Mother Lovin’

In honor of the woman above, and her mother, and her mother before her…Rosenfield Flowers (me/I) will be at the Mother Lovin’ Fair in Marysville on Sunday, May 4th-the weekend before Mothers Day, to sell farm flower bouquets, lavender sachets, random art, cards my sister made, and some dried flowers from the garden last summer for some everlasting gifts. The event will be at Jennings Memorial Park from 10am-3pm and it’s free to attend. So spread the news, and here’s the story….

A note to my mom and grandma….Ma, I know you and grandma watch over me and are proud. If you were both still alive I know we would be farming together. Grandma you would be setting up the veggie patch and the sweet peas, and mom, you would be helping me landscape the garden, admiring the roses and curating the dahlias by color. We would all be painting together between the rows, the waving heads of blooms at golden hour. Mom doing her landscapes, me trying my hand to capture the light between the trees, and gram looking over our shoulders and pointing out her favorite parts. We are all alike in our artistic endeavors. Our creativity runs deep in our genetic lines.

Each Mother’s Day I think of you both. You are not here for me to buy you flowers, but I feel you looking over my shoulder when I make a bouquet. I feel you gram, when I named a new dahlia flower after you and remarked on the water spots on its pink petals. I told my sister, “It looks like it’s been through a car wash!” And so that became its name in your honor. This year the tubers took a hit with the cold spell but my sister and I think that we might have one tuber left that we can plant and save. And because we firmly believe you are both watching over us, we are looking forward to more new varieties that we’ve planted from seeds, and helped to grow with your loving presence.

The beauty I remember from a photograph is now firmly ensconced in my heart. The two of you clowning around together, going out to lunch in Downtown Seattle, and taking us to trips to the Woodland Park Zoo. Gram, the sign you are known for, the Pink Elephant sign is in a museum now and I would like to think that you would be humble, and also secretly proud. So on this Mother’s Day, I am thinking of you both, as well as all the Mother’s out there, with pets at children, or for whatever reason, waiting for your bit of sunshine to reach out and honor you, I have you in my heart. And for everyone else, I hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day. Celebrate the women or men in your life that take care of others. Don’t forget to buy flowers from your local farmer this year, its important to support your local grower so they can continue to farm. We will be having some fun events coming up, held at the Marysville farm site and hope you will attend. Meanwhile I’ll see you at the fair!

-Sue Rosenfield, Rosenfield Flowers

Mother Lovin’ Market: Marysville, WA. Jennings Memorial Park 10am-3pm, Sunday, May 4th, Free to attend

Wine and Design: Mother’s Day dried flower shadow box workshop, Sunday May 27th at the farm. 3-5pm Limited to 10 adults. $48.00 per person. http://www.rosenfieldflowers.com

Its Summer in Bloom Time

The garden is in nearly full bloom with a variety of Dahlias, Snapdragons, Yarrow, Sunflowers and enough wonderful all around flowers to fill a beautiful bouquet. We completed our first wedding of the season with corsages, wedding bouquets, rose petals and table arrangements and a few extra buckets thrown in for fun. DIY wedding buckets make a great alternative to brides who want to arrange their own flowers. A large bucket (think Home Depot size) will make about 6 table arrangements, and a small bucket will make about 4 medium sized arrangements or two large ones.

We have so enjoyed the beginning of the season this year. We planted in April so the blooms are a little delayed due to the cold early Spring, but now that it’s consistently 70 degrees out the Dahlias and everything else are loving it! My favorite time of the day is after 5pm when the pollinators are starting to slow down and find their “flower beds” for the evening. I’ll find a sleepy bee tucked in for a mid-summer night’s dream.

Upcoming events will be a jam-jar session to learn how to make a small table arrangement for your next party using blackberry vines and available flowers. We will keep you posted but bring your gloves and snips and are guest designer will walk you through the details. Stay tuned for our August date for that.

And as always since the stand is officially open, feel free to drive by and ring the blue glass bell if we are not around or give us a call if we are in the house. We would love to show you are flowers and you can even tell us what to pick for you and we will fresh pick a nice handful for your table!

Have a great Summer!

Sue & Lori

2022 In Review: a cut flower farm journey

Second year of the farm has been a learning process that keeps my mind off of the everyday stresses of my full-time job. While I continue to invest way more than we earn, the benefits of being in the garden reap their own priceless rewards. There is no cost to being immersed in watching a bumble bee asleep in a flower. In fact, in late summer I’d come to being very careful moving down the rows to avoid waking one up from an accidental face to flower whacking. There is also no cost associated with the physical health benefits not just of my own exertions on the weekends or on random days during the week, but also the mental benefits. Gardens are confidence building, even when they are not. Like my cat, they don’t talk back but you know exactly what they need. Soil, water, tending. Gardens give me both meditaion and peace. And when they involve family, and family is happy puttering away, even better.

2022 began with Covid lockdowns, which didn’t impact the seedling process, but little flies did. The flies came from the dirt, or maybe the fly fairy brought them, laid their eggs, which in turn made little larvae that LOVE to eat the delicate baby roots. Slowly my carefully tended sproutlings died by the tray-fulls. I bought annoying sticky traps which would get in my hair every time I watered. I put out vinegar cups. I dusted diotomatious earth. I carefully sliced raw potato to attract the larva away from the roots, all to little effect. I had to buy more seeds and dirt midway through the growing season and wasn’t sure I’d have anything to put in the garden except dahlia tubers.

Once Spring came around, we had both torrents of rain and a late frosty spell that delayed planting. One wonderful surprise from year one was that the yarrow came back! This made my day and is the first perennial to return. Because of this I dedicated a row to perennials which hopefully will come back in 2023. As the garden was planted and grew, some notable finds were that mint is super invasive, the LED grass volunteers itself also, and while I had not planned on poppies this year I got a pretty small red Shirley poppy volunteer that was a nice addition to look at. And did I say mint? Eeek! Smells great but….if you need any hit me up. I also made Nettle tea from the wild nettles in the Spring. Its delicious and did you know it lowers blood pressure? Yep! I had a propper fainting spell on a hot day drinking too much Nettle tea and working on the garden. Whoops!

The dahlias were gorgeous and the snap dragons did better than I thought, branching out after each cutting for more and more stems. New varieties were Jewels of Opar which was a stunning airy addition to bouquets, and Columbine, which didn’t bloom, but we used as filler. I also loved using the mint and purple basil as filler which was so deliciously aromatic I felt I was in Italy.

We started a website, are putting together a sales portal and visited Triple Wren Farms up in Lynden, WA. for a much needed break and to dream how we could grow with some work and land. We also met some lovely new friends, and had a special guest flower designer over in the garden to practice making bouquets! This led us to a few parties under the wisteria arch that were so much fun. Throughout all of this we opened the flower stand, made bouquets, sold bouquets and buckets of flowers. I took a ton of photos and made a calendar for family members as a loving memory to our farm over the year. In November we dug up the tubers and lovingly packed them away for (fingers crossed) some Spring tuber sales of some fun and funky varieties.

This has been another full year and I hope if you are reading this you can stop by in the Summer or send us a line to connect! Here is hoping to your warm Winter and own personal success.

Aloha! Sue