Lamont farm full of Flower Power
Lamont County resident, Diana Shandro, left her teaching job nearly 10 years ago to be a stay-at-home mom to her two children, having no idea she would eventually develop a love for growing flowers and turn it into a blossoming home business.
“I was learning to grow my own food, and a girlfriend of mine mentioned how flowers can be really useful in a vegetable garden for attracting pollinators and (other kinds of) bugs, so I started adding flowers,” she said. “Very quickly, I started enjoying growing flowers more (than vegetables), because you can just see the beauty from it so quickly.”
Two years ago, Shandro created Blossom Hill Gardens at her family’s small farm south of Lamont where she sells over 100 different varieties of freshly grown flowers and tubers, which are a thick piece of flower root for planting. A unique option for Shandro’s customers is to purchase monthly subscriptions where fresh cut flower bouquets are delivered weekly from June to Sept.
“Some people appreciate how much flowers can add to their lives when they have fresh flowers in their kitchen that have been grown naturally, organically and haven’t been shipped across the world,” she said. “There are no pesticides, (so) there’s a smaller footprint. They are usually more unique and diverse flowers and you would get at the grocery store.”
Shandro also custom grows wedding flowers. She said the timing of her planting is important for brides who are looking for extra special fresh bouquets.
“My seed timing schedule is important to make sure I have certain colors and types for people having weddings or events that they’ve wanted certain things for,” she said. “I’ll do specific work for weddings where I know the bride wants certain colors or styles. I have a (customer) who has a wedding at the end of June, and today, I was planting some white (flowers) that she wanted.”
Among the different flowers, grown by Shandro, are unique “hard to find” varieties such as Ranunculus (Buttercup), Anemones and Fox Glove but Shandro thinks Dahlias have an edge over the rest.
“They’re just the most perfect flower. They’re big and they produce so many blooms. They’re very floriferous,” she said, adding they cannot survive outside over the winter. “A lot of people will just let them rot in the ground over the winter, which is fine, but if you want to save them, dig them up and then store them over winter like you would a potato and then divide them in the spring and plant more of them. They multiply.”
Shandro is so taken with the magnificent blooms, she is looking at ways to create her own unique varieties of Dahlia.
“Dahlias (are genetically) designed to have eight variants on their chromosomes so they can have millions of varieties. I’ve collected seed for the ones I pollinate myself, and trying to combine traits that I want. I’m hoping that I’ll get some beautiful surprises this year from the seeds that I grew; new ones that I can eventually put to market under my own names,” she said.
Shandro added that Dahlias are difficult to find. She said most flower shops don’t carry them because they don’t ship very well.
Meanwhile, Shandro may have left her career in education behind, but said she never lost her love for learning and teaching. She said she’s spent a lot of time on the internet over the years learning about growing flowers, and amassed a big collection of gardening books. In addition, she likes to teach people about growing flowers by way of a newsletter her online customers can sign up for, and sharing her knowledge with children at the local elementary school.
“Some kids don’t like getting their hands dirty, that was amusing to me” she said laughing. “It’s fun to see them getting interested in plants.”
Shandro said she is also looking forward to hitting the road with her flowers this year by participating in farmers’ markets throughout the county.
Jana Semeniuk
Staff Reporter
This story and more were originally published in our 2023 Agriculture Section. Check it out here:
