Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gretchen O’Neil . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Gretchen , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

Prior to covid we were mainly a floral design company servicing wedding couples with a passionate side hustle of growing flowers. In my mind–and at the time, in the bank account–weddings were our bread and butter and paid the bills while our growing operation was the icing on top providing a layer of “do what you love” that sparked and spread joy. When covid hit our weddings were all cancelled or postponed. Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise for my personal mindset–with weddings gone, our side hustle needed to step up its game! As a farm we were considered Essential workers, and we got to work seeding and planting and harvesting as many flowers as we could. Our online sales boomed, the number of attendees at the farmers’ market swelled, and I realized this side hustle was a viable business of its own.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Flowers have always been in the backdrop of my life. My grandfather was a voracious gardener and my folks were always working in the little garden in our yard in Spring. I loved plants, and always gravitated towards them and the natural world, but it took a very long time for me to see that love as a viable career option. Even when I arranged my own wedding flowers, and then my sister’s and then a friend’s, it still didn’t register as something I could pursue “for real” Just a lot of old-fashioned ingrained ideas about what was possible for building a career. It took a move from Vermont to Texas and exploring a couple other career fields that did not resonate, for me to finally throw my hands up in the air in my mid thirties and say “I’m just going to do what I love!” What is special about my business now is that we are involved in so many sides of the process– most florists import flowers and do the designs, We plan colors, trial new varieties each year to find the most special ingredients, grow, harvest and then design with the flowers. The finished product is truly seasonal and leaves a much smaller ecological footprint behind. Farming is incredibly challenging work. You need a positive mindset and a whole lot of endurance. I’m really proud of what we have grown and expanded to over the years!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In June of 2019 I was bit by a rattlesnake. We were coming off of an incredibly busy Spring season with weddings to flower every weekend, and flowers to harvest each day on the farm. The bite put me in the hospital for under 24 hours, but it landed me immobile on the couch for 3 weeks. My dad flew down to help take care of me, and along with a couple of employees, they kept the ship afloat harvesting and delivering flowers. The road to recovery felt slow, with limited use of my leg for over a month, and then several months of mysterious joint pains and extreme fatigue. A lot of folks urged me to call it quits as the threat of snakes is just a fact of the farm. It definitely shook me up and gave me pause. But ultimately, the flower operation had become so much bigger than me. I couldn’t walk away and leave it all behind. I eventually healed and kept moving forward.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I don’t know if it was so much a lesson as it was a bunch of limiting beliefs. Growing up my traditional New England parents and I often butt heads. My mom used to say I “walked to the beat of my own drum”. They were very much a “go to college become a lawyer, doctor or teacher” kind of crowd. I struggled for so long to follow this path because all the messages I got as a kid were about following an approved path that was most likely going to be safe and lucrative. I definitely developed a mindset that if I followed my own non-traditional path I would struggle and be limited financially. Flowers were always a part of my life, always right in front of me. Yet because I was carrying around all these beliefs about what a career “should” look like, I didn’t even recognize it as a viable option for a long time! To be clear, when I finally decided to start the flower business my folks were excited and very supportive– my mom purchased my first floral cooler for me to help me get going, and over the years as the business and farm grew and became more and more successful, they became my biggest fans. My mom was a speech pathologist, but had always wanted to do interior design. Looking back on it all now, I think she was paralyzed by her own upbringing and was never able to break out of it and just go for it ( She also had a large family to help take care of, and her established career path did that.) But I think in the end she was thrilled I went out on my own and made it. Along the way I also realized I wasn’t just good at the creative aspect of the flowers and design, I was good at the business end too. I’ve built not one, but two six figure businesses and I am literally tickled everytime I think that I pay my mortgage each month with flower money. That teenage version of myself would never have believed I’d be standing where I am today.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.petalsinkfloral.com
• Instagram: @petals_ink and @grassdaletx
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petalsinkfloral/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/petals-ink-manor-3

Image Credits
Image of bride & groom with orange/bright flowers: Feather and Twine Photography : https://featherandtwinephotography.com Image of bride with white/green bouquet: Rob August photography: https://featherandtwinephotography.com all other photos: Inked Fingers. http://inkedfingers.com