About Forget Me Not Farms
You deserve the best fresh cut flowers and we strive to deliver just that! We pride ourselves on providing florists with seasonally relevant fresh cut flowers with a reduced carbon footprint by cultivating unforgettable, sustainably grown, blooms.
Ok, I have a confession to make. I wish I could tell you all I was born and raised on this farm…but full disclosure I am a country transplant. I grew up on the west side of Toledo by the University of Toledo. But flowers were etched into my heart from my youth. One of my most prominent memories growing up is interacting with my grandmother’s peony patch along the back fence. Being young, I remember the blooms being as big as my head, but I’m sure my memory exaggerates them a little bit. But the impact was the same. To this day I am enchanted by big billowy peony blooms. I am a self-diagnosed peony addict and every peony season is like Christmas.
I continued to fall in love with flowers in the landscape as I grew up, which lead me to work for a few landscape companies and greenhouses in the area. Ultimately, I decided to pursue a bachelor’s degree in horticulture at Michigan State. During the summer of my sophomore year I decided to buy every sunflower variety the local hardware store had to offer. Trust me, it was a hodge podge of burgundy, gold, blonde, teddy bear and bicolor sunflowers. I tilled a 100′ row down the driveway and haphazardly scattered them. By some miracle, in the middle of July we had a couple hundred blooms greeting us every day. From this point on I was hooked on sunflowers. I vowed I would have some on our farm every year.
At this point I casually dabbled with growing cut flowers, little did I know it could be a viable career. I was on winter break during my senior year at Michigan State and I was looking for part time work. I stumbled on a small greenhouse operation that grew cut lilies and sold them to florists throughout the Toledo area. Working at this greenhouse changed my life. What was originally a three week side hustle lead me to my passion of growing cut flowers. Spring semester I would come home and work. I saw the diverse array of flowers that could be grown in Michigan and the need for fresh cut, sustainably grown flowers.
After graduating from Michigan State and interning at the cut flower greenhouse for a year, I took the leap and decided to start my own cut flower farm. In December 2016 I officially started Forget Me Not Farms. The name was a touch challenging to come by. But the most striking flower displays I have ever seen was during a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to go to Munising. It was early June, dainty blue forget me nots and trilliums blanketed the forest floor. The floral display of blue and white is one of the most remarkable sights of my life, etched forever in my mind. My dream is to remind people of their connection to nature and finding beauty in each other. My vision is to do this through fresh, sustainably-grown, memorable blossoms.
The farm, like any flower, continues to grow and develop. We have 1 acre. of outdoor (unprotected) production with hydrangeas, peonies, and assorted annuals. We have a new propagation house for starting more of our own seedlings on site. And we are trialing an assortment of new blooms for 2020.
From here, it is my dream to cultivate the breathtaking blooms which people celebrate their precious life moments. I wish I could tell you that’s all there is to it. I learned quickly that the passion for the flowers is only a small component of what makes this dream possible. The dream is free, but the high-cost hustle is sold separately. My formal education and training is in landscape contracting and a little bit of greenhouse production from Michigan State University. Little did I know this wouldn’t prepare me for building our first greenhouse, digging water and utility lines, soliciting customers, let alone growing the the unforgettable blooms I fell in love with in the first place.
Like many florists, I learned a lot of things the hard way. One of which, it is really challenging to build greenhouses in the dead of a Michigan winter. First task during the January 2017 season was to build our main greenhouse. Needless to say my proficiency in drilling, using tools, and equipment below the freezing point left more to be desired. But I also learned to never underestimate my ability to learn (and fast). Passion started the flower farm, humility and grit kept me in the game. It was cold, wet, and muddy, but with a lot of help from multiple people and a few months of really hard work we got the greenhouse up, with very little professional help (and yes it is still standing and the production site of many of the blooms you can buy).
In July 2017, I cut my first crop of dahlias in this greenhouse. I was overwhelmed by the excitement of the florist community for our early season blooms. Fast forward to the 2020, we grow over 30 kinds of cut flowers and continue to add more to our selection every year. Highlights include: sweet peas, anemone, ranunculus, dahlias, and peonies. We are incredibly blessed for the market’s enthusiasm as well as it’s love of local flowers in southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio.
What started as a simple row of sunflowers evolved into over 15,000 square feet of greenhouse, and a half an acre of perennial cut flower crops. We’re still in the thick of it, but I look forward to where the next five years will take our little farm. Day by day and season by season we keep trying new flowers and trying to extend their season. I look forward to providing you with the most remarkable blooms to amaze your customers and community with. Grown with love, and sustainability in mind, so that together we can share the beauty of flowers for years to come.
Your best floral source,
Lindsay