I carry around 45 different kinds of flower seeds- mostly wildflowers such
as bachelor buttons, cosmos and larkspur. I also carry cool season lawn seed and some some other seeds such as wheat, oats, clover, vetch and a few others.  Then I also carry some plants such  as daylilies, cattails and ferns.

This is my first full year with this business and I am the only person
working for the company-- president, secretary, part owner. So I do a lot of
running around. I am a separate company off of my family's diverse farm. I
am the fifth generation of my family's farm. About 17 years ago my dad
started growing flowers for seed because you cant just grow one thing and
expect it to always do well - besides everyone in our area produces grass
for seed- Oregon is the grass seed capital of the world.

The farm has a cleaning facility and cleans the seed for itself and other
farmers in the area. My father has produced up to 500 acres into
"wildflowers" and have produced over 50 different varieties over the years.

I graduated in '98 and got married and needed something to do so I decided
to take on a "retail" and "wholesale"  company-- Silver Falls Seed Company and Oregon Wholesale Seed Company.

Silver Falls is a state park near many of our flower fields and our small town is "the gateway to Silver Falls State Park" so we thought the name fit.  Besides that many of the people in the state of Oregon wanted to build an
"Oregon Gardens" because our area is so diverse with nursery stock, berries, grass, flowers and many other things they thought it would be great to build a garden. They decided  to build it in our small town of Silverton so I decided to sell my seeds in the gift shop at the  gardens.

We have lots of things going on when the flower fields are blooming we often times don't have much time to enjoy them-- grass is being harvested at that time. They bloom from July through August mainly.  The farm doesn't have a garden or anything open to the public because it is too busy harvesting grass when then flowers are blooming. People can enjoy the flowers by driving by but we currently don't want people in the fields at all because too many other people decide to pick the flowers and trespass. The farm hopes to offer a tour someday to the public to view the many flower fields it produces.

I just finished making my catalog and brochure on the computer and getting it back from the printers,  so that is a start. We also have our online catalog.  I have started attending garden shows in my area- trying to get my company name out.  I try to stress that the seed is "Oregon Produced" at the local shows and tell people that they should have no problems getting the seed to grow because it is produced in their area and it is fresh.

If you have any other questions or comments or suggestions, please tell me. I am always welcome to them!

Angela Rose