Becoming a successful flower farmer and seed breeder takes not only a keen business sense but also creativity and resourcefulness, two traits that my guest this week has in spades. Erin Benzakein of Floret Flower Farm and the Magnolia Network series “Growing Floret” joins me to share how she cultivates her creative streak to get more flowers out into the world.
Erin founded Floret Flower Farm in northwest Washington state with her husband, Chris. She has won numerous awards for her design work and writing, including a Martha Stewart American Made award and a Better Homes and Gardens blogger award. She is a New York Times bestselling author of three books — “Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden,” “Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers” and “Floret Farm’s Discovering Dahlias” — and the executive producer of “Growing Floret,” an Emmy-nominated documentary series.
Erin Benzakein founded Floret Flower Farm in northwest Washington state with her husband, Chris.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
Erin’s passion is cultivating beauty in the world, and she is now devoted to breeding new cut flower varieties that will help give local growers an advantage in the marketplace. She has already helped growers from more than 50 countries to build flower-based businesses and gardens through Floret Online Workshop.
Read on for a condensed version of my conversation with Erin, or you can head to the show notes from the original airing for an unabridged account. I also want to share with you my holiday gift guide for gardeners, The Best of the Must-Haves™, updated for 2025.
Floret Flower Farm’s Origins
Erin and Chris worked in Seattle but desired to go live in the country.
“When our kids were born, we just wanted to have a more kind of wholesome, slower-paced life, something more connected to nature,” Erin says. “We really just wanted to raise them in a more wholesome environment. So we left Seattle when our kids were really small, and we moved to the country.”
Chris worked full time while Erin was home with the kids. She wanted to figure out what else she could do with her time in addition to raising children.
She tried different business ideas. She had 100 chickens and tried to sell “rainbow” eggs. She planted an orchard to make cider but hadn’t anticipated how many years it would take for the trees to bear fruit. She grew vegetables.
“I tried everything in our backyard, and eventually I stumbled onto flowers,” Erin says.
She recalls how when she was child and would she spend time with her great-grandmother in the summer, her great-grandmother would have her go pick bouquets and bring them in for her bedside table.
“When she passed away, I planted sweet peas, which were her favorite flower in my garden, and they were like the beginning of everything,” Erin says. “They bloomed so incredibly that first year. I cut a bouquet of them, took them to the neighbors, gave them away to everybody. And then I got my first official flower order for $5.”
The client opened the door for the flower delivery, accepted the bouquet and took a big whiff. Erin and her client bonded over the memories that sweet peas elicited for both of them.
“It really struck me in that moment how quickly we connected, even though we were total strangers, but it was through nostalgia, memories and flowers,” Erin says.
That was the moment Erin knew that she wanted to work with flowers.
Floret Farm was not an overnight success. Erin has worked at it for about 20 years, with slow, steady growth. She and Chris started to really get serious about it in 2008. They started out selling bunches and bouquets. They landed Whole Foods as a client and delivered flowers all over the Pacific Northwest. The business evolved into teaching and writing books, and now a seed company.
Floret Farm was not an overnight success. Erin has worked at it for about 20 years, with slow, steady growth.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
Floret Farm and ‘Growing Floret’
Floret Farm is about an hour north of Seattle in Skagit Valley.
“It’s some of the best farmland in the United States,” Erin says. “It’s incredible. It’s this little tiny beautiful pocket of magic.”
Floret has 24 acres, after starting out with just 2. It was not long ago that they bought the neighbor’s farm to expand.
Magnolia Network approached Erin and Chris about filming a documentary series about their farm just as they were preparing to transform their new land.
Chris is the one behind the camera much of the time. He started filming in season one when Erin needed to be really calm and comfortable in front of the camera, and it worked so well that he did much more of the cinematography for season two.
“I feel that I can be unguarded and completely myself, and he’s so grounded and peaceful and calm that we’re just in the moment, which is incredible,” Erin says.
Floret’s zinnias in a range of colors and shades.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
Preparing for a Changing Climate
“As we have gone about developing and planting the farm, we are really planning for the future, knowing that the planet is heating up,” Erin says.
They have planted over a mile of hedgerows around the entire property, using various species of hedge plants. They are trialing different plant combinations to determine what does the best and establishes the fastest.
“The benefits of the hedgerows are that they slow the wind down, so they’re going to help with erosion,” she says. “And they also provide habitat for all of the wildlife and songbirds that we’re wanting to bring to the farm to help with pest and disease issues.”
The farm is organized into blocks, with three of the 10 blocks in production at one time, and the remainder in cover crops.
“And then we have a lot of hoop houses and different structures because we live in a very wet climate here in the Pacific Northwest,” Erin says. “We get a ton of rain, and we’re trying to grow crops and things that don’t totally love our climate.”
Floret Farm has also planted “pollinator strips” — long perennial planting beds that attract pollinators for the farm’s seed crops.
“We’re doing a lot of experimentation to see what works and what doesn’t, and a lot hasn’t worked, but most of it has, and it’s really exciting to get to experiment on this kind of a scale and then get to share what we’re learning with others,” Erin says.
Designing a farm with climate resiliency in mind is a necessary safeguard to protect from what the future holds.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
Breeding and Growing Seeds
Erin and Chris decided to stop selling seeds from other breeders and to focus on the seed varieties developed on their own farm, called Floret Originals.
“I really believe that the work that we’re doing with it is going to make a big difference in the flower industry and for home gardeners,” Erin says. “So we decided to set down our existing seed company and send our customers to all these other wonderful small companies — family-owned seed farms — that they could find things from. And then really put all of our energy into developing new varieties and teaching people how to save their own seed.”
