn, supply them with the best of what they have. This kind of service supports farmers through the lean months and, in turn, allows them to support more employees throughout the seasons.
Wright elaborated on their “Flower Share” service, saying that “we’re treating it more like a subscription service, where we try our best to guarantee nice, beautiful bouquets every week.”
“One of the things I am excited about is crafting bouquets for our CSA customers. The thing I will miss most about the Farmer’s Market is being able to be creative with my arrangements every week. Now, I still get to play with flowers,” continued Wright.
Once subscribed, customers will receive flowers each week during the growing season. The flowers vary each week from the several hundred variety that grow at Shady Grove Gardens. There are a few different subscription styles that customers can choose from: “Dahlia Share,” “Full Bucket of Flowers Share,” and “Summer Flower Mixed Bouquet Share.”
All of the different subscription types offer different kinds of arrangements. The “Dahlia Share” offers six weeks of fifteen to twenty different beautiful dahlias. The “Full Bucket of Flowers Share” offers customers with 70 stems of Shady Grove Gardens’ flowers for the recipient themselves to arrange. Lastly, the “Summer Flower Mixed Bouquet Share” offers twenty to twenty five stem arrangements of Shady Grove Gardens’ flowers. With three different kinds of subscriptions, there is something for every type of flower lover.
The “shop local” movement has been impacting small businesses in big ways. However, Wright noted that the local flower movement is a bit behind the local food movement. Wright said, “We would like to continue to try and get the word out that the majority of flowers being sold are imported. Shady Grove Gardens is part of a tiny percentage of local farmers that are trying to get their flowers out. We work really hard to provide really beautiful flowers, and that is something that we want people to take note of.”
This growing season, make sure to explore Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery’s website to learn more about what their services provide. Better yet, go and stop by their storefront location and browse their collection of hundreds of locally grown flowers. Local florists like Susan Wright dedicate long hours to their businesses in order to provide the best they can to their community. So, this summer, go appreciate what science, farming, and creativity can bring to your life from Shady Grove Gardens.
To learn more about Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery, visit www.shady-grove-gardens.com. Shady Grove Gardens & Nursery’s address is 904 Will Isaacs Rd in Zionville, North Carolina 28698.
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