Blog
Reflections of a flower farm
Those of us here at Kistner's Flowers 2023 was a year of growth and reflection. In 2023 we increased our cutting gardens for store use to be able to have amazing fresh market cut flowers to use in our store. A lot of people don't realize that we have a large acreage on our property at 1901 Pillsbury drive (roughly 10 acres) for us to plant and play with. This year we added more perennial blooms and increased our peony beds to an incredible 50 plus plants!!! This in and of itself keeps us busy in early spring and summer mornings, but worth every minute to provide fresh and incredible local blooms for our clients. As we find our success's in floral farming we also learn from our failures. Not every planting works as well as it should on paper and in these moments we make choices to pivot and realize we can't make everything a success. Sometimes we have to cut our losses and move on. It's not a sign of failure, but an opportunity to learn and grow, no pun intended! We have seen this business over the last 18 years to continue to grow and change. It's vastly different from it's inception in 1946 to when we purchased it in 2006 to today in 2024. We always want to hold onto the past, but must embrace the future. This even carries over to staff and even ourselves. We are deeply rooted in this community and our surroundings and we look forward to the growth that 2024 will bring. Thank you for supporting our journey, our tiny flower farm and a business that has served Manhattan, Junction City, and Wamego for over 75 years!!
Plants provide comfort during Pandemic
Most of us can agree that the last year has been a crazy and bizarre season in our lives and during the quarantine and restrictions we all found ways to cope. The coping mechanism I am discussing today is how we turned to house plants for comfort and in that comfort, we found a new love. Some of us soon became obsessed with the new and rare interior plants and in this love, we also started to feel shame and regret for the sheer numbers of plants in our homes or even the amount of money we spent. I am proposing that we need to not feel embarrassed or ashamed but look at the facts that we have embraced a lifestyle of self-care and self-love and have found this clarity in plants.
Shop Local for Valentine's Day
Where do you turn when you need to send a gift that will lift spirits, give hope, bring joy, and even console a broken heart? You turn
to your local florist. When you shop at your hometown florist such as ours you are more than a transaction, more than a profile number.
We have served the Manhattan, KS community for more than 70 years and in that time Kistner’s Flowers has watched couples get married, start families, we have watched those families grow and we have even wept with them suffering the heartache of losing a loved one.
We are not just a business that has a singular goal of turning profits but has in our core the utmost belief that we are all part of a community that gives and takes in a beautiful and symbiotic relationship; not unlike soil, sun and air that our beautiful flowers and house plants need to grow and thrive.
Unfortunately, in the world we live in, shopping and community support is mostly online in a computer driven society where faces are not seen and names are unknown. When you order flowers from a company online that is not the florist in your hometown it is more than likely an order gather.
