Many mornings of the growing season I find myself in the field, clippers in hand and bucket of water nearby, harvesting flowers in the first light of day to capture the radiance of the garden. When I first heard of the New Mexico Flower Collective in 2019, I was working as an advocate for young farmers and was approached to write a letter of support to help get the project off the ground. The collective began as a group of flower farmers who shared a vision for an organization that could support new and existing growers and florists in New Mexico with a farmer-led and -organized local floral market. I offered my enthusiastic support, not only in my role as farmer and farm advocate but because I feel deeply that flowers equate to joy. The zinnias, gladioli, marigolds, bells of Ireland, and sunflowers grown at my farm draw in pollinators from near and far—just as important, they’re sources from which I cut bouquets to brighten the world around me. A project that cultivated more local flower production and built a market for these beautiful blooms was definitely something I could stand behind!

Since its inception, the women-led collective has grown to include nine member farms located from Aztec to Albuquerque to Anthony. Every Wednesday from June through October, they operate a market in Albuquerque’s Old Town comprised entirely of local flowers grown by their members: Farm 47, Andante Farm, Yappy Dog Farm, The Harvest Trail, Common Kin Farm, Enchanted Gardens, Lucky Dirt Blossom Farm, Sign of the Dragon Farm, and Rowan & Wren Flowers. Four of the farms are apprentice members, meaning they are new flower growers who are assigned a mentor farmer from the group to help them get hands-on experience. All members volunteer for a few shifts at the flower market, giving growers the chance to connect directly with buyers and hear their feedback and requests.

For apprentice farmer Meg Cummings of Lucky Dirt Blossom Farm, the collective has helped her expand flower production by offering an additional marketing avenue and deepening her understanding of growing flowers in the high desert. In the midst of the pandemic she began gardening in her backyard in the Pacific Northwest, finding comfort in getting her hands dirty and growing food and flowers. When she moved to Albuquerque from Seattle in 2021, she reached out to the Rio Grande Community Farm (RGCF) in an attempt to meet new people and get her hands back in the soil. The next summer, her first in New Mexico, she committed to a one-eighth-acre parcel through the RGCF incubator farm program, and Lucky Dirt was born. The following summer, she expanded to a quarter acre, where she now grows both vegetables and flowers that she sells through the flower collective, the Rail Yards Market, and a small flower CSA. Cummings has a “love affair with plants” and feels that a farm is “incomplete without both produce and flowers.” Some of her favorite varieties are snapdragons, strawflowers, and dahlias. Wild sunflowers have also become personal favorites since moving to the high desert and seeing their explosions of yellow dance along highways, in the bosque, and among her farm fields. As she wraps up her third growing season in New Mexico, Cummings is eager to spend this winter reflecting on how to balance her microfarm and her day job—she works in health care—and how to continue encouraging Albuquerque florists and consumers to seek out locally grown floral options.

Bottom: Christie Green turkey hunting up by Tres Piedras, photo by Gabriella Marks.

The New Mexico Flower Collective operates through an online shop where buyers can peruse farmers’ inventory and preorder flowers by the bunch. Buyers then come to the market on Wednesdays during a designated pickup window. This year, the collective rented market space within an existing business, Manaña Botanicals, located in Old Town. Market manager Heather Esqueda has been with the collective since March 2023. “It is amazing to see the diverse varieties that this group of farmers bring to the market, and to see buyers who are so committed to sourcing locally,” says Esqueda. On a Wednesday in the middle of September, the market was bursting with blooms: From cosmos to celosia, gomphrena to hibiscus, dinner plate dahlias to Aztec marigolds, I was blown away by the array of options available.

“The collective has brought to light the importance of retraining the Albuquerque floral industry to source locally, instead of relying solely on imports from South America,” Esqueda says. Part of this retraining includes highlighting the seasonality of flowers, the benefits of purchasing directly from local producers, and educating florists (and their clients) on what is available, when. Like the many chefs who have built flexibility into their menus in an effort to source produce locally, florists who highlight local blooms must flex their creative muscles and adapt to the New Mexico growing season. Those who make the commitment to purchase flowers directly from farmers in their community have the power to make a huge impact, both environmentally and for our local agricultural economy.

To give someone a local bouquet is to offer them pure beauty and abundance rooted in the place they call home. Flowers do, of course, serve an essential role: vessels to be pollinated, which then produce seeds and continue the cycle of life. Yet a bundle of flowers is an extravagance that has no particular “use” or “reason” aside from bringing joy to the beholder. In this age where we assign so much worth to things based on their level of productivity and output, the gift of flowers is a welcome reprieve. As Cummings of Lucky Dirt says, “We don’t just need survival; we need beauty so we can thrive and find reason to live well even in times of despair.” Sharing flowers that have been grown locally, supporting the people and pollinators right here at home, brings another component of meaning and depth to a gifted bouquet or locally sourced arrangement.

To find local bouquets, you can reach out to the New Mexico Flower Collective, visit your local growers market, sign up for a flower subscription from Lucky Dirt Blossom Farm or a farmer near you, or order some seeds and start planning a flower patch of your own. Visit nmflowercollective.com for more information on becoming a wholesale buyer or a member farmer.