by Carrie Lipe Jane Stratton is sitting at a picnic table under the shade of a 130-year-old black walnut behind a pitcher of fresh lemonade and two empty glasses. She’s on the porch of her small historic wood-frame farmhouse, tucked away behind the property’s farmstead, barns and outbuildings in a shady draw at the end of a single-track county lane in the rolling wheat fields of eastern Washington.

As I drive up, Jane is looking out over a two-acre flower garden — the raw material for her thriving homegrown flower business. John, her husband, is methodically working his way down a row of brilliant blue delphiniums, hand-pulling weeds under a scorching late-summer afternoon sun. I have my eye on those empty lemonade glasses as I pull my car to a stop and climb out.

Jane rises from the table and offers a big welcome smile. “You found the turnoff!” she exclaims, as she and her black-and-white border collie descend the back steps to greet me in the settling dust of the driveway. On the phone, Jane had instructed me to look for a small wooden sign reading “Sunshine Crafts.” She warned, “If you pass the round barn, you’ve gone too far.” The round barn is a well-known landmark in these parts, and for good reason. I can see it on an adjacent hilltop farm about half a mile away. Even from this distance, I marvel at the architectural magic evident in the barn’s spectacularly deep and arching roof line.

“John’s family homesteaded this land in 1877,” explains Jane. Now considered a Washington Centennial Farm, the Strattons still farm 480 acres of barley, peas and wheat. John’s father, in his 80s and living in the main farmstead, retired two years ago after working more than 60 seasons. Jane and John moved to the farm in 1970, raising two daughters and a son here.

“In a sense, it was the kids that got me started in the flower business,” explains Jane as we climb the stairs toward those empty lemonade glasses. Jane pours round one and I try not to appear too eager. She refills my glass with a big grin. “A little hot out here for ya, eh?”

The Strattons’ farm is located on a back road between Pullman and Moscow, both small university towns nestled in the dryland wheat farming country known as the Palouse. “When the kids were little, I was working a part-time job on the Washington State University campus, secretarial stuff. I was offered more hours and I had to make a choice — do I type at a computer all day, or do I grow flowers? Hmmm ...”

As a hobby, Jane had already been growing flowers for drying. “In 1983, a friend wanted me to sell some things at her coffee house. I put together 30 teasel Christmas trees and, to my surprise, they all sold! The next year, I sold trees and dried flowers. People wanted more. This got me thinking,” recalls Jane. “Well, the flowers won out over the computer. I let go of my town job and came home to start my business. It was not a fair competition!”

“I wanted to be home when the kids got off the school bus. And I have always loved flowers.” The kids, then ranging from ages 7 to 11, helped. “They weren’t always eager, but we’d line everyone up and say: ‘We’re going to weed right across the flower garden. This will put you through college someday.’” And it did. Each of the Strattons’ three children graduated from Washington State University.

“At first, I focused on selling dried flowers to wholesalers. But for the amount we could make, it was just way too much work.” Jane then hit on an idea that blossomed into the perfect-fit business she operates today: What about directly selling fresh flowers? What about purposefully staying small-scale and local?

Jane contacted local florists. “My flowers are mostly the wildflower type. They’re hardy and disease resistant,” says Jane, who is committed to growing without invasive techniques.

“One of my florists always calls and says: ‘Bring me another 10 bundles of weeds.’ But he keeps buying them!” She also developed a subscription-based flower route, delivering fresh flower bouquets to homes and businesses.
At first, Jane tagged her deliveries onto an established milk delivery route operated by one of her relatives. Stratton’s Dairy, located just a few miles down the road, was one of only a handful of “old fashioned” dairies left still providing weekly doorstep milk delivery in recycled glass bottles. “I just put the bouquets on the milk truck, and we’d leave flowers as well as milk bottles at the door.”

But as the popularity of Jane’s bouquets grew, she created a separate route. I ask Jane to show me her delivery equipment, expecting to see a fancy refrigerated van, dollies and carts. Jane laughs. “There’s my fancy equipment!” she says, pointing to her old white Subaru station wagon parked in the driveway, the same vintage as mine. “I can fit 60 bouquets in the back.”

