Category Archives: Guest Blogger

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Purveyors of Joy

This is a guest post by Bill Prescott, Marketing Communications Associate for Sun Valley Floral Farms. Bill is responsible for Sun Valley’s social media platform, blogging and multi-media communications.

Subscribe Sun Valley’s “Flower Talk” blog and follow Sun Valley on Twitter.

 

“I have never seen a consumer receive flowers, and not be happy.”

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Sun Valley’s Lane DeVries with a happy customer

These words were spoken by Sun Valley’s Lane DeVries as we were filming a short video about our farm.  Lane’s inspired quote really sums up our whole industry in a nutshell.  What are flower farmers if not purveyors of joy? This is what we bring to the table. This is why we

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Why would a Texan move to California to become a farmer?

This is a guest post by Jennifer Everett, Farm Manager for California Floral Greens in Watsonville, CA. Jennifer also serves as a Commissioner for the California Cut Flower Commission.

You can follow Jennifer on Twitter.

I grew up on the family farm admiring my dad and wanting to be a farmer just like him.

It has been almost 5 1/2 years ago now that I asked myself, “why would a texan move to California to become a farmer?”  At that time, my father, Jim Everett, was offering me a chance to move to the sunny state of California and manage a total of 120 acres of floral greens.  I had been teaching chemistry for the last 7 years and was looking for a change of pace, when the opportunity

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Stem by Stem

This is a guest post by Bill Prescott, Marketing Communications Associate for Sun Valley Floral Farms. Bill is responsible for Sun Valley’s social media platform, blogging and multi-media communications.

Subscribe Sun Valley’s “Flower Talk” blog and follow Sun Valley on Twitter.

 

A little over a year ago when I started working at the Sun Valley Floral Farm, I was out walking the farm with Lane and the other growers.  I was likely asking the team all sorts of rookie questions about flower farming,

Sun Valley Floral Farms’ CEO and head flower farmer Lane DeVries proudly display’s his farm’s commitment to promoting their “CA Grown” flowers.

“Where do we get the water? Where do we get the bulbs? How much does a single bulb cost?”

Lane and the growers patiently answered my questions as we walked at Lane’s unusually fast pace.  My eyes were wide open as row upon row of lilies, tulips and irises were discussed and inspected.  I noticed many flowers left in the fields, ones that hadn’t bloomed yet, it seemed to me that these would just be left to bloom out.

I asked Lane, “So are you just going to leave all those other flowers out there?”

He replied,