Episode 436 A marriage of plants and flowers with farmer-florist Gwen Sayers of Scattered Seeds and Paul Sayers of Pine Creek Farms & Nursery

Paul and Gwen Sayers

As many of you know, my path to flowers began as a home and garden features writer for magazines and newspapers. And one of my favorite gigs twenty years ago, when I first shifted from business journalism to design writing, was as garden editor for Seattle Homes & Lifestyles.

I love shelter magazines of all kinds, a dying breed, some would say, including that magazine, which took a hit along with so many during the 2008 downtown in real estate. But we had a very good run and I scouted gardens, produce photo shoots and wrote about landscape design in the Seattle area for years.

Pine Creek Farms & Nursery in Monroe, WA. (c) B. Jones Photography

One of the very first stories I produced for Seattle Homes & Lifestyles was about a young couple named Gwen and Paul Sayers, who had a company called Paul Sayers Landscaping and who lived in Monroe, Wash., about 30 miles northeast of Seattle. Paul had designed and installed an amazing pond surrounded by a strolling path and landscaped with hundreds of beautiful trees and shrubs. It was a plant-lovers paradise and I visited Paul and Gwen on a few occasions for that article and another one for The Herald, the local daily newspaper in Everett, for which I also wrote.

Scattered Seeds . . . a flower farm at Pine Creek Farms & Nursery, (c) B. Jones Photography

Fast forward more than 15 years later and I reconnected with Paul and Gwen at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival in 2017 where they had a retail booth selling items from the retail shop at their new nursery, renamed Pine Creek Farms & Nursery. Gwen has a great eye for combining plants with vintage objects and that, combined with Paul's ability to build anything out of salvaged lumber, added up to a charming display. At the time, Gwen told me that she had started growing cut flowers for wedding clients, including ceremonies being held at Pine Creek Nursery. It was a bit of a shift from running a landscaping company, but in a logical way, their sister businesses -- Pine Creek Nursery and Scattered Seeds -- made a lot of sense to me.

The stunning landscape grounds and pond at Pine Creek Farms & Nursery. The couple: my young friends Claire & Cody, whose wedding flowers I designed in July 2019 (c) B. Jones Photography

Last summer, I was immersed in the full wedding experience at Pine Creek Nursery when I designed the florals for my friend's daughter's wedding -- on July 6th no less -- just a few days after returning to Seattle from the 3rd annual Slow Flowers Summit in the Twin Cities.

The bride, Claire, grew up with my boys, and since I don't have a daughter, I guess I was feeling quite sentimental when I offered to help her with her wedding flowers. You can see a few photos of that ceremony, captured through the lens of talented wedding photographer B. Jones Photography.

These images from B. Jones Photography were captured at Claire & Cody's wedding, including the bridal bouquet and a Pine Creek Nursery sign

I mention this experience to help underscore how impressed I was

with the venue, the amenities, the incredibly beautiful landscape and cutting

gardens that create Pine Creek Nursery.

Paul and Gwen and I recorded this episode right before the holidays and I'm so happy to share it with you here. You will learn how these retail nursery owners turned some of their tree production fields into destination wedding venue and cut flower farm. It's a story of innovation and love for their land. And as we continue the conversation of sustainability in 2020, today's them is how to sustain a livelihood from  your land.