Jenny Creek Flowers: From classroom to flower farm

Jenny Creek Flowers (jennycreekflowers.com), a Trumansburg family flower farm, sold its first bouquet of vibrant tulips in March 2022 and has been brightening the lives of flower fans ever since. The flower farm, owned by Brooke Palmer, is a family affair. Palmer and her carpenter and woodworker husband, Danny Palmer, are assisted by their son and by Brooke’s mother and aunt.

“I couldn’t do it without their help,” Brooke said.

Brooke is quite busy. Aside from Jenny Creek Flowers, she teaches 10th-grade English at Charles O. Dickerson High School. Her husband will open the doors to a custom woodworking shop, Palmer Woodcraft, in early 2023.

Having two decades of summers off has provided Brooke with ample opportunity to learn the art of flower cultivation, but the pandemic accelerated her passion.

“Before the pandemic, I was on track to become a school administrator,” Brooke said. “I had my license and the passion for school leadership. I was about to apply for a vice principal position right before the pandemic hit. When school went remote, my energy shifted to flowers.”

Her admiration of flowers also comforted her during the challenging period of the pandemic.

“Suddenly, flowers became increasingly important to me,” she said. “I would take long walks as a way to relieve stress and break up the routine of being home so much since school was 100% online. I found myself making walking routes based on what flowers were growing.”

Brooke, who grew up between Seneca and Cayuga lakes before heading to Portland, Oregon, for several years, said her favorite flowers are tulips, peonies and dahlias.

“I think peonies are the most stunning flower on the planet,” she said. “As for tulips and dahlias, they’re both absolutely beautiful and come in so many colors and types. We grow double, French, fringed, parrot and single tulips. The possibilities with dahlias are nearly endless.”

Once Brooke returned to New York after spending time in Oregon, she found her dream home, and her vision of a flower farm blossomed.

“The moment we put an offer on this property, I immediately wanted to start a flower farm,” she said. “It was this idea that had been sitting somewhere in the back of my mind. As soon as the reality of having more than a city backyard became real, I felt the dream coming forth. The moment I saw the 3-acre hayfield on the corner of the property, I couldn’t be stopped. I wanted to grow thousands of beautiful flowers and get them out into homes and small businesses around our community.”

The family-operated flower farm is mindful of honoring the local ecosystem when growing flowers and says stewardship is one of its core values. The farm recently became New York State Grown and Certified (certified.ny.gov), a designation that Brooke said aligns with her values.

Brooke, a member of the Slow Flowers Society (slowflowerssociety.com), practices sustainable floristry, which means avoiding floral foam, reducing the use of plastic, composting spent blooms and using recycled paper wrappers.

“We are beyond lucky to live on beautiful land, and we are grateful for it every day,” she said. “As we build our flower farm and rehab our 1800s farmhouse, we try to make decisions that honor the environment. We named our flower farm after Jenny Creek, which winds through our property before converging with Taughannock Creek. We are conscious that this land is part of the Cayuga Lake watershed and recognize that our choices affect our local ecosystem and ultimately the lake.”

By utilizing organic growing practices, Jenny Creek Flowers avoids the use of chemicals while introducing beneficial insects like praying mantis, ladybugs and green lacewings to help keep pests at bay. The flower farm is pollinator friendly, with several meadows around the flower field. Right now, the Palmer family is hoping to team up with birds.

“We are trying to partner with the birds around our flower field,” Brooke said. “We recently added a hedgerow to create a bird habitat and hope to add a few more hedges in time. We love birds and see them as a crucial solution to pest pressure that is common in our area during the peak of summer.”

The flower farm is currently busy doubling its flower field, planting 400 peonies. Brook is also looking to expand her live wreath offerings.

“They will take a few years to grow before we get cut flowers, but it’s so exciting to know that they will be in the ground before the snow flies,” she said. “Peonies are an inheritance flower — they will likely outlive us. Hopefully, my grandchildren will be gathering those peonies one day.”

As winter grows closer, the flower farm is preparing for a busy season, growing thousands of winter tulips in its farmhouse cellar. The winter tulips will be sold through a CSA (community supported agriculture), to florists and to local retail spots like Gimme! Coffee and Greenstar Food Co+op.

“Tulips are the biggest specialty flower we grow,” Brooke said. “We’ll be growing 24 varieties of about 10,000 tulips this winter and spring. We are deeply committed to local flowers. There’s a $6 billion floral industry in the U.S., of which about 80% of all flowers sold in the U.S. are imported. As a northern flower farmer, I want to bring more locally grown flowers to my area during the time of the year when only imported flowers are available. Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean people stop wanting flowers.”

Even with years of experience, growing flowers in Zone 5b (planthardiness.ars.usda.gov) has its challenges, but the hard work is worth it.

“The weather here is extreme. We joke that we go from the taiga to the tropics in a calendar year. It rained almost every single day in July 2021, whereas last July, we had a drought,” Brooke said. “Flowers bring peace and happiness for so many people. Their beauty lights us up. They connect us to the seasons — from spring daffodils to fall chrysanthemums.”

The flower shed is by appointment only and for CSA pickups, which have been a hit with local residents. CSA shares quickly sold out this year.

“We’ll begin selling winter tulip shares in November through our email list,” Brooke said. “There’s already been a lot of interest in those shares, so we anticipate they will sell out too. Who doesn’t want beautiful, locally grown tulips in a vase on their kitchen table in March as a snow squall is blowing through? In 2023, we will offer winter tulip shares, spring flower shares, summer flower shares and dahlia shares.”

Jenny Creek Flowers also offers a teacher discount for its summer flower CSA shares, which Brooke said several teachers took advantage of this year. Brooke plans to offer flower pop-ups next year, beginning with early tulips, which were popular this year, along with dahlias and lisianthus.

“Customers have given us a lot of positive feedback about our choice of flower varieties and colors,” Brooke said. “There’s nothing better than watching someone’s whole body light up at the sight of beautiful flowers.”

Trumansburg Connection appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.