Photo by Holly Allen – Sisters Hayden Hernandez and Makenzie Carson have started a hobby flower farm in their rural neighborhood between Valley Falls and Denison.
by Holly Allen
Outside our windows, the Kansas landscape is greening up — slowly stumbling out of its winter slumber — coming alive again.
A newly-established local flower farm aims to bring that renewed sense of life inside our homes and businesses.
Their moniker, Hayzie Blooms, is an amalgamation of the names of sisters, neighbors, and flower farm co-owners Hayden Hernandez and Makenzie Carson, and their spring blossoms have been popping up in mason jar vases all over town.
Makenzie is a 2004 Valley Falls High School graduate. She graduated from Washburn University in 2009 with a degree in business management marketing and earned her MBA from Ottawa University the following year. She has worked in the crop insurance industry for the past 20 years. Her husband, Dominic, is in the trucking business.
Hayden is a 2007 graduate of Valley Falls High School and earned a nursing degree from Washburn University in 2018. She currently works as an emergency room and sexual assault nurse at University Health, Kansas City, and for hospice at Midland in Topeka. She and her husband, Matt, a machinist for BNSF Railroad, have three children, Aubrey, 16, Birkley, 12, and Booker, 9.
The sisters, alongside their eldest sibling, Whitney, were raised just down the road from their current homes. A close-knit family, Makenzie and Hayden both built houses around the country corner from their parents, Rick, a farmer, and Kim Bolz, who also works in insurance.
No strangers to gardening and canning, the sisters began adding flowers to their respective vegetable patches a couple years ago as a way to add pollinators and reduce bugs. They also enjoyed the happy pops of color the blooms gave to their homesteads.
It was Hayden’s co-worker who planted the seed of a flower farm business in her head.
“She bought herself a bouquet of flowers each week following her divorce, as a way of doing something nice for herself,” Hayden said. “It made me realize the blooms I was enjoying for myself could be shared with others.”
Makenzie had started following other flower farmers on social media sites like Instagram, which made the process of turning their hobby flower farm into a business venture seem possible.
“It seemed like a natural progression,” said Makenzie. “So much of what we do is the result of an unexpected outcome.”
Last year, Hayden ended up with an over-abundance of peppers in her family’s garden. While searching online to see what could be done with her surplus, she came up with the idea of selling jams and jellies — many of the recipes called for the bit of spice that certain peppers can add.
“It took some trial and error, but we tested recipes for taste and to ensure they had proper shelf stability before we put them out into the world,” Hayden said.
In this, their first full season as Hayzie Blooms, the sisters are simply finding their way. They spend time searching out inspiration online and planting flower varieties to see what grows best and what the public demand is. This spring, they tested out a subscription package which ensured their customers three bouquets over a six-week period. With their spring season nearly finished, they are working toward late summer flowers and giving a trial run to the types of plants which might bridge the gap between those early spring and late summer blossoms, such as peonies and lilies, in an effort to be able to provide flowers throughout the entire growing season. Though they won’t have a summer subscription service available this year, they hope to be organized enough to do so next year.
For now, they offer their bouquets online, as the flowers become available for harvest. They currently have Facebook and Instagram pages, and hope to grow into their own website at some point. They offer pickup and drop-off in Valley Falls, Denison, and the surrounding areas, and encourage customers to reach out in advance for their special events.
They learned to arrange flowers by trial and error, and each sister has their favorites — Hayden is partial to the sunflowers, Makenzie, the dahlias.
“We get bouquet inspiration from other flower farmers, but ultimately we work with what is currently blooming and hope we planted the perfect ingredients to make beautiful bouquets our customers will love,” Makenzie stated.
Each sister has her own set of garden beds at home, but their close proximity allows them to care for and harvest flowers from each other’s properties when needed.
The project gives them great joy, and they hope to expand as they learn and hone their craft. They want to add you-picks and potentially a farm stand in town. Makenzie would love to be able to cultivate and sell her own flower bulbs and tubers to individuals who wish to grow their own from the varieties the sisters have added into their bouquets.
“I stare at a computer screen all day — this project is such a creative outlet for me,” she said.
Hayden agrees, adding, “We both love to be outside. I work a high stress job — this is my way of unwinding; this is my self-care.”
In lots of ways, Makenzie and Hayden are opposites. Maybe because of that, they find they work well together. Battles with bugs and hail have caused setbacks, but also learning opportunities, all of which they have taken in stride.
Although they haven’t even planted most of their 2024 flowers into the ground, they are already planning and ordering bulbs for next spring.
“We started seeds inside in January and began transplanting those that like the cool weather as early as March. We will start planting the majority of our warmth-loving flowers in late April and into May, after our last spring frost,” said Makenzie.
They will continue planting successions to extend the growing season as long as possible with different blooms so the bouquets will vary as the weeks go on.
“Our goal is to have blooms until at least the first average fall frost date in October. Once the fall plants are spent,we will immediately start cleaning out and planting the bulbs for the next spring, and the cycle continues,” said Hayden. “There really is no break.”
For this year, the sisters are looking to put together a gifting option consisting of summer bouquets. Next year, they are crossing their fingers for a cooler spring to extend the tulip season closer to Mother’s Day.
“The biggest lesson throughout this process has been that Mother Nature is going to do what she wants,” stated Makenzie. “We are just along for the ride.”