New Business: Florist emphasizes locally-grown flowers in her work

Ranking 10th in the country in flower production, Oregon has developed a reputation for a number of beautiful field-cut and bulb varieties from peonies to tulips to azaleas. The Willamette Valley has its share of flower farms, including a few here in the Philomath vicinity.

It’s these locally-grown flowers that florist Pami Monnette emphasizes in a new business she launched this year — County Line Flowers.

“The thing about local flowers is I can get like crazy different types of flowers and I don’t have to just choose from a catalog shipping up in mass numbers from South America,” Monnette said, explaining that most businesses import their flowers. “It’s definitely a different model all around.”

Monnette, 39, describes herself as a traditional florist and although she currently doesn’t have a storefront, her services include flower deliveries to individuals and for displays at various events, such as weddings. She also provides corsages and boutonnieres for formal occasions, such as homecoming or prom, and uses like holiday centerpieces.

Monnette said peonies are a popular species.

“They’re just a certain type of flower that are very elegant, you could say, and have very high value — some people are just growing peonies,” she said.

Monnette mostly buys from Rain Drop Farms near Philomath and Lucky M Farms near Shedd but also visits different growers in the Eugene area to try to piece together what she needs.

“Roses are very big still and dahlias,” she said. “And greenery really is in demand … people are growing exclusively greenery now and shipping it out of Oregon.”

Monnette grew up in northern California in a small community called Etna, which is southwest of Yreka not far from the Oregon border.

“It’s a pretty isolated mountain town and I worked in natural resources down there a little bit and with the Forest Service and we always gardened and everything,” Monnette said. “It was a ranching community and a lot of people worked for timber companies — kind of like life is here but just really isolated. … Like the community, you develop an appreciation for ag and natural resources.”

Monnette studied policy in school but decided she didn’t want her career to go in that direction.

“So I started working with my hands and being outside,” she said. “And I was like, ‘oh, this is what I’m supposed to do.’”

Monnette was on the tail end of 10 years with the Oregon State University Extension Service when the pandemic hit in 2020. The timing seemed right for a change.

“I had always wanted to farm and I was working with farmers in the Siletz Valley at the time and they were just really inspiring with their way of life and I guess their openness with me was really cool,” Monnette said. “I learned a lot from them. It’s kind of funny — as an extension agent, you’re supposed to impart knowledge and it was the other way around.”

Living in Harrisburg at the time, Monnette left OSU and “took a leap of faith to start farming.”

“Flowers got chosen because it’s like the highest value for the least amount of acreage,” she said. “You don’t need much land and you can grow really tight.”

Monnette launched into researching what she could about cut flowers and saw potential for a floristry business.

“It’s really booming, it’s kind of crazy,” she said. “It’s like local food but it’s like 10 or 15 years behind where you have all of those outlets for local food. We kind of do it here now with flowers but it’s still like 80% imports.”

Monnette continued farming flowers until relocating away from the Harrisburg site. The change brought her to an occupational crossroads of sorts — continue working as a substitute teacher and helping in the schools as she had been or maybe moving forward with a flower business?

The flowers won over.

“I have all these contacts and built this network … so I just made a new business plan and tried to figure it out from the florist standpoint,” Monnette said. “I’m still definitely figuring out if there’s a market for this, essentially, because I’m dedicated to buying all local products and it can be tricky with availability and stuff.”

Monnette launched the business in April but she had commitments in place from the previous summer to provide flowers for events that had been booked. No longer growing the flowers, she had to buy them, which diminished the profit margin but led her to think about how she would move forward with establishing her own service.

So Monnette uses local growers as a source for flowers and focuses on presentation and delivery.

“A lot of farmers that are getting into this, they’re also trying to be florists,” she said. “It’s crazy because they’re farming and trying to offer things like wedding packages and daily deliveries … it’s insane. So, now it’s nice because I’m just a florist and I just buy.”

For more information, visit the County Line Flowers website.