Why Creekside?
The answer is quite simple. I was a trained florist with no flowers and Anna was a market gardener without design experience. I graduated from Olds College from their Commercial Floristry (yes, floristry, not to be confused with forestry!) program and spent some time doing wedding design when I moved back to the Bulkley Valley. But, I found it challenging to order flowers on a small scale from the lower mainland and was frustrated by my lack of design space and consistent product.
Flowers thankfully came back into my life when I met my business partner John at a dairy farming meeting and he was looking for a partner to grow commercial peonies in the North. Four years ago we planted over an acre of peonies in the snow, and my new friend Anna came to help.
Anna began her journey as a market gardener and was especially taken with the idea of growing 1 tonne of garlic! As her interest in flowers grew, so did her plot and eventually, she was selling market bouquets. Once you begin to sell flowers, people will always begin to ask if you do wedding design, and without formal training, Anna didn't want to take that on herself.
Fast forward a few years, and a few babies, we had a mutual friend who was getting married. When Anna found out they were going to use only artificial flowers she offered to grow their flowers as a wedding gift.
This wedding gift presented a challenge because Anna was also tasked for the first time in designing the wedding flowers. In a stroke of what I now think of as great luck, Anna asked me if I had any peonies I could supply her with, which led to her asking me if I’d come over to help her create the florals. We spent the day designing and it just clicked. We had a moment where we looked at each other and said ‘should we do this, for real?’ I jokingly tell people it's when Anna asked me to ‘flower with her officially’, and I said Yes!
That winter we spent discussing all our flower dreams and goals. We wrote out what we thought was possible, and we dared to dream what we thought was unachievable. So far the reception to our local blooms has completely blown us away and I think we have grown far past those early hopes already.
Why Creekside?
Our farm names both include Creek - Robin Creek and Wildcreek and our flower studio is nestled beside a beautiful creek. So, the name Creekside just made sense. It came to us quickly and simply. We’re just two farm girls who figured why not give it a shot, and here we are, as we are. Thank you so much for taking this journey with us, we are so glad you're here!
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