Welcome to the 5th Ave Flower Farm

This blog was formerly called 'The Rainy Day Gardener' and it cataloged my journey of learning to become a gardener, the development of my obsession with plants and helped connect me to fellow gardening enthusiast in the Pacific Northwest and around the world. I began blogging in 2008 and posted with some regularity through 2022.

Postage stamp sized front gardens with Jupiter's Beard (Centranthus ruber) playing an outsized role

The blog has been quiet for a few years as I've transitioned into cut flower farming and have paid less attention to my perennial garden beds as they established. I have found that as these gardens matured, I was simply content to just 'enjoy them'.

My favorite spot to sit in the patio gardens

Late winter view of the patio garden from my favorite spot

Dahlia 'Linda's Baby'

I have missed blogging. I have missed taking the time to read my friends gardening blogs. I've been very active on social media outlets, but I miss writing about things that I feel very passionate about, such as the importance of urban and suburban gardens and the role they can play to promote and protect pollinators and wildlife. 

Backyard view of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries

Sweet Pea 'Mammoth' series

This particular passion was further encouraged in 2018 when I attended a Garden Fling in Austin, Texas and was greatly moved by listening to David Salman. David was the founder of High Country Gardens (mail order plant nursery), Santa Fe Greenhouses and Waterwise Gardening and he talked about the important role small gardens can make in their communities to promote and protect pollinators. He inspired me to think harder about the plant choices I was making in my home gardens and I left that Garden Fling determined to do better. 

Western Sword Ferns (Polystichum munitum) and one of my regular Chick-A-Dee friends visiting the bird bath

Dahlia season in the Flower Farm

I made hard decisions to edit plants in my perennial gardens that were not attracting pollinators and to replace them with plants that did. For example. I love New England asters, but they bloom in October when the native bees in Oregon have moved into hibernation. I replaced the New England asters with our native Douglas Aster (Symphyotrichum subspicatum subspicatum) and even expanded the space I gave it because it is a 'keystone' plant in late summer and autumn.

Douglas Aster (Symphyotrichum subspicatum subspicatum)

The next step was to evaluate the areas of my home gardens that were under utilized. I had a collection of raised beds in the backyard that had been used for vegetable gardening but were mostly dormant as my families interest in vegetable eating waned. I wanted to do more for pollinators and believed I could better serve them by growing flowers. The transition to growing flowers moved me into a whole new gardening dimension and opened my eyes to the world of cut flower farming. 

I am in my fourth year of intentional cut flower farming and it has been a wonderful opportunity to learn new growing skills like flower arrangement, seed starting, crop planning and marketing and selling my blooms. 

The 5th Ave Flower Farm

Garden roses, sweet william and ranunculus arrangement

The 5th Ave Flower Cart - selling my market bouquets

Growing things centers me and when the world feels a bit out of control and chaotic. It roots me to the soil and spending time in my gardens with the birds and bees is the very best medicine to keep my stress at bay. I hope to be able to move this blog into a space that captures my ongoing love of growing plants, my support of pollinators and merge these themes with the learning curve of growing specialty cut flowers.

Let the new chapter of blogging begin!

Jen