Online Workshop

Student Profile

After a few years of hobby farming and homesteading, Lori Hernandez opened a U-Pick Flower Farm in 2017 next to a roadside stand, stocked with bouquets, bunches, flowers by the stem, herbs and veggies. “I’ll admit that I probably bit off more than I could chew, trying to learn how to grow over 50 varieties of flowers that I was completely unfamiliar with.”

While she did well her first season, Lori acknowledged that to make the farm profitable she needed more in-depth training on seed starting, succession planting, crop planning, harvesting and strategies to become more streamlined and efficient.

After enrolling in the 2018 Floret Online Workshop, Lori quickly took what she learned and put it into practice. She is now on track to double her income in her second season.

The Floret Workshop “was an answer to prayers, for someone like me who needs more time to process information in order for it to sink in. I love that I can watch the videos over and over, and the course handbook is a goldmine of information. Even though the class was a huge financial investment for me, I can already see that the class has put me years ahead of other farms and will allow me to become profitable much more quickly.”

Student Profile

This husband-wife team enrolled in the Floret Online Workshop in order to learn some of the small scale growing techniques utilized on our farm without having to travel halfway around the world to do so.

After completing the 6-week online workshop, Danni and Ash gained “added confidence, streamlined systems, additional skills and rejuvenated passion” for growing organic blooms to supply local florists, freelance designers, weddings and events.

But best of all, sales in their second season increased three-fold.

Plus, the pair felt “richer for the experience and the connectedness. We felt a sense of support and community by stepping through the material, especially the generous farmer profiles,” Danni shared. “Being able to see spaces, places, techniques, tricks and passion was invaluable.”

Student Profile

From a very early age, Ashlea Kooman was fascinated with flowers. She grew up playing in her Secret Garden and would even stay home “sick” from school to putter the day away playing with flowers. This passion never faded and followed Ashlea into adulthood and then later motherhood. As her family grew, so did her garden and her love of the natural world. After sharing her love of gardening and dream of flower farming with Angela Hall, the friends realized they had similar aspirations, so the two teamed up to start a business together: Meadow Farm Florals.

Meadow Farm Florals now offers wedding flowers and sells market bouquets and bouquet subscriptions during their short, but abundant, growing season. A year ago, Ashlea and Angela enrolled in the Floret Online Workshop to develop their growing skills and build a flower business together.

They took what they learned in the workshop and ran with it. In their very first season, they designed bouquets for 7 weddings, offered 40 bouquet subscriptions and sold out at all 6 of the markets they attended.

“Yes, we have put in work, but honestly, without having taken the Floret course, we would be lost,” Angela shared.

“Our whole business was designed around the concepts we learned in the workshop. It truly is our guiding light in all we do. The value that the Floret course has had on our business, our growing abilities, our land management practices and our own interpersonal relationship with one another is immeasurable.”

Student Profile

Eager to grow flowers beyond her small backyard garden, Patty Zoldak started looking for land. Rather than establishing a traditional rural farm operation, however, she opted to stay in the city and leased an unused community garden on a previously vacant lot.

While Patty finally had space to expand, she lacked the experience and confidence to launch a flower farm business, so she turned to the Floret Online Workshop for help. After completing the 6-week course, Patty jumped in with both feet to turn her passion into an urban flower farm.

At her very first farmers market, Patty sold triple what she had anticipated and later signed contracts to sell flowers at two other locations. Utilizing Floret’s marketing tips, she also started supplying flowers to a local florist and fielded multiple wedding inquiries.

“This class has given me more than I can express. I now have the tools to deliver the highest quality flowers available in my area, new flower friends all over the world, confidence and tangible farming lessons. I’ve been able to implement more streamlined bouquet making, better weeding practices, a fertilizing regimen and so much more. I know I will reap the benefits personally and professionally for years to come!”

Student Profile

Feeling creatively empty and uninspired by her career path, Hannah-Victoria somewhat abruptly decided to forego her legal studies to pursue a dream of starting a floral design studio and garden with a focus upon unusual, old fashioned British garden flowers. Soon after, she moved back home to Lancashire, in the North West of England, and persuaded a local dairy farmer to rent her a small plot of land, and enrolled in the Floret Online Workshop to help make her vision a reality.

Fast forward ten months and Hannah-Victoria now has a quarter of an acre of land bursting with annuals, perennials and shrubs, a list of happy clients enamored with the what she describes as the “unspoilt beauty and personality of the garden flowers I choose to create with”, and wedding bookings in the Lancashire and Cumbria area into 2020. After implementing many of the growing and marketing techniques from the Floret Online Workshop, Hannah-Victoria now plans to double her growing space, and is currently in the process of finalizing the renovations of an old shire horse stable unit, to be both a design studio and consultation space, sitting adjacent to the garden.

The Floret course “has given me the knowledge and confidence to make my dream of designing with English garden flowers, unavailable wholesale to high street florists, a reality. I cannot thank the Floret team enough for their help, support and incredible breadth of knowledge’.

Student Profile

In the autumn of 2017, Sandra and Lance Trethewey decided they needed to tick something off their bucket lists. For Lance it was raising cattle and for Sandra it was flower farming. Eager to expand her farm’s garden, which already had 400 heritage scented rose bushes, Sandra had considered acquiring more land. After enrolling in the Floret Online Workshop, Sandra implemented the small scale growing techniques she learned, restructured her operation to improve efficiency and greatly increase the productivity, which made the need for expensive additional land unnecessary.

“What a journey it’s been since doing the Floret Online Workshop. This course has had such a positive impact on our farm. We have made more use of the space we have…it changed my perception of needing more land…we are working smarter with the space we have.”

Next up on the Trethewey’s list: using Floret’s training and templates to restructure their wedding flower packages to be more marketable, efficient and profitable.

“Thank you Team Floret. It has been an absolute life changing experience.”