Still caring for people, just through flowers.
I've spent my whole life caring for others. Most of it as a nurse and mother.
Then my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I left nursing that fall. Nine months later, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
I wanted to get away from illness. But I'm a caregiver, and that part of me wasn't going anywhere.
So I went looking for a different way to care for people, and I found it in a flower field. I had no growing experience at all. The year before, I tried growing vegetables and they flopped. So I researched. I was so overwhelmed going through websites, growing books and research articles trying to find an answer that was right for my zone. I spent 11 months researching everything I could, and it consumed my life. Then we cleared the poplars on our land and went big, in zone 3.
I grew up playing hockey when not many girls did, so I was used to being different.
I live by Marie Forleo's words: everything is figureoutable.
The flowers became my passion and my mental escape. And the flower field became a place for other people too. Hundreds of them come out to pick every summer.
Everything I learned the hard way went into Stemwise, the cut flower planning app I built to help growers everywhere.
I also write the Stemwise Journal. I read the research the way I learned to as a nurse, then turn it into real-life steps growers can use in their own gardens. And I'm writing my first book.
