If you purchase a rose from a supermarket, there’s a good chance it was grown thousands of miles from Whatcom County. In fact, 80% of cut flowers sold in the U.S. originate overseas — but florist Carmen Winquist grows her flowers in the foothills of the Cascades.
Though Winquist’s 5-acre homestead is magical year-round, it flourishes in the summer. Zinnias and pansies blossom in shades of orange and antique pink. Soft white cosmos, heirloom roses and nicotiana (or “tobacco flower”) contrast with abundant greenery. Clematis vines snake up wooden trellises, their blooms a rich, dusty purple.
Each flower has personality — and unlike supermarket roses, many can only be enjoyed close to where they grow.
Winquist’s business, Noctua Florals, provides full-service floral designs for weddings, combining two of her greatest passions: sustainable gardening and creative expression. What’s more, she uses Noctua to educate clients about regenerative, community-centric farming.
“The level of vibrancy, and the colors and the smells are at a level that is just beyond anything that an imported flower could be,” Winquist said. In her view, locally grown flowers are “a life force that you can feel — it’s very palpable.”
Noctua Florals backstory
Winquist has “always loved growing things” and has prior expertise with medicinal herbs. She was inspired to begin flower farming after moving to the homestead, where she and her husband also grow produce and tend to a small menagerie (including a cat, dog, five goats and a group of ducks).
“What I feel is really special about what we’ve created here is how much time and investment we’ve made in restoring the land,” Winquist said of the homestead.
She prioritizes using regenerative practices and restoring soil biodiversity: “We’ve done a lot of native plantings around here, which just attracts even more pollinators, and creates an even more optimal environment for not just humans, but all of the beings that live here. We built this house from wood on our property, actually.”
Winquist had the idea to begin flower farming professionally after learning about Floret Flowers in Skagit Valley. Shortly thereafter, she won a spot in a workshop with Kelly Sullivan of Botanique Flowers on Instagram. Winquist ultimately apprenticed for Sullivan during wedding season, then “dove right in” with her own business.
Flower farming and floral design allows Winquist to control her own schedule, be close to the land, grow food and connect with people (“but not too much,” she added with a laugh). As a full-service floral designer, her work marries the labor-intensive nature of farm work with the artistry of floral design.
Winquist’s wedding clients trust her to create one-of-a-kind florals based on what’s available locally and seasonally. She describes her arrangements as “intentional designs that speak to each unique individual or couple.”
For example, at a recent wedding in Coupeville, Winquist took inspiration from the venue’s landscape and combined her own flowers with foraged plants. “I went and harvested out of ditches and [used] native plants around here and, actually, some things that we would think of as weeds — like yellow dock seed pods or ocean spray,” she said.
Winquist even built a meadow-like backdrop to complement the surrounding madrona trees. She said the finished product had “a lot of vibrancy, but not too bright — it was just really in sync with the natural beauty of the space.”
Flower farming by season
Winquist’s a-la-carte florals are almost entirely sourced from Noctua, and she grows about 50–80% of blooms for full-service wedding florals (depending on the event’s size). At Noctua, she prioritizes growing “more unique things in smaller quantities,” patronizing other local farms for additional flowers as needed.
Dahlias, cosmos and zinnias are Winquist’s most productive plants. She’s also partial to perennials like smoke bush, whose feathery flowers add textural interest to bouquets, as well as interesting, delicate vines like clematis.
On a day-to-day basis, Winquist’s schedule is dictated by two factors: growing season and wedding season. Winter is mostly dormant, so she devotes herself to booking weddings, tackling administrative work and planning next year’s crop.
“I love to get out a big sheet of graph paper, and I have my measurements of all the gardens, and I’ll kind of clock what I want to plant where,” Winquist said. Since she books most weddings in the winter, “Based on who I’m booking, I’ll actually plant specific flowers for their weddings.”
In February, Winquist begins planting flowers in cold frames, which are 4-by-6-foot cedar boxes with angled sides. They’re covered with hinged panes of glass — or, in her case, recycled solar panels. Cold frames function as mini-greenhouses, protecting flowers from the elements. No matter the weather, they allow Winquist to grow in 70-degree conditions with the help of a heat pad.
Life picks up in the shoulder seasons. In the springtime, buds begin to blossom, and weddings are frequent. Thus, Winquist preps the soil, plants flowers like dahlias, and focuses on “getting things in the ground.”
This pace tapers in the fall, so Winquist prepares the homestead for winter by cutting back annual flowers, sowing cover crops and breeding goats for the next year’s kidding season.
But in the summer, “everything’s happening all at once.” Wedding season is in full swing, and flowers like marigolds, cosmos and dahlias bloom in abundance. Every task is hands-on, including harvesting: Winquist wakes up early to clip flowers directly into a bucket, then stores them in a cool environment until it’s time to arrange them.
While every flower has unique growing and care requirements, Winquist said knowing how to time each harvest is also “a big part of the job.” Some flowers can be clipped a week before use, but “ethereal, unique and more tender” varieties — like winter hellebore, fragrant sweet peas and alba meidiland (or “fairy roses”) — wilt or crumble quickly.
“If you’re not cutting them and using them immediately, you won’t get to use that flower for your wedding,” Winquist explained.
Sustainability and flower farming
Winquist noted most commercial flowers are grown overseas in countries like Colombia and Ecuador, which have historically faced criticism for exploitative labor practices.
Beyond this, Winquist underlined how importing flowers produces an “astronomical” amount of carbon emissions: For example, in 2018, Valentine’s Day flowers flown to the U.S. from Colombia airports produced 360,000 metric tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 78,000 cars driven for one year.
Winquist believes there’s no reason to expend this energy when stunning blooms can be grown in Whatcom County.
“There’s so many local farms, and what they’re growing is just so unique and so beautiful,” she said. She’s friends with a network of nearby flower farmers, noting that collaborating with them — and by extension, keeping Noctua contained within the local economy — has been “really special.”
Noctua Florals also supports the environment by providing habitats for pollinators and using regenerative, organic farming practices. Winquist even makes her own compost from goat manure and flower stems, and uses kelp and cottonseed meal as organic amendments.
Winquist also avoids plastic whenever possible. Cold frames, for example, are a greener alternative to hoop houses, which are greenhouses made from polyethylene plastic. Additionally, alternatives like chicken wire are used in place of plastic for floral arrangements.
These factors give Winquist an added sense of purpose. She knows her job is a dream for many home gardeners — even if the required physical labor, administrative work and schedule are intensive.
“I think it’s just really important that people realize how hard farmers work. Not just me, but people that I buy flowers from,” she said. “If you’re choosing to have flowers for your wedding, it’s a luxury, and we have to be willing to pay for it — and supporting people who are doing it in a way that supports our local communities is going to be the way that really just makes most magic.”
Info: noctuaflorals.com.
Cocoa Laney is CDN’s lifestyle editor; reach her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.
