Flowers for the Soul
By Tracey Moro
Ever receive a bouquet of flowers and end up with a smile on your face? Or watch and wait for your own garden to bloom just to end up with a smile? What about when you buy or pick flowers to share with someone else? You end up with two smiling faces – right?
Enter Browe’s Backyard Blooms
The Browes live each day with big smiles and lots of blooming flowers surrounding them in their St. Clair Shores backyard. The yard has been featured in the St. Clair Shores City Garden Tour, and followed on social media. It has too many types of flowers to mention them all, plus a variety of vegetables. And, they start everything from seed, everything. They have turned their passion for gardening into a business that not only brings them extra income but, a calm, therapeutic peace that fills them with joy and hope.
It all started some 15 years ago when Lori Browe’s husband, Chad, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. He already was a type 1 diabetic, so Lori, wanting to help, began a backyard vegetable garden in her Eastpointe home in hopes of providing healthier, cleaner, food for the two of them to eat. She researched on what to plant and how, and was careful not to use pesticides, teaching herself a little more each year.
“He’s the cook, and I’m the chopper. We’ve done canning like sauce and salsa, and we do pickling, pretty much anything we grow in the garden. Lots of peppers, carrots, potatoes, broccoli,” said Lori Browe. After a few years of expanding the Eastpointe garden, she added flowers with the intent to bring more pollinators into the yard. What she got was a new passion.
Before she knew it she had fallen in love with growing cut flowers and needed a bigger backyard. So they moved to St. Clair Shores after finding a nice home with almost a half acre yard and an existing garden ready to be refurbished.
Today they have up to 50 different varieties of flowers in their new yard. “For cut flowers I have zinnias, cosmos, celosia, dahlias, carnations, chrysanthemums, snapdragons, and lots more. “In a bouquet I usually have 5-10 different cut flowers,” said Browe who started selling bouquets of her cut flowers and offers porch pickups to those who message her on social media.
More than Flowers
Her Monarch Waystation has evolved into a large home for butterflies and a fascinating spot to watch. “You have to register on this website (monarchwatch. org). If you have enough of the plants and a big enough size space you get considered a station,” said Browe. “It’s been super cool to do.”
Every fall the Monarch butterflies leave the U.S. and migrate to mountains in central Mexico for the winter, returning back in the spring. Watching them appear and thrive in her Waystation has become a highlight during the summer.
The variety of flowers and plants is also bringing tons of birds. “Once we saw the hummingbirds coming we became bird people. We have gotten so much more out of it,” said Browe. “They’re fascinating. My husband, too, will stop what he’s doing and watch them.”
All of this has helped to shape their yard with different sitting spots and visual focal points. And yard art can be seen throughout, including many repurposed pieces that add charm and personality to the yard. “Over the winter I get super restless. We made giant stained glass, we did it together,” said Browe. “I love to repurpose and reuse things.”
“In food, the green beans are the easiest (to grow) and with flowers zinnia’s are the easiest,” said Browe who is a self-taught gardener. “You just let nature do its thing. I don’t even have to water them. I try new things every year. Snapdragons have always been difficult for me.”
According to Lori, starting with seeds just makes the whole experience more enjoyable. “Everything from seeds is just a fun experience. We do winter sowing in milk jugs. You cut the milk jug in half, put dirt in the bottom and put the seeds in and put them in the yard and watch them grow.”
As Lori and Chad began sharing their yard and selling their flowers, they have made many new friends. “I shared my photos on Facebook when someone asked to see garden pics and it has been blowing up ever since then. We never had children and we had planned on it, so this now fills that gap. We have met people in so many ways I didn’t expect,” said Browe, who loves the networking.
“I’ve met amazing people.”
There Has To Be Balance
This summer Lori hopes to have more native flowers. “I’ve learned you need balance with the native flowers. It is important for the birds. And I’m trying pumpkins for the first time. I put a trellis up,” added Browe. “And I will do luffas again, it was super fun. It’s so different to grow; it takes a long time, then you have to dry them out, so the whole process is cool.” Down the road, their goals include a hoop house and a composting system.
The yard and all details that it includes have not only filled their time throughout the year but also their hearts with comfort and hope. “It’s helped my husband,” said Browe. “His disease has been absolutely awful and when I see him sitting (happily) in the yard, and watching the change (over time). We intended this for our diet, but it became more of a mental healing.”
To connect with Lori follow Browe’s Backyard Blooms on social media and look for her at the St. Clair Shores Farmers Markets on Sundays at Blossom Heath starting in August.
