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Find the flowers you want at Willow & Wilde

August 18, 2022   ·   0 Comments

There’s nothing quite like fresh flowers to brighten up your home or add an extra special touch to a wedding or any fun or formal event.

Clare Ambraska of Willow & Wilde, brought an assortment of flowers to the Tottenham Artisan and Farmer’s Market on Sunday, August 14.

Clare has several acres of property on the 13th Line of New Tecumseth where she plants a variety of different flowers.

“We have ‘pick your own,’ and we do workshops on site,” Clare explained. “This is our third season. We grow everything ourselves. Right now, we’re growing on about half an acre, but we are expanding every year.”

She grows many different varieties of flowers and, as the season goes on, some flowers become very popular when they are ready.

“Right now, we have things like sunflowers, cosmos, dahlias – we call them ‘specialty cut’ flowers – they are different from what you would get in the grocery store because we curate our seeds carefully. We grow mostly annuals. Last year, we had around 10,000 specialty tulips and we’re building up our peonies. Tulips are very popular – in spring, after winter, it’s the first pop-up colour.”

Clare studied urban agriculture and did community programming and worked on community gardening. She had a lot of experience growing vegetables and decided to branch out to flowers.

“There’s a real market for local flowers,” Clare explained. “People are starting to get that awareness of how flowers you get at grocery stores are imported. At this time of year, there’s an abundance of local flowers you can buy.”

In addition to growing, Clare is also a designer.

“I also do design work myself as well. I do weddings and things like that. That’s why I call myself a flower farm and studio – I do the design aspect of it as well. I enjoy it – it’s creative.”

On her website, Clare lists the month and which flower are in bloom during that time of year.

You can learn more about Clare and Willow & Wilde, by visiting the website at: www.willowandwilde.ca.

By Brian Lockhart

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