Kelly - and her team - do so much! They have a cut flower garden, farm (with animals!), shop, event venue, and cafe, process and sell their seeds (talk about full circle flower farming). The list can keep going!

We are so excited to have Kelly a part of our Flower Friend Panel for Camp Rover Conference 2024.

Here’s a bit more on Kelly through a little interview to get to know her.

What is the hardest part about what you do?

Juggling a lot of different moving parts at one time.

What is the all-time dream part of your job? The thing you still pinch yourself that you get to do? And, tell the people how often you actually get to do it.

Creativity. I try and be creative as often as possible, it’s the only way I stay interested through the much more mundane tasks.

If you could tell your Day 1, starting a biz self one thing what would it be?

Remember that balance is important. Work/life balance can be extremely hard to manage when you’re self-employed. I wish I could have recognized that a lot sooner and put some boundaries in place.

Someone wants to get into Flower Farming. What advice - from an expert - would have saved you a lot of time, sweat, and tears?

That's a hard one. I do think it’s important to put in the time, the sweat and the tears. I believe in the learning process for yourself, and building your confidence as your abilities grow, your tears mean you care and you’re invested in your dream and I think it would be pretty hard to build a successful business if you didn't invest the time, sweat and experience the tears.

One thing that does come to mind though - that definitely would help anyone starting out - is to find a safe place to tell a friend, another industry peer who understands the struggles of starting up a small business, someone who will listen to you wholeheartedly, support you, build you up and encourage you and celebrate your successes alongside you.

This is something that I am forever grateful for in our industry and have built some really great friendships along the way that have done just this for me, and I hope I have done for them.