In the cut flower industry, many varieties come from overseas. They’re hybrids and are bred for shipping rather than for pollinator friendliness and other benefits.
“Pretty much every flower variety that is making it onto the market at this point is the hybrid, meaning it’s not something we can ever save our seed from,” Erin notes.
But Floret Originals are bred in the United States and open-pollinated. Customers can save those seeds and continue that legacy without dealing with the fact that if it were a hybrid, saved seeds would not grow true to seed.
Erin points out that hybrids have a lot of positives, including being vigorous, uniform and often more disease-resistant.
“In farming, you’re looking for that uniformity. There are benefits to it, but you can’t save your seeds. You have to buy new ones every single year, and you’re dependent on these large companies,” she says.
When home growers and cut-flower businesses only need to buy seeds once, it’s not great business for seed sellers. But Erin is looking at the big picture. She wants to get more flowers out into the world and get the most appropriate flowers into gardens.
“I know that I’ve succeeded if someone has learned something and they are more independent, they’re more empowered, they’re able to go off and do the thing that they want to do,” she says. “So I don’t want them to depend on our company or on me for anything.”
Floret Originals are bred in the United States and open-pollinated.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
Structure and Creativity
Erin says the dance of being a creative and being a business owner is wanting to make things and having to be responsible.
“It’s something that I have struggled with,” she says. “I think any small business owner or farmer or creative goes through it, but it’s like trying to find that sweet spot between structure and responsibility and creativity and expansiveness. And how do you know when you’re on the right path?”
As Floret has grown and gotten very big, with wonderful employees and amazing customers, she works not to lose sight of that.
“It’s just a very big universe now that we’ve created, and I don’t ever want to lose the essence of why this all started and what it’s all really about,” she says. “And so very often I try to step back and pause and think about it and refine and fine-tune and prune and make different choices just because I want to try to stay true to myself and on the right path.”
Erin measures success not based on how big her business is or how fast it’s growing, but on the impact that her efforts are making.
Her business is an expression and an extension of her soul, and that business is based in supporting nature. The business can feel a little too big, too much in control and too perfect, she says, and that kind of control runs counter to her creative side. Despite having an incredibly successful company, Erin still uses her gifts to stick to her core mission.
She says she is always coming back to the “why,” the soul and the heart of it, to keep focused on the North Star. There is so much pressure, noise and input, and it’s a worthy question to ask, How do you stay true to yourself and what matters to you?
Floret Farm is an expression and an extension of Erin’s soul.
Photo Credit: Chris Benzakein, Floret
If you haven’t listened to my conversation with Erin Benzakein about Floret Flower Farm and her work, you can do so now by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking the Play icon in the green bar under the page title.
Have you enjoyed Erin Benzakein’s seeds or her show “Growing Floret”? Let us know in the comments below.
Links & Resources
Some product links in this guide are affiliate links. See full disclosure below.
Episode 125: Saving Seeds: The Basics, the Benefits and Beyond
Episode 149: Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: A Seed Company With Purpose over Profit
Episode 182: Organic Urban Seed Farming, with San Diego Seed Company
Episode 231: Vegetables Love Flowers (and Why You Should Grow More)
Episode 269: The Ultimate Guide to Flower Growing, With Jenny Rose Carey
Episode 274: Growing Cool-Season Annuals for Earlier Color and Hardier Plants
Episode 315: Succession Planting with Flowers
Episode 351: The Cut Flower Handbook, with Lisa Mason Ziegler
Episode 355: Growing Flowers, Seeds and a Business, with Erin Benzakein of Floret Flower Farm
Episode 358: How a Volunteer Sunflower Turned a Flower Farmer into a Seed Breeder
Episode 431: Inspiration and Advice for Aspiring Flower Farmers
Growing a Greener World Episode 326: Behind the Scenes
The Best of the Must-Haves™ holiday gift guide
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joegardener Online Gardening Academy Beginning Gardener Fundamentals: Essential principles to know to create a thriving garden.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Growing Epic Tomatoes: Learn how to grow epic tomatoes with Joe Lamp’l and Craig LeHoullier.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Master Pests, Diseases & Weeds: Learn the proactive steps to take to manage pests, diseases and weeds for a more successful garden with a lot less frustration. Just $47 for lifetime access!
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Perfect Soil Recipe Master Class: Learn how to create the perfect soil environment for thriving plants.
“Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms” by Erin Benzakein, Julie Chai and Michele M. Waite
“Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers: Designing Gorgeous Arrangements for Every Season” by Erin Benzakein, Julie Chai, Jill Jorgensen and Chris Benzakein
“Floret Farm’s Discovering Dahlias: A Guide to Growing and Arranging Magnificent Blooms” by Erin Benzakein, Julie Chai, Jill Jorgensen and Chris Benzakein
“Gardening in a War Zone” documentary
“For a Ukrainian Gardener, Flowers Offer a Way Forward” by Margaret Roach | The New York Times
“Clematis” by Alla Olkhovska
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I receive a commission every time you purchase a product through an Amazon affiliate link. Some product links in this guide are affiliate links. However, none of the prices of these resources have been increased to compensate us, and compensation is not an influencing factor on their inclusion here. The selection of all items featured in this post and podcast was based solely on merit and in no way influenced by any affiliate or financial incentive, or contractual relationship. At the time of this writing, Joe Lamp’l has professional relationships with the following companies who may have products included in this post and podcast: Milorganite, Soil3, Territorial Seed Company, Cool Springs Press / Quarto Group and Dramm. These companies are either Brand Partners of joegardener.com and/or advertise on our website. However, we receive no additional compensation from the sales or promotion of their product through this guide. The inclusion of any products mentioned within this post is entirely independent and exclusive of any relationship.
