Karly Aldrich didn’t start out growing flowers. The only flowers she had on her small 1/3 acre lot in Pleasant Valley were the marigolds and zinnias she grew as companion plants to attract pollinators to her vegetable plants.
“I found myself one day at Walmart and I was buying flowers for my table,” says Karly. “I brought them home and I was like, ‘Wait, why did I buy flowers? I have flowers outside.’ And I was like, why don't I just grow flowers? Because they looked so much better.”
Before she knew it, Karly was planting a cut flower garden and was in love with it.
“The first year I just wanted to dip my toes in and see what it was gonna be like,” says Karly. “Growing flowers for cutting is different than just having a veggie garden. I just wanted to see what it was like and if I liked it and then I loved it — I got hooked.”
By the second year, Karly was giving flower arrangements away to her friends and family when her husband joked that she should start charging money to pay for all the seeds and supplies.
This year, Pleasant Valley Petals was born. Karly was putting together custom arrangements for clients and selling bouquets at farmer’s markets with flowers grown completely from her yard. She’s not just a florist but a gardener — she’s responsible for growing everything that eventually goes into the arrangements and loves that all her work is locally sourced and changes throughout the season. She much prefers it this way than some grocery-store bouquets.
“They look perfect because [they’re] grown with tons of pesticides, and then they're pumping them full of preservatives to ship them 20 hours from Columbia, up to America,” says Karly. She also says a lot of the labor practices on some foreign flower farms are suspicious, as some even use slave labor to grow flowers or pay workers as little as a penny a day.
She says another benefit to buying local is it helps strengthen the native ecosystem and adds to the local biodiversity.
If you’re looking to make your own arrangements for your holiday table or bring as a hostess gift, Karly has some great tips on making a bouquet with things that can be found in your own yard or even in a neighbor’s yard with permission.
Karly recommends starting with greens and picking a color palette. She says to pay close attention to the tones in the greenery to help set the palette.
“Say you wanted to use the blue spruce there — then you go for cooler colors,” advises Karly. “Say you're going to use pine because you have a pine tree in your yard — make sure you go with a warmer tone like reds. If you know anything about the color wheel, you want to kind of keep it within the range of the color. Whatever color you're starting with, choose a tone, and then work around that. Or if there's a specific flower that you want to use, work around that tone. Keep it within the same hues and work around that because it can get overwhelming when you're like, ‘Oh, I want to put this and I want to put this in,’ but a lot of things just aren't going to go together.”
By Thanksgiving, it can be hard to find flowers growing in our climate because so many die after the first frost. Karly says she loves using holly, which is easily found nearby. She also says dried grasses are easy to find and go with anything, as long as they stick to your color palette.
When Karly feels stuck, she just goes outside. She even finds inspiration in weeds.
“I just like to go walk around and see what's out there and whatever I get inspired by,” says Karly. “Sometimes I'll find a certain a particular flower and I'll be like, ‘I want to use that.’ Okay — what will go with it?”
If you’d like to order an arrangement from Karly, she sells holiday arrangements or makes custom bouquets. You can reach her at via email at Pleasantvalleypetals@yahoo.com or on Instagram at @pleasant_valley_petals.
"I was like, ‘Wait, why did I buy flowers? I have flowers outside.’ And I was like, 'Why don't I just grow flowers?' Because they looked so much better.”