Graystem Farm

05/24/2026

Wish it was a sunny day but the flowers really need the rain. Most of the Spring blooms are finishing up and the summer flowers are still a few weeks away. Since we can't work with wet soils I decided to practice arranging with what I can pull from the field. I think it came out pretty good.

05/10/2026

Had a lovely Mother's Day doing one of the things I love...playing with flowers. Getting out in the garden, gathering a bit of this and a bit of that then filling little glass bud vases. Mixing, matching, no deadline, no set color scheme just relaxed playing.

Hope all of our Moms got to enjoy their day too!

05/09/2026

A HUGE Thank You to everyone who purchased a peony bouquet for Mom today. We enjoyed seeing familiar faces and meeting new people. Even with the wind fighting our umbrella, we had a great time!

05/08/2026

We've been busy harvesting, cleaning and conditioning a gorgeous selection of flowers and greenery last night and earlier today. Lots of lovely peonies and mixer flowers for our Mother's Day Bouquet Bar tomorrow morning. Route 13 West, 7 miles southwest of the Powhatan Post Office. We'll only be open as long as we have flowers left. See you there!

04/29/2026

A HUGE thank you to everyone who purchased a woodcraft, potted plants or canning jar cutie bouquet from us on Saturday at the Goochland-Powhatan Master Gardeners Springfest event. Your support means so much to John and me.

To our fellow iris fans, don't forget our July 17th event.

And to all of my fellow ranunculus lovers who stopped to ask questions and discuss its cultivation, I've got some exciting plans in the works!

Last, but certainly not least - a big THANK YOU to the GPMGA members who volunteer their time and talents to pull off this annual event. We've been student attendees, and later a vendor since the early days.

04/29/2026

This is your reminder that there is only one more week until Mom's special day! And we have the perfect bloom for her - fluffy pink peonies grown right here in Powhatan! Visit our 13 West Flower Stand bouquet bar, Saturday, May 9th, from 10:00 a.m. until we sell out! Mix and match Mom's favorite flowers and we'll wrap them up into a gift she'll love.

04/16/2026

It's been so hot the past few days! With lots of field work to get done, who has time for house work? Not me! So tonight it's off to one of my new favorite eateries in Powhatan - Smok-N-Pigz on Anderson Highway near the "new" Food Lion. John and I went there for the first time a few weeks ago and it quickly became a favorite.

I shared the story on Instagram, which included a reference to one of my favorite summer drinks that Smok-N-Pigz makes too - limeade. Except our limeade has a twist ... with flowers!

Our floral version of limeade (and lemonade) includes violets or lavender. Since spring is the bloom season for violets, I’m sharing the violet recipe with you. It’s so easy to make and fun for younger kids too.

First gather violets from a known clean source without pesticides or herbicides. Gather a good number of flowers – I like to fill a salad spinner basket. If your flowers have stems, remove them before giving everything a good rinse with clean plain water. Use the salad spinner to gently dry or spread them on towels. While the flowers are drying, prepare a simple syrup with a 1:1 ratio of water to cane sugar. One cup of each is a good start or make more if you need to. Let the syrup cool slightly while you stuff the flowers into a canning jar. Pour the syrup over the flowers, cover and refrigerate overnight.
Next morning strain the flowers out and store the now purple syrup in a clean jar. It will keep for a few days in the refrigerator.

When you’re ready to make a glass of limeade, squeeze juice of half a lime into a 10 oz glass, add ice if desired and top up with unflavored seltzer or club soda (not tonic water) and add the syrup to taste. As you add the syrup, the drink will turn pink from the reaction between the acidic citrus juice and the anthocyanins from the purple flowers. Small children love this! Slip in a straw and enjoy If you want to get really fancy, freeze some edible flowers (like violets) into the ice cubes.

In the heat of summer, when lavender is in full bloom, we switch it up using dried culinary lavender buds. Make sure they are culinary English lavender instead of French lavender which is far more flowery in scent and taste – unless that is your preference - ½ cup is plenty. I also substitute lemons for the limes to make a fresh and natural pink lemonade. Of course, you can still add strawberry or raspberry juice for a different flavor profile. Blue Butterfly Pea blooms might work too, just haven't tried it yet.

I hope you give floral limeade a try. It’s always a hit when we have it at market and during our Infusions and Elixirs classes. And if you’re coming to one of our pick your own events here at the farm, why not make a day of it and stop for a delicious BBQ or brisket sandwich with a side of limeade at the Smok N Pigz on Anderson Highway (Route 60 W).

03/10/2026

I just couldn't wait for Spring blooms anymore so I cut some of our lenten roses with a bit of greenery and added a few flowers from a local florist shop.

Next up, all the fancy daffodils! Join us for a pick your own flowers during our Daffodil Days open field. Visit our Upcoming Events web page.

02/20/2026

Are you sick of snow, ice, rain and mud? Me too! But the flowers are loving the rain at least. Daffodils are stretching up toward the sun and so we're getting ready to kick off the 2026 flower season with Daffodil Days at the end of March. Information and tickets are available on our Upcoming Events page.

01/29/2026

If you’ve read my bio on Graystem Farm’s website, you know I’ve pretty much grown up as a gardener. Yes, I adore flowers. But I also love creating. In my first two years of college, I minored in fine arts and design and even toyed with the idea of becoming an interior designer. In the end, I chose a different path, but I’ve never stopped loving creativity…and one of our children’s former bedrooms is proof of this. It’s filled with painting supplies, paper crafts, beads, and stacks of fabrics, basically a riot of color and texture.

Color is also at the core of my flower passion. If you’re a color addict (or closet crafter) you’ve probably heard of the color analysis trend, where you discover the colors that flatter your physical color characteristics – skin undertone, hair and eye color. Anyway, I was gifted an online color analysis for Christmas. Last week I learned that my combination of undertone, hair and eye color places me in the soft summer season, meaning my best colors are muted, soft, cool colors like faded denim, sage green, and berry – which happen to be some of my favorite colors already. This process sparked a new interest in the power of colors and I’m really leaning into color for the 2026 flower season. I’ll be playing with lots of floral color combinations, learning which colors most reflect soothing calmness, and developing my eye for what color season friends, family and yes, even our farm customers – might belong to. So next time you visit the farmstand, you might also get an amateur color analysis.

Of course, if you’d like to have a professional analysis done, I highly recommend Giulia and Alessandra of Analysis Studio based in Melbourne, Australia. (They have a YouTube channel too)

Send a message to learn more

11/12/2025

We’re back from vacation and revitalized with so many ideas for next season! Everywhere we visited – the Netherlands, Belgium, the Alsace, Switzerland, and Italy – we saw gardens in bloom, flower boxes, flower stalls and people carrying flowers, even in October. In Amsterdam and Haarlem, flower vendors zipped by delivering flowers by bicycle. While delivering our blooms by bike would be great for fitness, we’ll stick with our ‘Hyacinth’ – The Powhatan Flower Truck!

Another surprise to us was seeing busy flower stands in train stations and airports. Many men juggled a suitcase and bouquet as they left the station, presumably to gift their loved ones after an absence. The one place we didn’t see flowers was the grocery store, yet it wasn’t uncommon to see someone carrying a bag of groceries and a big bunch of flowers. It all made my heart sing and inspired me with lots of ideas for our 2026 season.

If you don’t already subscribe to our e-newsletter, hop on our website (graystemfarm . com) and sign up. We’ll be sharing some of these plans and dropping our 2026 workshop and events schedule in December’s issue.