Our Story
My childhood home housed over 200-plus rose bushes in our family’s garden. Our home was always filled with fresh cut flowers. Like a seasoned sommelier who could identify a 2014 Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley by scent alone, at 11 years old (and without even seeing a single stem), I could walk into a room and immediately recognize the velvety crimson aroma of Mister Lincoln roses permeating in the air. At a very young age I learned not only how rewarding it is to grow flowers, but how incredibly hard, yet fulfilling, the work that goes into it is.
I moved to Portland on a bit of a whim. Actually, an astrologer advised me to during a birthday reading I had treated myself to when I informed her of my then personal housing crises. (I was suddenly left literally homeless and couldn’t find affordable housing of my own on my then $13/hour line cook’s pay.) I was very fortunate to have so many friends and friends of friends, who offered up their guest rooms, couches, air mattresses, whatever, so that I always had a roof over my head during that incredibly difficult time. I did that for a few months, trying really hard to make it work in a city that was very much so telling me to GTFO! When I finally made the decision to make the move to another state where I had no connections, no job, no home, the things that kept me going were the blind faith/wise words of my astrologer, and my willingness to not give up. And I did. I did everything I could to make it work, even going as far as working three jobs at one time!
When I first started plotting the idea of an urban flower farm, I was still working full-time in the hospitality industry (with big dreams of one day working for myself). We had planted quite a few peony, tulip, and narcissus bulbs the previous fall in our garden space, not knowing what to expect come springtime. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Like so many people during that time, I was laid off from my restaurant management job in March 2020. Fear and uncertainty of the future began to slowly consume me, but then the literal following day after I had lost my job, I had gained something new: I discovered that very morning, (like magic!) our first tulips had just bloomed in the garden!
I took it as a sign from Mother Nature herself.
At The Petal Dispatch, we strive to provide our farm-fresh flowers for your special occasions, or simply for no occasion at all. (If you’re buying yourself flowers because they make you happy, we not only encourage it, we are right there with you!) Our urban mini micro-farm was built on the love and comfort flowers brought us during a very secluded and reflective time in our lives, and we just want to share that love and our flowers with our community.
We sincerely hope that our flowers bring you the immense joy that it brings us as the people who grow them.
It all began…
…with a rose garden and a patch of tulips