peonies for sale wholesale

The Farm’s Next Phase

Karen’s peonies are to die for. She painstakingly tends to each and every plant and the result is awe-inspiring. Check out these videos I took while visiting her farm one year.

Karen has entered a new phase with her farm. Shifting customers and declining wholesale prices, combined with the desire to slow down slightly and spend more time adventuring with her husband in their retirement from UC Davis, left her to begin laying out the possibilities in order to forge the smartest path forward.

As Karen saw it, she could either:

  • Reduce the size of the operation to be more manageable for her. She would need to invest in bringing up a portion of the infrastructure to increase reliability. The income-expense ratio would remain weak but at least she would not be busting her ass for so little.

  • Try to find someone who may be interested in taking over the operation as is. They are in a remote location but there are farms in the area and someone may have an interest. Question -- how to find someone?

  • Close the operation. (1) let the plants die (hate to even type this option!) (2) give away the roots; (3) try to sell the roots for a bargain -- but the buyer would have to dig them up for option 2 or 3.

    In the end, Karen went with the first option. She loves the farm too much to give it up, but decided that she needed to find a way to streamline and simplify.

When I first met Lennie, I was immediately impressed by the fact that she expertly combines creative approaches to flower farming with very strong business practices. So when I was looking for help in assessing the future of my flower farm, I immediately thought of Lennie. Her experience, business sense and wisdom were invaluable to me.