{"id":606,"date":"2025-06-25T19:56:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/?p=606"},"modified":"2025-06-25T19:56:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:56:56","slug":"petals-of-progress-april-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/?p=606","title":{"rendered":"Petals of Progress – April 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Towards the end of March I was working double time in the field. It took me all of my “teacher spring break” to plant out the close to 2,000 seedlings that I had started and then “harden off” from home (see my previous blog post for these details). 5 days of planting the seedlings by hand was a serious endeavor on my part. But the beauty of watching a tiny seed the size of a pepper flake turn into a 4 to 5 foot gorgeous blooming plant was worth it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"hand<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While this picture may look like a hot mess of a flower bed to some…it represents extremely hard work and the start of something BIG! This bed is approximately 2,500 square feet. It is fully set up for drip irrigation directly from our 30,000 gallon water tank. We hand burned each “hole” approximately 9 inches apart. This means that the field will hold approximately 1,800 plants. This took months of planning, building of spreadsheets, measuring and marking in the field, not to mention the coddling I had to do of the seedlings I started at home that would eventually find their new home in this field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring in Texas is WINDY….hence the reason my father in law names the farm “Windy Hill Farm.” Fortunately, my husband Jarret had the foresight to factor wind breaks in for the seedlings starts. While it is not quite as attractive to the eye, these “barriers” shielded the tiny seedlings while they acclimated to their new environment. All materials used have been re-purposed from both the farm and other projects. We are big proponents for “use what ya got.” New and fancy isn’t always necessary and often leads to waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I had the seedlings in the ground at the end of March, it was time to turn my focus to the blooms that were happening in our first low tunnel. Despite a cold snap of late Texas freezes, the Anemone and Ranunculus plants were beginning to explode with color. I was harvesting every other day just to keep up with what the plants were producing. Everything we grow at Windy Hill Wildflowers is what you call a “cut and come again” flowering plant. This means the more you cut, the better and more numerous the blooms are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"harvesting<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"harvesting<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

At this point I had not yet truly “launched” my products to the public. I had so much anxiety about doing this because I am extremely committed to ensuring that I am offering a quality product. There is nothing worse (in my mind) than buyer’s remorse. I never want to be the cause! However…I had flowers coming out of my ears and it felt like such a waste to harvest them and keep them to myself. So…Jarret’s and my friends and coworkers became the recipients of numerous “practice” bouquets. I soon found I was coming home straight from teaching school and either harvesting or making my practice bouquets. The late nights were always worth it to see the faces of my friends light up when I shared these beauties with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"anemone<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After overwhelmingly positive feedback about my first “practice” bouquets….I found my confidence and officially launched with some soft sales on social media in mid April. Since then, I have been absolutely blessed with overwhelming kindness and support from the community members of Georgetown, Texas. This little dream of mine has opened a floodgate of opportunity to meet so many amazing women. I love my town, and I look forward to putting in the work so that I can continue to share the JOY we are Cultivating at Windy Hill Wildflowers with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blooming with JOY,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"anemone,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"ranunculus\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"anemone,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"anemone,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ranunculus<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"anemone,<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of March I was working double time in the field. It took me all of my “teacher spring break” to plant out the close to 2,000 seedlings that I had started and then “harden off” from home (see my previous blog post for these details). 5 days of planting the seedlings by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_3040-e1750877934594.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windyhillwildflowers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}