About Us

Local And Seasonal

We grow what we sell

Our commitment to providing local means that we mostly sell what we grow and forage, finding beautiful natural treasures in the forests and fields that surround our family run farm in Kings County, Nova Scotia. The remainder, we source from other local growers.

We grow mostly heirloom, unusual and hard to find varieties, along with some more traditional favorites, during our local growing season from May-October. The rest of our season is spent planning, preparing, organizing and dreaming for the following year.

Design

We use what is natural

I was exposed to art history, design and composition from an early age, having grown up with a professional artist as a parent. To hone my floral design skills, I completed Conception and Design at the Catherine Muller floral school in Paris, France, where my eyes where opened to the possibilities of working with flowers.

At Little Flora Gem we use flowers, vegetables, foliage, herbs and foraged treasures from our farm in the beautiful Kings County, Nova Scotia, and let the fields and forests around us inspire our design process. We DO NOT use floral foam, glitter or other additives.

Style

Whimsical, garden style

I love to create wild and whimsical, garden-style bouquets that are a combination of garden-fresh flowers, deliciously scented herbs and foraged natural treasures from the forests around our farm!

Our bouquets are constructed in a delightfully unusual and organic manner. The result is a lovely arrangement that looks and smells like it’s the result of a morning walk through the garden.

The People

We are a family-run farm

My name is Jessica and I’ve always been drawn back to my very first “job”, at age 5. I picked flowers and vegetables in the wee hours of the morning, from my mom’s garden and went to the local farmers market to sell fresh, local produce and flowers. Years later, after completing a Master’s Degree and working in the corporate world of project management and finance, I married a Dairy farmer and started to learn about farming.

I wanted to create my own niche on our family run farm and to get back to my roots and to work with flowers and vegetables. So, in 2018, I converted a ¼ acre of an old horse pasture into a flower field. The next year, I completed the Floret Flower Farmer course and expanded the flower field to about an acre in production. In late 2019, we added a small scale, high intensity vegetable garden to our farm.

Through the pandemic and with the ever present challenges that arise with climate change, we have modified our goals and are down-sizing and striving to be a truly diversified and sustainably run farm. We are now focusing on cut flowers and in early 2022, we moved to Kings County, in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.

The Flower Fields

An acre of bliss

Little Flora Gem has just under an acre is flower production, including approximately 5,000 square feet under hoop houses. We start all our Annuals from seed and transplant most of them into sections of pre-burned landscape fabric. The landscape fabric helps us to keep the weeds in check. We have a large selection of Annuals, Perennials, flowering fruit trees and woody shrubs, along with a huge selection of various bulbs, corms and tubers, including tulips, ranunculus and  of course, dahlia’s.

During harvest season, our flowers are cut every morning and evening, placing them directly into water, to ensure that our clients receive the freshest, longest lasting stems. We then sort, process and store our fresh flower in our cooler to maintain optimal freshness.

We are not importing flowers and instead are dedicated to growing almost everything onsite. We follow sustainable, organic growing methods.

Sustainability

Responsibly farming

Little Flora Gem is all about growing beautiful flowers, vegetables and herbs in a sustainable, responsible and environmentally friendly way. Our three little kids help us work with the flowers and vegetables on a daily basis, so I don’t want to use anything that would be potentially dangerous for them, or the flowers. Therefore, we strive to find natural and organic solutions. We also create our own compost using discarded material from the cut flowers and other garden leftovers like lawn clippings and leaves, let the worms and heat do the work and then reuse it to feed the next generation of flowers.

Sustainability in Practice

Our commitments

  • We don’t use chemicals. We prefer beneficial insects.
  • We compost our discarded flowers, vegetables and herbs.
  • The weeds are kept at bay by using landscape fabric with pre-burned holes– the flowers grow in the holes; the weeds don’t have space to grow. We use flame weeding and old school muscles.
  • We use cover crops and practice crop rotation to protect the integrity and health of the soil.
  • Flowers and vegetable are watered by drip irrigation to minimize evaporation and to protect the petals. This practice conserves water and results in better blooms.
  • We have a minimal waste attitude, especially as it relates to our packaging. We make sure that our packaging is recyclable or compostable. Our bouquets are tied with twine and wrapped in Kraft paper, with paper labels. 
  • We do not use floral foam- EVER.
  • We use electric powered garden equipment and are installing solar panels to produce power for our farm.