Getting Started

Chapter 1: 2014

Dawn and Mark fall in love and get married. (Yep, that's us on our wedding day!)

Chapter 2: 2015

Dawn begins to think she wants to follow her long-time dream of becoming a flower farmer. (It's in her blood; born to a family of Iowa farmers, she grew up wearing denim bib overalls and following her father into the fields, sometimes with just a cat for a companion.)

Chapter 3: 2016

Dawn and Mark begin building their flower farm…

It began in the spring of 2016 in a rocky, weedy quarter-acre field on the outskirts of Wallowa, Oregon. Four dump trucks full of top soil, two shovels, and one wheelbarrow later—along with countless hours and daunting labor that very likely would have done in a rented mule—Bear Creek Blossoms had a start in life. Granted, it was probably the smallest flower farm on the planet (16 main beds and 10 raised filler beds spread across approximately 3,000 square feet of ground), but even the strongest tree, or flower farm, begins from a small seed. We started that seed by first creating the flower beds.

Chapter 4: 2017

Then Dawn and Mark went to work expanding the growing space by adding approximately 1,000 square feet that contains 10 main beds, building a deer fence around the entire area, and installing a drip irrigation system.

Chapter 5: 2018

Major projects included making a cottage garden—a fenced, 2,000+ square-foot area devoted to flowers and vegetabless—and running power to the site of a future greenhouse. We also purchased a chipper-shredder that will convert spent flowers into mulch and compost.On the growing end of things, we planted 1,100 specialty tulip and daffodil for spring.

Chapter 6: 2019

With the bloody snow stacked hip-deep almost everywhere, spring was a long time coming. In fact, it was lying stiff and cold under piles of snow and took a while to shake itself off and get back to growing strength. Meanwhile, inside, with the woodstove crackling along, Dawn ordered seeds, set up growing racks and lights in our makeshift greenhouse, and waited for the tulips and daffodils to appear.

Chapter 7: 2020

Plans include finishing a 10x12-ft. greenhouse and developing two garden areas: a "Shade" garden, which is no longer shady because we removed the stunted junipers that once called this space home, and a "Secret" garden, whose secret is how it's going to grow anything with the deer already moving in. Maybe another deer fence?