Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer Those days of soda and pretzels and beer Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer You'll wish that summer could always be here - Nat King Cole Our lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are filled with camping adventures, summer day camps, a little beach, a bit too much client work, and our summer side hustle: Les fleurs de Lali.
We launched in late spring with a few main objectives:
- Raise money for Ronald MacDonald House (RMH); Lali picked the charity after the PJ Walk in June. 50 percent of our proceeds will go to RMH to help Island families with sick children to stay together and near the medical care they need in Halifax.
- Have fun together growing and arranging beautiful flowers to sell as cut bouquets
- Teach Lali about business and help her make her some money to spend/ save.
We’re off to a great start! We’ve already sold over $200 worth in bouquets and it’s been a lot of fun. A few things I am noticing/ learning:
- Our morning garden ritual offers so much:
- We get outside first thing
- We slow down and get off technology
- We get our creative juices flowing as we arrange gorgeous flowers
- We have an incredibly supportive village. We’ve been delighted by a big donation of flower bulbs (Thank you, Vesey’s) and some plants (Thank you, Susie of Earthform), and vases from several friends. Two close friends—Alana and Barbie—are even growing flowers for us in their own gardens. Yep. We’ve already got multiple sites!
- Social media is a powerful machine. We post a photo of a bouquet on our Facebook page (Les fleurs de Lali) and it sells every time. Being able to sell as soon as we have a bouquet IS what is making this enterprise work. We (read: I) would be doing a heck of a lot of hustling were it not for Facebook.
- Pop up markets are fun and work. Our morning started early in order to harvest enough flowers and create the bouquets and set up for the sale. When our own peonies didn’t open up on time, three of our neighbours rescued us with beautiful blooms to sell. Lali and friends were excellent at making change, keeping track of sales, and adding value to the customer experience by carrying bouquets to cars☺ If all of our plantings work out, we’ll have LOTS of blooms for pop up markets in August and September.
- It’s obvious why scale is needed for farmers/ producers. We sure could not live on the average $10 per day we are generating but it sure is fun!
- Mother Nature is our real CEO. She can giveth abundantly in the form of sun and rain, and she can taketh away with a vengeance in the form of slugs who enjoy dahlia leaves.
- Business ownership and success brings satisfaction. Lali is proud that she “owns” a business and is excited that she already deposited $100 in the bank. (She’s told me she’s willing to buy us a camper☺)
- Wherever you go, there you are. My reactive tendencies of ambition and perfectionism show up just as much in this business as in my own. Go figure! I find it hard to leave flowers on the vine if they could be sold. I dream of all the marketing we could do and many cool creative things we could do. I get excited when we get advance and “corporate” orders. And I am already dreaming of the beautiful and abundant bouquets when the gladiolus bloom!
And with all these learnings, I remind myself that this endeavour is for fun, connection, creativity, learning, and giving. So far, it’s ticking all the boxes!
