Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Brooksby.
Hi Emily, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I got my MBA from BYU in 2010 in marketing, and I went on from that to work for Adobe as a consultant for a couple of years in their digital experience team. It was amazing and fulfilling work–I had clients like Disney and Rosetta Stone, along with a great team of people. Then I decided to take a break to start my family. I dabbled in private consulting work for a few years while I raised kids, but that became harder to do as more babies came into the picture. I finally put my career to the side while I focused on being a full-time mom.
My enthusiasm for gardening started 14 years ago, when I got this crazy idea to grow watermelon and a honeysuckle vine on the balcony of our 3rd story condo in Lehi. When we moved to our current home in Saratoga Springs, I got involved in the local community garden, Harvest Hills Gardens. I got to experiment with heirloom tomatoes and learn how to harvest gooseberries and currents, while battling squash bugs and voles with fellow hobby gardeners in the neighborhood. Fast forward to 2021, and I was stuck on a couch recovering from hip surgery when I stumbled upon the mini documentary “Growing Floret,” all about Erin Benzakein’s flower farm in Washington State. I was absolutely inspired, and as soon as I finished the last episode, I texted my community garden committee and said something like, “Can we grow cut flowers this year? I’ve already ordered the seeds.”
Despite killing most of the flowers I grew at the community garden that year, it always seemed like there were enough to send volunteers home with a small handful or two. Seeing the look on their faces as they posed with their haphazard bouquets just filled me with absolute joy. I wanted to kill less flowers, and I signed up for the Floret Flower Farming course that winter. While I went into the course with the intention of just growing better flowers at our community garden, However, I found myself getting excited about taking this knowledge and starting my own flower business.
I jumped in with both feet. I started selling flowers at the Eagle Mountain Farmers’ market and moved to simply selling flowers in a small flower stand on the side of my yard. My first year was very experimental–I still managed to kill a lot of flowers, but I grew enough to sustain a couple of flower subscriptions and custom orders a month. Last year, I started collecting more data on my flowers. I grew 7,000 flowers in 2024 and this year I was able to increase that to 8,300, all on less than an 1/8 of an acre.
Stumbling into the flower farming world really captured two different areas of interest for me–gardening and business. It was thrilling to be the ONLY one that had to approve a business name, a marketing scheme, a business card look. I loved working for myself. I also loved solving the problems of farming on a small scale in my back yard. How do I get this low tunnel built? What is eating this anemone? Putting them together has been such a joy. Maybe what is the most fulfilling of all is that I can do this business while still being a full-time mom. I work 10-15 hours a week, depending on the time of the season, and I get to enjoy the winter months off to rest and dream of the next year’s beauty.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Figuring out how to sell flowers to the right customer has been the biggest struggle. They are a commodity and, more often than not, a second-thought purchase. This makes it hard to charge a premium price when someone can pick up a cheaper (though not as beautiful) bouquet at Costco. It is also harder to sell flowers in the summer, when they are the most prolific. However, this is when everyone has flowers in their own yards or they are gone on vacation.
I’ve also had a fair share of problems dealing with city ordinances. I had a compliance officer pick up signs I had around our neighborhood advertising my flower stand and was fined for it. Going through the court process to get an appeal was very humiliating and demeaning. Without an advocate to help me through the process, I instantly learned why so many people say it is hard to be a small business owner!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
One of my goals from the start was to become better at arranging and displaying flowers. My backyard garden has become my own flower warehouse of sorts to pick from when I want to make something for my home or when I get a custom order. I’ve studied color, form, design, structure in all sorts of methods from traditional to contemporary. I love how flowers can be put together in a way that makes a person feel happiness, joy, sympathy, reflection, or love. There’s nothing like handing a customer a bouquet and seeing the smile on their face.
I have grown to love garden-style design, which focuses on making an arrangement look like it came straight from the garden. It is a bit wild and full of unique elements that you wouldn’t find in a grocery store bouquet. I try to use only my own flowers from my garden, or if I need something extra, I purchase flowers from the local flower collective Utah Flower Market in Pleasant Grove or one of my flower farming friends in the area. I want to show my friends and neighbors the beauty that can come out of Utah dirt!
I have a bucket list of creative projects I want to do while I have this business. This past summer I got the chance to check off one of those boxes when I designed the flowers for a friend’s backyard wedding open house.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Join any groups you can that have the base of people you want to be like. Especially professional organizations.
I hate to brag, but the flower farming industry has the best kind of people you’ll find anywhere. Not only was I able to network within my Floret Flower Farming classmates after taking the course, I joined the Utah Cut Flower Farmers Association early on and found a hundred instant friends and mentors. I’ve worked with other flower farmers in their gardens and learned alongside them. I have asked questions of some of my peers and gotten detailed answers to how to fix a problem or get rid of a pest. It has been just amazing. I also highly recommend attending conferences within your industry. The UCFFA puts on a conference every year that goes over the issues that I deal with regularly and gives me the opportunities to meet other flower farmers who are doing what I am doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bessieandjoyceflowers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bessieandjoyceflowers
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bessieandjoyceflowers
