The Prologue

If the purpose of you reading these early blog posts are to see if we are a fit before you buy from us, then let me give you enough background to make an informed decision.

The prologue

About 5 years ago, my wife Heidi who had been growing flowers in our small urban lot in Newmarket Ontario started a conversation with, “do you think we could do this full time?”

I’m sure a lot of people reading this have had the same conversation with their spouse (so trust me, I know the look on your face right now!)  Let me backup a bit to give you some insight into how we got this far.

Why flowers?. We believe that nearly every sentiment imaginable can be expressed with flowers.  People find inspiration in flowers because of their inescapable connection to the human condition. Did you know there are studies that show people giving flowers feel just as good as the ones who receive flowers?  Think about it, flowers are always present when things are emotional; when you are in love you choose flowers to express how you feel. Can you imagine a bride without flowers, on the most emotional day of her life?  You make a special trip to pick them up on your way to someone's house to celebrate a special occasion. They are the centerpiece when you celebrate a special anniversary. Why do you think we use the term “centerpiece” in floral arranging anyway?  You bring them along when meeting with friends you haven't seen in a long time, knowing you will pick up right where you left off. Flowers are in hand when you show up to make a sad friend feel better, or the second they get home from the hospital to pick them up. And in death they are presented as the ultimate sign of love and respect for someone whose memories you will cherish long afterward. They mean so much as a sign of how important an event is or how greatly we care and how much we want to help others.

Flowers are important to your emotional well-being…

“what would you say if we moved from here and made growing flowers our full time gig instead of how we do it now?”,  Heidi had been growing for a few years on our 40 by 100 foot urban back lot in Newmarket Ontario, and was always wanting more space.  I had been 20 years with an international consumer goods company in sales and business development roles assisting small and medium sized companies grow their business...it felt like a good time to try, so…

The present

Stems Flower Farm was born in 2016 when we finally found our forever farm home. The small farm has been called Edgebrook for over one hundred and fifty years.  Granted at the time we thought the 5 acres of workable land for flowers was more than we could ever possibly need.  We both wish we could have a do-over on that, but love the living part of our property and our 4 kids who ranged in age from 3 to 8 years old have flourished with their newfound playground.   We have spent each growing season scaling our farm to where we have two small thirty by twenty two foot propagation houses, four 100’ foot hoop houses, a small on farm cooler for storage and pick ups. We owe an invaluable amount of gratitude to some very important flower farmers in Ontario who have helped us achieve our current level of success. Without their willingness to share and educate us it would have been a great struggle. We simply adore the fact our industry is so open and caring, and only hope to be able to offer the same kind of assistance to others in building their dreams.

Then we opened a seed store

When we started on this journey Heidi’s copious notes and research was for our own benefit. We found buying seed was not an easy task.  By this I mean having to continually factor price, availability, local sourcing, we are always sensitive to extending our carbon footprint, track record of the breeder, currency exchange, minimum order challenges, will I or won’t I escape duty when it arrives, and the list goes on.  In the ten years since we started growing we had always planned that when we were more established on the growing side, we would try to offer our knowledge to make a difference to the small to medium sized flower farmer and ardent garden enthusiast. This is the short version of the genesis of Stems Seed Co., It has grown a great deal over the last five years, and we take great joy in bringing our knowledge of cut flowers to fellow growers so you can concentrate on what you love most which is growing flowers.

This in a nutshell is who we are and why we are here.