Wildflower Farm is a unique horticultural business located just north of Toronto, Ontario. We are a native plant nursery, a natural landscaping service, an eco-tourism destination point, a pick-your-own flower farm and custom floral design service. Our business is open to the public seven days a week, from the beginning of May through mid-October and we are also open 24 hours a day 365 days a year on the Internet.

Wildflower Farm began in 1988 as a hobby that grew out of my obsessive need to grow flowers. Today we are an incorporated business, run in partnership between my husband, Paul Jenkins and myself with a seasonal staff of about nine people. As with all entrepreneurs, our story is a winding road paved with persistence, difficult lessons and an unbridled passion for what we do, and it has taken us many years to find the right blend of elements that now define our business.

In the beginning, way back in ‘88, we grew flowers that we dried and used to create custom dried flower arrangements. We also sold bunches of our dried flowers to upscale florists, designers and crafts people in the Toronto area.

Our small dried flower business was fairly successful but by 1994 I had bigger and more unusual things in mind. I longed to create a special place where people who were as nuts about flowers as I was could come together and wander through our fields of flowers. We live on an old dairy farm located just 35 minutes north of Toronto, a city of 4 million people, and I wanted our beautiful location in the rolling hills of Ontario to become Canada’s first “pick-your-own-flower farm”. I made sure to share my enthusiasm with the gardening editor of the major newspaper in Southern Ontario, The Toronto Star, and we were blessed with a full-page feature about our pick-your-own concept. We were instantly inundated with a glut of enthusiastic flower lovers.

Soon other newspaper and magazines were writing about us. One magazine editor dubbed Wildflower Farm “a kind of floriferous madness!” while another newspaper columnist wrote that we were “a kind of factory outlet for flowers!”

With all this “free” media attention, Wildflower Farm quickly became established as a floral destination point for day-trippers, featuring fresh and freshly dried flowers and unique floral decor. We created a little shop in an old pig barn and invited several talented artisans to sell their wares on consignment along with the floral arrangements we made. I took pride in the fact that a visit to Wildflower Farm was the antithesis of a shopping mall experience and I still do. This is the sort of place where kids can play in our hand-hewn Apple tree fort while parents and friends, couples and groups leisurely gather flowers or enjoy a picnic amidst the blossoms.

At that time my emphasis was on annuals in the cutting gardens and on perennials in the display gardens. I had to tend close to an acre of land by myself because Paul was still working full time in the advertising industry in Toronto. Because I simply didn’t have time for fussy hybrid perennials, native perennials soon became my salvation for my display gardens. They were showy, easy to care for, attracted butterflies like crazy and many even made good fresh cut flowers.

Over the years, our display gardens grew to feature more and more wildflowers and native grasses. We loved the way they offered color from springtime right to frost with virtually one day of maintenance a year!

Throughout our time in the flower business many of our visitors have shared with us their efforts to create wildflower meadows. The stories always begin with “I bought this can and/or bag of seeds with a pretty picture on it.” In 1985 we too had succumbed to what we now call “the scam in a can”. We bought a giant bag of a “Northeastern Wildflower Mix” and scattered it over about a quarter of an acre of land. In the first year we had lots of lovely annuals like bachelor buttons, poppies, etc. Then in the second year we began to see Maltese Crosses, Yarrows, Bachelor Buttons and, oh oh, thistles!

By the third year our “meadow” was a thistle-filled disaster. At the time we had absolutely no idea that a seed mix comprised of annuals is doomed to failure here in the Northeast and bears no relation to the original meadows that were native to our area. It’s the tough, long-lived perennials combined with the noble native grasses that have withstood the test of time in this harsh climate.

All we knew was that if there was a wrong way to create a meadow, there had to be a right way. After years of research, observation and personal trials and errors we discovered a system of planting gardens and meadows that takes its cues from nature. What we arrived at was a practical, economical, environmentally sustainable and esthetically pleasing approach to gardening – one that requires no soil amending, fertilizing, watering, deadheading or weeding.

Natural landscaping
It was during this time that our visitors began inquiring if we would landscape their property to look like our display gardens and if they could purchase wildflower plants and seeds from us. Soon Wildflower Farm was busy installing wildflower gardens and meadows throughout Southern Ontario. As specialists in natural landscaping we now enjoy a wonderfully varied client base from urbanites with postage stamp size front yards in Toronto, to large properties with acres of low-maintenance native wildflower meadows.
Our timing has been good. Though many garden magazines regularly featured articles about wildflowers, there were very few wildflower growers in Canada. Those that did exist had been concentrating on supplying plugs and seeds to restorationists. They seemed to have little interest in supplying the gardening market with native wildflower plants or seeds. We increased the quantities of wildflowers we were growing to meet the public demand and simultaneously introduced a full-color wildflower catalog to the Canadian market. Loaded with detailed information on the techniques to successfully create wildflower gardens and meadows and gorgeous pictures of one hundred varieties of wildflowers, the new catalog made it easy to sell our wildflower plants, seeds and natural landscaping services to enthusiastic customers.

In the year 2000 we decided to take a risk. Paul designed our first on-line catalog and growing guide, which can be found at www.wildflowerfarm.com , and we ceased printing our hard copy catalog. We were braced for a drop in our mail order sales during that transitional year but we were thrilled to find that sales in all aspects of our business actually increased! More customers came to our farm than had ever done so before. More wildflower plants and seeds were sold through the on-line catalogue than we had sold through the printed version! And, our natural landscaping service was busier than it had ever been.

Wedding work
Each year we try to introduce new and exciting aspects to our business, as this gives our clientele even more reason to come back. Last year after persistent pressure from our clients, who had been having their wedding photos taken in our gardens for years, we began to offer “Wildly Romantic Weddings” at our farm. The concept was to offer people a complete one stop wedding service with everything from the tents, tables and chairs, through to the food, liquid refreshments and entertainment and of course the flowers all in one place at Wildflower Farm.

Because we have no interest in being a wedding factory (we’re much too busy for that!) we will only do 2 – 3 weddings here each season. But we are happy to produce our floral design work for weddings that take place off-site and we still will host many gatherings of bridal parties for picture-taking sessions and pre-wedding flower-picking parties.

For 2001 we are re-organizing our pick-your-own gardens into gardens that feature “Wildflowers From Around The World”. I’ll grow annuals – some native, some hybrids, and organize the cutting gardens geographically. What fun it will be to visit the Mediterannean garden and harvest Snapdragons, Larkspur, Lathryus and Limonium! Or to stroll through the African garden to pick orange and white Venedium and giant Gazanias! This year’s cutting gardens will also feature an edible cutting garden including Borage, Basils, Chamomile, tall Kale, Dill, Nasturtium and neon colored Swiss Chard. For pure romance we’ll offer a poppy garden stuffed with 18 different varieties of poppies.

Today, our farm store remains as the centerpiece for all the divisions of our company. Our client base is varied and diverse but steady. Some people come simply to enjoy the beautiful scenery and to pick fresh flowers. Potential landscaping clients come to learn about our services. Other visitors come to tour the display gardens and purchase a gift from our flower gift barn or to order a custom floral arrangement. Many people come expressly to purchase our native wildflower plants and seeds. Whatever their reason we are always glad to see them come up the driveway.