Guest blog by Kari Geary, Ruby Moon
People who say they have a brown thumb shouldn’t worry too much. Even I have had one from time to time! Sometimes you have to kill a lot of plants in order to get good at growing them. Just like with anything, you’re going to be bad at first, and then get better at it.
Cultivating Passion, Nurturing Artistry
Ever since I was a young girl I wanted to work in a flower shop. An opportunity came along and I was able to open my first business in 2009 which I named Lilian Rose, after two of my grandmas. In 2012, the business was put on hold and I worked for another company where I helped them create their own floral division. Finally, in 2019 I started Ruby Moon mainly because I wanted to be able to work from home and spend more time with my daughter.
Ruby Moon is a flower farm and design studio located in northeast Indiana. Our team is composed of a couple enthusiastic designers, myself included, and a dedicated group working behind the scenes. My husband and daughter help out a lot at the farm, adding a personal touch to everything that we do.
We specialize mainly in wedding floral design — check out our wedding gallery here. I believe that crafting wedding designs is not just a job, rather, it’s a deeply rewarding experience. When we design a wedding and the bride comes and sees it before all the guests get in, I love watching the bride’s reaction when she walks in. The glow in her face from happiness — that is a priceless reward and an ever-renewing source of satisfaction.
Our full service for weddings includes all flowers needed on our clients’ special day, including delivery, set up, and take down. For smaller weddings, flower orders can be picked up from the farm. We also do party buckets which are great for various occasions: baby showers, bridals showers, or even personal use. Flower bars for parties with buckets of loose flowers are also a popular option. In fact, we can cater to many kinds of special events depending on the needs of our clients.
Aside from creating floral designs, we have events at the farm all year-round. There is an annual plant sale in the spring and special events in the summer. Fall at the Farm is our big seasonal event where we host food trucks and live music surrounded by fields of flowers. For anyone who wants to try an authentic flower farm experience, U-Pick at the Farm is our special offering. We provide clippers and a vase for you to pick flowers and create your own unique bouquet. If you want a more personalized event, groups can arrange a private picking party.
Organic and Locally Grown Flowers
Ruby Moon stands out in the world of floristry by embracing the not quite as common practice of locally growing our own flowers. We cultivate many of the flowers that we use for our events, in addition to over 40 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.
I have been a floral designer since 1997 and have worked with all kinds of different flowers. However, lots of flowers don’t ship well, especially dahlias, so I started growing them myself in 2010 and every year after I’ve been growing more and more. I still use imported flowers, but whenever we can grow our own on the farm or use other local sources, we do exactly that because it’s more eco-friendly. It also helps eliminate the use of toxic chemicals and pesticides as I can control what goes on the plants from start to finish. As a breast cancer survivor, I’m now super conscientious about not using or being around harmful chemicals. I utilize fish emulsion along with the compost we make on our own.
For people who want to enrich their home with a small cut flower garden, in the spring we have starts of flowers and plants in 3-4 inch pots. The joy of growing flowers in your own garden, and cutting fresh blooms for a vase at home is such a happy and joyous feeling.
Things to Look Forward To
Ruby Moon has a lot in store for you over the next few months. Hint: We have a ton of tulips coming soon! We grow many unusual varieties and even those that are hard to come by. For our big seasonal event, we accept pre-orders, which usually opens up sometime before Valentine’s day.
Sign up for our newsletter and get first dibs on our fresh flower orders! For your holiday décor needs, evergreen wreaths and porch pot kits will be soon available. These will probably be in the first two weekends in December — so watch out for dates to be posted soon.
You can also keep an eye out for the occasional floral design workshop with more classes to be held in the next year.
Get in touch for all your flower design needs and stay up to date through our Facebook and Instagram pages.
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Kari Geary is owner of Ruby Moon, a flower farm and floral design studio in Northeastern Indiana. She is known for her romantic, garden inspired floral designs. Kari started in the floral industry when she was in high school working for a small flower shop where her grandpa was the delivery driver. She studied horticulture at Purdue University, and graduated from The Southern California School of Floral Design in Anaheim. A twenty-year veteran in retail floral and special events, Kari continues to study with the best in the floral industry. She loves to share her passion teaching floral and gardening workshops, and designing Pinterest worthy weddings for brides.
