HARDWORKING FOR THE RIGHT REASONS

Learning a lesson or two from Gariss Gardens and local flower farms

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Gariss Gardens may be in the third year of business but its roots stem far back into Port Townsend’s history.

Now a 2-acre operation run by partners Candice Gohn and Peter Garriss, the Sims Way flower farm blooms where the first bioregional exclusive seed source once reigned. (The older crowd may remember ordering heirloom vegetables from Abundant Life Seeds catalog or the fire that depleted most of the stock.)

Abundant Life Seeds came to fruition in the 1980s in Seattle and was quickly established as a nonprofit.

Even then, the business reflected the values Gohn and Gariss love about the flower industry – amicable crowdsourcing and prioritization of community.

Before the farm focused on seeds, it provided eggs to the Peninsula, distributing the daily 2,000 eggs to small grocers and restaurants. Their coops still sit on the property, behind the olive trees lining the driveway, which vibrate the ground in bloom with pollinating bees. 

In the old barns, fresh concrete meets aged walls splashed in purple, red, and orange LEDs breathing life into hundreds of seedlings.

Gariss wants to provide them with the full spectrum.

His heart turned back to plants in the last few years when he began a small patch of flowers from Dahlia tubers.

“I grew ’em and I loved ’em and I grew a lot of ’em,” he said.

So he started growing other things, too, and said he just liked making color.

Gohn feels similarly; she loves the cacophony of colors, the blues, the yellows, the way the palette changes with the season. 

“The seasons just work their magic and it’s such a beautiful experience, you know, all the things together,” she said.

Still, she admires emerald-toned additions as well.

“Greenery is as big a part of doing a great arrangement as having beautiful flowers so we really try to do all of that here,” she said.

Gariss loves the peonies — their explosions.

The couple joined forces a few years into his increasingly passionate hobby — somewhere around the time he figured he might as well sell a few flowers, to at least cover the water bill. 

Now they’re busy, nearly throughout the year, tending to the gardens and their charts and notes, tallying harvests and documenting each flower’s quirks.

Gariss says they all want something different.

It’s hard work. But they don’t mind.

“They’re just so beautiful; it makes you so happy to do it,” Gohn said.

Gariss agreed: “There are days when it’s raining out and the whole nine yards and there’s just a ton of stuff to do all the time.

“But then you get those moments where you say, ‘Yeah,’” he said. 

Each week, they both think it’s the most beautiful week of the whole season. They say it’s magic. 

That’s why they do it. 

“We talk about how you can’t do this if your object is to get rich. If your object is to be happy, this is the right business for you,” Gohn said. 

That attitude is also why they’re not competing with the other local flower farms. They all work together to ensure success. If one of them has a wedding and needs an abundance of white or blue, the other farms will shower them in white or blue. It’s a team effort to provide beauty. 

Even the sheep that lie in the tall grass by the gardens emulate that. 

“They just hangout. Peter just likes them,” Gohn said.

Apparently, they have a lot of fans in the neighborhood that walk by just to say hello. 

Hearing the Gariss Gardens proprietors explain the concept of operating on enjoyment, makes echoes of “That’s business” stamped as an excuse for corner-cutting, cards close to the chest, and insular motivations seem completely ridiculous (they even wanted this article to be about all of the flower farms, to be fair and because their friends deserve recognition too). 

The proof is in the dahlias off Sims Way. Business doesn’t have to be brutal.