Blooms Everlasting: Flora Petal Farm

A Labor of Love

Photos by Kaylan Robinson

Through learning in her first season, a local flower farmer discovered that she’s just as passionate about preserving blooms and greenery as she is about growing them. While others ultimately wilt and shrivel in a vase, Laura Mowrer’s flowers live forever.

After taking a floral farming workshop, adapting what she learned to our climate, and enlisting the help of her husband, Eric, to build infrastructure on their land, the Palisade native and her family planted their first seeds in 2017. 

“There wasn’t as big of a demand for cut floral in the valley as I thought. I realized I needed to do something different. It made me sad to see that these little blooms that I had nurtured from seeds were going to waste in my garden,” Mowrer says. Revisiting fond childhood memories of gardening and pressing flowers with her mother, and recalling the necklace with a single mustard seed set in resin that her mother left her when she died, Mowrer resolved to make jewelry with her flowers. 

“I thought about what my mom would do, and I know she wouldn’t have let them go to waste. When I am out there digging in the dirt, I always feel my mom there with me. She was a fantastic gardener, and I know she would be so proud
of me.”

“I’m a first-year farmer, so I’m learning as I go,” Mowrer says. In preparation for her second season, she decided to dedicate more garden space to species that work best in her jewelry, like dusty miller, baby’s breath, miniature daisies, and various other hybrids that produce smaller blooms. 

Though she does not grow or arrange flowers for weddings herself, Mowrer transforms them into timeless keepsakes to suit each couple’s style. Preservation and display options include 3-D freeze-drying of bouquets for display in shadowboxes or glass cloches, pressing and framing flowers, and using the flowers for custom jewelry pieces and sets. She loves creating sentimental pieces that her clients will proudly display and wear. 

The best part of the whole endeavor for Mowrer is contributing to her family without taking away from quality time with them. Eric pitches in, spending time off from his mechanical engineering work helping with the bigger farm projects. And if daughters Cora and Remy aren’t right in the garden helping, they are nearby running through the sprinklers or playing in the sandbox. When it’s time to make jewelry, Mowrer works at the kitchen island in the center of their home. “I wanted to be where my family is, which is why I did this,”
she says.

Flora Petal Farm • florapetalfarm.com • 970.260.2625 • On Instagram @florapetalfarm • Also available at Pollux, 321 Main Street in Grand Junction