This piece was originally published in the Memphis Mirror, now known as DH Online.
From the temperatures rising, to the days getting longer, to the subtle awakenings of nature, it’s often said that the arrival of spring signals new beginnings. No one seems to understand this better than Margaret Stokes.
For many years during springtime, Stokes would walk through her mother’s backyard garden that was freshly teeming with yellow daffodils and would pick some of the flowers to take home, at her mother’s insistence.
“She had a beautiful garden and was a member of a lot of garden clubs,” Stokes said of her mother. “She grew up in the country on a farm so she kind of had that ingrained in her.”
The two women were always very close, so one can imagine the sense of loss Stokes felt when her mother died in 2016.
Stokes, who had retired two years prior after nearly 30 years of working as a speech pathologist, began looking for a way to help pass the time and work through her grief.
So, it only seemed natural that two years later she would find comfort and a new beginning in the same activity her mother had loved so much: growing flowers in her backyard garden.
Except, for Stokes, it has since become a little bit more involved than that.
Tucked away in a pocket of Stokes’ backyard at her East Memphis home is Flowers Local Memphis, her urban, small scale, high-intensity flower farm that grows seasonal, specialty cut flowers using sustainable techniques.
Because planting is a large part of what Stokes does at Flowers Local Memphis, she makes good use of the small patch of land she has to work with.
Plastic crates full of budding tulip bulbs reside in a square patch towards the front of the yard, while a few steps away sits a section along the fence with netting strung up between two wooden posts for Stokes’ sweet peas to ascend as they grow.
All photos by Brooke Luna
Beside the sweet peas are rows of caterpillar tunnels (hoops Stokes and her husband, Robert, made from conduit pipe and twine with a layer of plastic draped over top) to house her beds of anemones and ranunculus.
Peonies, fritillaria, muscari, and narcissus are planted in another bed close by.
Stokes grows all of these flowers from planting the seeds and bulbs in soil free of any chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, or pesticides.
“The whole foundation, I learned, to growing beautiful things is soil,” she said.
One of the things Stokes uses to foster healthy soil is compost tea, a liquid made from compost in a brewing process that extracts all the beneficial microorganisms.
She also releases ladybugs in her garden once the temperatures rise above 55 degrees to aid in aphid control.
In addition to planting, harvesting is one of Stokes’ main jobs at Flowers Local Memphis. Certain flowers need to be cut before they’re open, and now that it’s March, Stokes will also have to cut the various flowers that are blooming.
“Sometimes I harvest twice a day because, even during one day, they can change so much,” she said.
She’s often busy making deliveries as well. Stokes sells buckets of her flowers to many local floral designers who use them for arrangements.
One of these designers is Snapdragon Floral owner Joanna Bernardini, who was the first floral designer to ever buy from Flowers Local Memphis.
“[Margaret’s] anemones are what sold me,” Bernardini said. “Her blooms are just gorgeous and she's such a kind person and very, very generous and I honestly just love getting to talk to her.”
There’s another special type of delivery that Stokes makes. For every bouquet that is sold, Stokes holds one stem towards creating a 10-stem bouquet, which will then be delivered to a local hospice. It’s a cause close to Stokes’ heart because her mother was in hospice when she was ill.
However, because of COVID-19, Stokes said she is sometimes hesitant about delivering vases of flowers to hospice patients. But she still finds a way to spread joy through her flowers.
“I make sure that I donate 10% of my flowers or earnings to charity when I cannot deliver to hospice,” she said.
Because Stokes runs a fully-fledged flower farm now (albeit on a small scale), it might come as a surprise that she never intended to start a business.
According to Stokes, the inspiration for trying her hand at gardening and growing unique flowers came one day while scrolling through Instagram, where she happened upon a picture of someone holding an armful of vibrant dahlias.
The photo belonged to Erin Benzakein, who runs a flower farm and seed company, Floret, with her family in Skagit Valley, Washington.
Intrigued, Stokes began following Benzakein on the platform and a year later saw that Benzakein was offering an online workshop to teach people how to grow their own specialty cut flowers.
Seeing this as the avenue she’d been searching for to help her transition into this new stage of her life, Stokes decided to enroll in the class. She said she was stunned by how well she excelled.
“I had no idea that I could do anything like that,” she said. “It just opened my eyes up when I signed up for the course.”
All photos by Brooke Luna
Stokes started growing flowers immediately, planting seeds she had bought from Floret in February 2018, after taking the class in January.
That first year, she focused mainly on zinnias and cosmos because she thought she would have the most success with those, both in the Memphis humidity and as a beginner.
Before Stokes even had blooms, she had buyers.
“It was kind of nerve wracking because I didn't know what my flowers would look like,” she said.
Fear of the unknown aside, Stokes said Benzakein had equipped her with the information needed for starting a small business, including how to market herself and the different avenues she could take to sell her flowers.
Not sure she wanted to go back to speech pathology, Stokes chose to pursue starting her own flower farm instead, using the things Benzakein had taught her.
Now, three years later, Stokes not only has a prospering business to show for taking that leap, but she said she’s also found flowers to be a source of therapy and fulfillment.
"It just gets me outside and I can't wait to get out here to see what's opened and the progress things have made,” she said.
Seeing as things for her have come full circle, Stokes has a pretty good feeling what her mother would think of Flowers Local Memphis.
“I know that she would be so happy for me to spend my time doing this,” Stokes said.
Stokes’ flowers can also be found at Cordelia’s Market downtown when in season and she will sell to individuals if she has any availability. For more information, visit FlowersLocalMemphis.com.
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