Floral design demo with urban farmer Sarah Nixon: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
Floral designer and urban farmer Sarah Nixon welcomed approximately 70 bloggers (in two shifts) into her tiny back garden during our first day at Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling earlier this month.
Sarah, a gardener and floral designer who operates My Luscious Backyard, explained her business to us from her elevated back deck, while her adorable daughter looked on. Sarah started out growing flowers in her own garden and selling them at local markets. She soon realized, however, that she needed more growing space. Noticing a number of empty lawns in her charming neighborhood of brick homes, she knocked on doors and asked the homeowners if she could use their front yards to grow flowers. Many said yes, and today Sarah manages 10 gardens across the neighborhood.
It’s a win-win situation: the homeowners get to enjoy a garden full of flowers all summer, without lifting a finger, and Sarah gets the growing space she needs, with free water available from each home’s spigot. She starts her seeds in a greenhouse tucked into tight quarters beside her home, and she transplants them in spring into the gardens. She grows everything organically, uses recycled vases for her bouquets, and is able to supply hard-to-find flowers that don’t ship well, because she grows them locally. Sarah’s flowers go into bouquets for weddings and other events, and she sells them in weekly subscriptions to offices and individual customers.
She gave us a floral design demonstration, snipping stems of ninebark, clematis, and other plants and arranging them in an old-fashioned white-glass vase. Her finished design was simply lovely — and so much prettier and more natural looking than anything I’ve seen at my local florist.
She then led us on a stroll through her neighborhood, and the neighbors must have wondered, What in the world?, when they saw a chattering horde of camera-toting, name-tagged bloggers trooping by.
The two-story brick homes reminded me somewhat of those we saw in Buffalo at the 2010 Garden Bloggers Fling.
We stopped at a home with a small plot of newly planted flowers out front. Each seedling is planted in its own water-holding divot, Sarah explained, ensuring that the plants get an extra drink of water when it rains or they’re watered. This is a smart water-saving practice I’d seen in desert gardens but not in a temperate climate.
Sarah’s micro-farming enterprise was fascinating to me. I’ve seen it done in Austin with edibles, but not with flowers. Here in the mild-winter South I’m not sure how well this model would catch on in front yards because we expect our yards to look green all year, not just in summer when flowers are blooming. But maybe with a few more design elements — if the homeowners were willing to invest in neat raised beds, paths, and decorative tuteurs, for instance — front-yard micro-farming could blossom here too.
Or maybe it already has. I’m sure there are Austinites reading this who can let me know!
Coming up next: Charming cottages and gardens on car-free Toronto Islands, just a short ferry ride but a world away from downtown. For a look back at three Swansea gardens, in a hilly Toronto neighborhood with a view, click here.
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Great post about an interesting concept. You’re absolutely right that the arrangement she created is so much more relaxed and beautiful than a traditional florist’s bouquet. The posts I’m seeing come in from you and others on the Toronto fling are wonderful, keep it up!
Oh, I shall! I have quite a few posts in the queue to show from Toronto. Missed you this year, Darcy! —Pam
This is making me want to go back and do more reading about the slow flower movement. (http://slowflowers.com/)
Those flowers as showcased are so wonderfully particular to that place and time of year. Though clearly placed with a keen eye for design, they evoke for me that feeling of a gardener lovingly arranging their own flowers which is so much more personal than the feeling of “I went to a store and bought these that I know nothing about”.
Thrift stores in Austin are typically jammed with all sorts of vase options at bargain prices and Nixon’s business model seems a great way to put some back into circulation. I also appreciate the subscription component – a wonderful way to get life back into the cubicles for those not fortunate enough to work alongside folks who bring in flowers from home.
It would be interesting to see how you could entice people to participate in growing flowers for cutting with at least part of their yards in our area. Perhaps it would require some sort of seasonal non-floral place holders. Or using a series of small temporary raised beds that would be taken down during the winter? Hmmm.
Perhaps a new meme is in order “Natives in a Vase”?
I always love seeing where your thoughts will lead, Deb. Thanks for your always musing comments. They get me thinking too. —Pam
I think it is amazing that some of her neighbors allowed her to use their garden. Love her arrangement.
She’s very enterprising, Lisa, and apparently persuasive too. —Pam
A beautiful arrangement by a talented gardener. Who would ever have thought of asking neighbors if you could grow your flowers in their garden?
It’s a brilliant idea, isn’t it? —Pam
The ‘In a Vase on Monday’ meme is hooking many of us on the idea of finding material in our own yards to put in a vase. Many gardening friends have been spilling over into neighboring yards of non-gardeners for years, but this takes it to a whole new level.
It seems this post landed on the right day, Ricki. —Pam
Lucky you. I was in the group that didn’t actually get a flower arranging demo. I think we were late to the party. I thought this woman was so clever in her use of such tiny spaces. I once visited Rosalyn Creasy’s garden in CA. She grows all kinds of things in her front yard. She told me her secret was to put a low, very neatly trimmed boxwood hedge out front and then her neighbors never complain about what she des behind that hedge! ~Julie
Good hedges, as well as good fences, make good neighbors, apparently. —Pam