It took Emily Patrick nearly a decade to build her flower farm and storefront in western North Carolina. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, her flowers turned out to be a bright spot of hope for neighbors who had lost everything.
“We try to take them all the way from our farm to your door with no interruption, so you get really, really fresh blooms,” Patrick said.
Last year, Hurricane Helene delivered several interruptions. Patrick was in the process of moving into a new stormfront when the storm drenched her dreams.
“We were having our best year ever when the hurricane hit. We were, you know, blowing benchmarks out of the water left and right,” Patrick said.
Thankfully, the Carolina Flowers farm in Marshall survived the storm. But Patrick’s production facility on the French Broad River was destroyed.
“On the one hand, we were devastated, and on the other hand, we were so lucky that we had crops in the ground ready to sell the next week,” Patrick said.
She says her customers couldn’t reach her brand new storefront in east Asheville since the surrounding roads were impassable. So her team vowed to reach them with the flowers that miraculously survived the storm.
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Parick says she designed the bouquets in her kitchen, a friend’s garage, and then seven different storefronts. Her colleagues delivered the arrangements to nearby towns and cities, including Charlotte.
“It’s really helpful for the flowers to grow in this climate and then go down the mountain to folks in Charlotte,” Patrick said.
There’s a bright spot in her vibrant new shop in west Asheville. She says this week is painful for her colleagues as they reminisce on a year of hard work, but it’s those team members she credits for keeping her business alive.
“I couldn’t have continued without them. To see them continue the business with the same commitment that I always have felt, was really powerful for me,” she said.
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