Barbara Cason and her sister, Stacey Sikes, named their budding flower venture Late Bloomers because they started it late in life. But clearly the timing was perfect. Their u-pick flower farm took off and today enjoys a robust customer base. The sisters doubled their flower gardens from a half to a full acre after just two years.
While further expansion isn’t in the cards, the sisters have plenty of ideas to grow their business. They try new flowers and plants to appeal to all types of customers. And they’ve added some extras, like honey from their own beehives.
But most important, they found a business they both enjoy. “Probably the best part is our customers are always happy,” Barbara says. “They come out here excited and leave with a beautiful bouquet they created themselves. It is a win-win.”
The path to a flower business
The Late Bloomers flower farm is located outside Elkin, North Carolina, where both sisters live. Barbara and her husband raised four children on the acreage that hosts the flower farm. A few years ago, younger sister Stacey moved to the acreage across the road with her recently retired husband and their young son and daughter.
Now that the sisters were living next to each other, they decided to try a business together.
“We heard flower farming was a good business,” Barbara says. “We thought we can do that—raise flowers. But we didn’t want the business to consume all our time so we decided it would be a u-pick farm.”
“Three years ago, we put in the first flowers and spent one season to see what we could and couldn’t grow,” Barbara says. “There were a lot of things we couldn’t grow because we didn’t know what we were doing.”
They opened their flower farm the next year, which happened to be during the pandemic. “But it was great,” Barbara says. “People wanted any excuse to get out of the house and pick flowers. We didn’t have a lot invested that first year of business and we just learned.”
Since then, the sisters increased their garden space, figured out what flowers are in demand and learned how to attract customers.
Most popular plants
“Sunflowers are probably our biggest seller,” Barbara says. “We have multiple varieties and colors and not just the standard sunflower. People love to come out and pick them. You can’t mess up when cutting sunflowers.”
Tulips are another big seller for the farm, which opens for the season when the tulips are in bloom. People even drive by the farm just to see the massive display of tulips in bloom.
“In the spring, we have some finer breeds of daffodils, followed by peonies,” Barbara says. “In April, we start putting out our annuals.” Zinnia is one of the most popular and easiest annuals to grow.
The sisters recycle as much seed as possible to avoid buying new plants. This practice lowers costs and plants do very well when started from seed, she added.
Some plants, like lavender, are difficult to grow. The sisters really wanted to include it in their offering so they visited a lavender farm in Virginia to learn more about it before they tried their hand at it. Now they have a lavender bed where customers can take what they want for flower arrangements.
“We also grow a section of cotton because it is a nice thing to add to a flower bouquet,” she says.
The sisters grow gladiolas and dahlias, which are planted as bulbs and must be dug up and replanted every year. Barbara says these high-end flowers are typically used in weddings. They increase their beds of these expensive flowers every year. The sisters also have perennial flower beds that bloom every year. These include lilies, larkspur, hydrangea, yarrow, bee balm dianthus and lupine.
For the brides
Weddings are important to their flower business, especially since the farm is in the Yadkin Valley, a popular wine area. Many event centers and wedding venues have opened to take advantage of the scenic vineyards.
These venues need fresh flowers, and Barbara visited all of them to promote their u-pick flowers. She continues to stay in touch and provides Late Bloomers’ promotional material for bridal information kits. Her efforts have paid off with many brides coming to the farm to gather their own flowers.
The sisters have also kept up with the latest wedding trend of using wildflowers in bridal arrangements. They planted a wildflower field with plants like globe amaranth, crocosmia and grasses.
“Brides can come pick their flowers a couple days before the wedding,” Barbara explains. “The arrangements are very loose, and you don’t have to be a florist to arrange a beautiful bouquet.” The flower farm has also become a popular site for professional photographers. The sisters charge a separate photography fee and will schedule photo sessions at the farm.
Social media triples business
In a business like a flower farm in a rural area, social media can be the ticket to success. And for the sisters, it was exactly that. They launched a “Late Bloomers Flower Farm” Facebook page and Instagram account to spread the word about their business. “We probably tripled our business with social media,” Barbara says. “You can’t just assume people know where you are. You must really work and work and work to get your name out there. That’s the big thing.”
Stacey continues to be active on both sites to let customers know what flowers are blooming and what special events are coming up.
“We do flower giveaways,” Barbara says. “If you ‘like’ our Facebook page, we enter you in a drawing. This was a key to getting our name out there.”
Special events like the appearance of a little white pony outfitted with a unicorn horn are big draws for families. Children really like to have photos taken with the pony, she added.
And don’t forget local media. “In a small town like Elkin, the newspaper looks for news,” Barbara says. “I called them, and they were happy to come out and take pictures. Then the Winston-Salem paper came out too, which helped tremendously by giving us publicity.”
Working in the flowers
Managing and maintaining the Late Bloomers flower farm involves a lot of work. The sisters get help with the manual labor from both husbands, who are retired. They also purchased a New Holland TC40DA tractor with a front-end loader to handle the big jobs like tillage and hauling things around the farm.
Otherwise, the rest of the work is up to them. Much of it is by hand, like weeding, planting, fertilizing and watering.
They also keep their own 20+ beehives in the flower fields. Their intent when installing the beehives was to ensure pollination of all the flowers. But the honey produced by the beehives has become a big seller on the farm. The tractor is used to move the beehives around, placing them near flower beds in bloom.
Overall, managing customers on their flower farm has been pretty straightforward. A small entrance fee is charged when someone visits the flower farm and is deducted from the cost if a bouquet is purchased. Customers may take unlimited photos. When neither sister is at the flower farm, they put out an honor-system box.
What’s next for these enterprising sisters?
“We try to keep things as simple as possible,” Barbara says. “You can grow a whole lot of flowers on an acre and work yourself to death. Whenever I think I have another good idea, I have to sit down and say ‘No, I don’t want this to consume me.’ I’m a Late Bloomer, and I want the freedom to enjoy this time of life.”