Someone You Should Know: Female entrepreneur creates a unique flower farm experience

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - Christy Heckathorn has always been surrounded by flowers, but for the first time, she decided to plant and grow her own.

“It started during covid, I took a class on how to start a flower farm, I didn’t think I would have a flower farm. I’ve always loved flowers. I’ve been doing wedding flowers on and off for about 20 years. It kind of was a natural fit to learn how to grow my own thing,” said Christy.

After Christy learned how to run a flower farm as a business, she realized what people were really drawn to.

“We started doing the U-Pick events this summer, we started a schedule for them, two days a week, two nights a week, on Sunday and Tuesday nights and the response has been amazing to it. People really love the idea, they can come to pick their own flowers and walk around and just enjoy being outside. It’s more of an experience than just picking flowers,” said Christy.

Offering more than a pre-made bouquet, Christy created an interactive event.

“It’s really awesome to see it come to fruition. When we first showed up this was alfalfa, it was pretty intimidating, we were going to plant flowers, we’re going to create 6 flower beds, and grow pumpkins. It took a lot of time but now the business is really thriving. It’s really good to see,” said Justin Talsma.

“Almost every night we have a U-Pick I am able to talk to somebody that says I traveled an hour and a half away or two hours or I heard about you or read about you or we just wanted to come and experience the farm. To me, that is one of the most amazing things. It is humbling that people come from aways away to experience something that we are doing here but I am really grateful for that,” Christy.

Christy invites local vendors and musicians to enhance her U-Picks.

“So many people wanted to come and pick their own flowers, and people would randomly stop and want to check out the farm even when I wasn’t open and I thought we need to open this up and make it a public thing that people can come do. I know how happy flowers make me when I can experience just walking out and picking them and being in them so I knew other people would enjoy that too,” said Christy.

Fleurish Flower Farm has over 75 different varieties of flowers and people come from far and wide to hand-pick them.

“I love it. Whole families will come out. Moms bring their daughters, grandmas, and grandkids, everybody, all ages, a lot of guys too actually come here I think they come with their wives or girlfriends, we’ve had a few couples that will come out to celebrate their anniversaries here which I think is really amazing that they choose to come here,” said Christy.

She says being a new business owner comes with its challenges but that it was worth it.

“Being able to take something that you’ve learned and turn it into something that you can offer to the public that you can have them experience too is very gratifying, it’s a lot of hard work,” said Christy.

The biggest struggle of the farm has been working with the weather and climate.

“I would say the biggest challenge would be the heat and the drought that we’ve been in,” said Christy.

Christy enjoys developing her flower farm by adding small touches and delicate additions.

“I think it is only going to get bigger. It’s going to keep expanding and is going to be a great business for South Dakota,” said Talsma.

From a budding idea to a blooming flower farm, Christy offers a unique place for people to make memories.

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