"Flowers Make People Happy" — Enjoy Local Blooms + More At Garvey's Gardens
On a cold winter’s day, Sydney Garvey places fresh-cut tulips in vases for each of the tables inside Kiln Coffee Bar in Grand Junction. She also supplies flowers to No Coast Sushi and Sweet Kiwi Bakery, where she brings edible flowers whenever possible for the bakery’s cakes.
Garvey grows more than 30 varieties of flowers throughout the year, including a halfacre of roses on her East Orchard Mesa property where she lives with her husband. During the winter she grows flowers hydroponically in trays.
Photos courtesy of Sydney Garvey
A high school math teacher turned flower farmer, Garvey opened Flowers by Garvey’s Gardens, 137 N. 5th St., in downtown Grand Junction in February 2023. Available flowers rotate weekly based on what’s in season at her farm and at partner farms. “We don’t operate like traditional flower shops that always have certain arrangements no matter the time of year,” Garvey says. “That’s not how flowers grow in mother nature, so that’s not how we do things.”
Garvey, 34, began growing flowers full time after her infant daughter passed away in February 2020 after a complicated pregnancy and emergency cesarean to save Garvey’s life. After an extended maternity leave, she tried to return to her job; but after a month found she couldn’t continue teaching, so she decided to take time to heal. “Healing came from the garden,” Garvey notes. “Flowers is what stuck with me. I loved flowers. Gardening really did save me.”
Though she’s been gardening for as long as she can remember, it’s her fifth season growing flowers “farm-style” as Garvey’s Gardens LLC.
“Flowers make people happy,” she says. “Flowers are a way of marking all of life’s occasions – good and bad, happy and sad. They’re even better when locally grown.”
Designing flower arrangements for weddings has become her passion. “I have a wedding team of three designers, including myself,” she says. “We supply weddings all over Colorado and eastern Utah.
“We can custom-grow flowers for weddings. For example, I had a bride who wanted sweet peas for her June wedding. They are fragile to ship so we grew them on our farm to put into the arrangement. Another bride has requested ranunculus flowers in specialty colors so I specially planted those for her wedding.”
All the flowers she sells are 100% Americangrown. She first sources from her own farm, followed by Western Slope growers, before reaching out to other Colorado growers or, as a last resort, other parts of the United States, all of which are cut and sent the same day or the next.
“Imported flowers have to be sprayed with a host of chemicals not regulated by the FDA,” Garvey notes. “They are bred for longevity — it’s why those roses don’t have a smell. They are cut, sent by boat to Miami, then go to a wholesaler, and by the time they reach a florist they are already two weeks old.”
“Brides can smell their bouquets — mine are safe for everyone, including children involved in weddings — there’s no harmful exposure to chemicals. I want to know where my flowers are coming from. I can tell you where every flower was grown that’s in a bouquet.”
As a member of the American-Grown Floral Design Team for 2024, Garvey will be going to Washington, D.C. later this spring to design floral arrangements for some large events (although she wasn’t at liberty to disclose exactly where or when or for whom). The team will strip leaves from flowers, design centerpieces and set up and take down for the event.
In addition to fresh-cut flowers, the Grand Junction shop also sells a variety of gift items — all from American women-owned businesses, she says. Expect to find skin care products made from honey, flowers and essential oils from Castle Valley, Utah, and beeswax candles from Bluecorn Mercantile in Montrose.
In November of 2023, Garvey, along with her marketing manager Audrey Jones, began a weekly Garvey’s Gardens podcast where they discuss farming, the shop, weddings and conduct interviews other local business owners.
Flowers by Garvey’s Gardens is open daily, Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Originally published in the Spring 2024 issue of Spoke+Blossom.