To the disappointment of hundreds of fans, Stratton’s Dairy closed a few years ago. Jane inherited some of the delivery equipment, including the wire milk bottle cases, which she now uses to carry flower vases. “Just like the old milk route, I recycle all of my glass vases. I’ve reused some for years. My customers appreciate the recycling aspect of my business.” [MaryJane also “inherited” something from Stratton’s Dairy — she bought all their equipment, hoping someday to start a local organic dairy again.]

Customers also appreciate Jane. “I get tons of positive feedback. People announce: ‘Here comes the Flower Lady!’ No one can resist flowers. I love bringing a breath of fresh air, a little bit of natural beauty and sunshine into someone’s day.”

Jane charges only $7 for a fresh bouquet. “I want to keep my service accessible,” she explains. “My billing system is simple: people leave me a check with their empty vase.” Jane’s advertising is also simple: “It’s just word of mouth. An enthusiastic supporter will tell others, and soon I’ll have most of the offices in their building covered.”

During the growing season, Jane and John also offer a “u-pick” service. “People love poking around in the garden or just sitting under the trees, listening to the birds and relaxing. We don’t keep regular hours. We have the flowers here, and the clippers and the buckets.” Continuing the recycling spirit, Jane scrounges plastic milk jugs from friends and restaurants, cutting a hole in their sides to create a free carry-home case for the u-pickers. “If we’re not home, people just leave a payment in the box. And it’s gratifying to say we’ve never had a problem operating our business on trust.”

As we talk, a woman in a red van drives up. “She’s a regular,” smiles Jane as we move into the flower garden to greet the guest.

I can’t resist, and end up with a bucket and a pair of clippers in my hands, moving slowly down the rows, snipping flowers, losing myself in the pattern on the petals of a painted tongue, the cheerful face of a sunrise coreopsis, the spiky silhouette of a stand of salvia.

Jane walks beside me, talking about color palettes and garden choreography. “You have to plan for staggered bloom times — a display through the entire growing season. The color palette of the flowers changes as the seasons do. In the spring we have cool, bright colors; then the hot colors in the summer; and in the autumn the cool colors return.”

I mention that flower arranging must be something like painting — bringing together a composition of shapes, colors and textures. “It is,” says Jane, who then reveals she graduated from college in fine arts and education. “And just like the flowers themselves, no two arrangements are ever identical. I love art, and I love being connected to the natural cycles of the seasons. Flower gardening is my perfect medium!” she says.

And, she adds, “I also love hibernating in the winter after the Christmas craft sales are over. I settle in with my seed catalogues. Then I have that perfect garden — the garden in my mind!”

Jane helps stabilize my bouquet on the floor of the car. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she says. “Just look at those colors!” Even after all those bouquets, Jane is still energized by flowers. “Flowers have a power all their own,” she explains. “People get stagnant working inside all day; they get depressed by the turmoil in the world. When I deliver a fresh bouquet, flowers cheer people up all by themselves.”

Asked what advice she would pass along, Jane replies, “I like the quote, ‘Bloom where you are planted.’ Don’t run off looking for something better; enhance your own corner of the world instead. Encourage art in yourself and others, slow down, appreciate the simple beauty you can find or make right there in front of you.”

With that, Jane climbs the stairs and carries the empty lemonade glasses back into the house. I pull away from the Strattons’ farm. In my rear view mirror, I watch a plume of dust rise from the road, illuminated behind me by the late afternoon sun. The trail drifts and disappears into the ripening wheat. As dirt lanes give way to gravel roads, and gravel roads to paved highways, I accelerate, widening my distance between farm roads and city streets. I turn north to Spokane, the largest city in these parts, an hour and a half of driving time away. I think about Monday morning and the rush hour ritual I take part in at both ends of the day, joined by millions of others leaving home for the office to answer the call of the corporate economy in cities across the globe. My thoughts return to the Strattons’ farm tucked away at the end of a quiet tree-lined country road. I am heartened by the image of the Flower Lady moving through the motions that keep her small business tied to the rhythms of her own choosing and to the cycles of the seasons. I see Jane arranging bundles of cheer and hope, handing out the healing power of nature’s happy art.

Jane has kindly agreed to offer encouragement, gardening tips and business start-up advice to others who may dream of leaving the corporate life to start a small-scale garden-based business. Jane may be reached via
e-mail at jjstratton@pullman.com.