Two Michigan sisters, one of whom has cerebral palsy, have made a shared dream a reality by starting their own flower farm. With a sprig for every season, their venture is going from strength to strength.
Sisters Britney, 34, and Emily Zondlak, 31, grew up in a farming family in West Michigan, where they still live. Bound close by sisterhood and faith, they launched their passion project, Two Sisters Flower Farm, together in Byron Center, Michigan. Today, their farm is thriving.
“Analytical” Britney handles daily operations and works part-time on a neighboring dairy farm, while “emotion-driven” Emily, a published author and ministry volunteer who lives with cerebral palsy, helps with customer relations and admin.
“We often refer to Emily as the ‘heart’ of our business,” Britney told The Epoch Times. “With her big smile and contagious laugh, she’s got a knack for making people feel good, and we think that’s something that our customers really appreciate.
“Growing up we were your typical sisters, we enjoyed hanging out and spending time with each other. We’ve both always been sort of homebodies, which is probably how our interest in gardening came about.
“Growing flowers wasn’t meant to be a business idea. One summer, I decided to grow a flower garden just for the fun of it. Emily would often hang outside with me while I was busy working in the garden. Since we were growing more flowers than we had need for, we decided to see if selling them was a possibility.”
It was. The second year, Britney and Emily sold bouquets from a self-serve stand at the end of their road, and their community loved it. They decided to turn their venture into something bigger, and Two Sisters Flower Farm was born.
In the beginning, lacking in experience and without the funds to buy a heated greenhouse, they had to get creative.
“We really wanted to be able to sell flowers for a longer period of time than our growing season allowed,” Britney said. “Once we realized that ‘flowers’ could take different shapes and forms throughout the year, that’s when we decided to try and work with Mother Nature.
“Our motto is, ‘Helping you celebrate the magic of every season.’”
The sisters harvest daffodils and tulips in the spring; a quarter-acre of annual flowers in the summer such as zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, and snapdragons; and six acres’ worth of heirloom pumpkins and potted mums in the fall. They craft decorative porch pots and fresh evergreen wreaths in the winter.
They love to mix bouquets with “textural elements” like strawflower, celosia, and amaranth, and herbs such as basil and mint for a “fresh garden feel.” In the fall of 2022, they grew close to 40 different varieties of decorative pumpkins. “It was so much fun to see them all together,” Britney said.
To Britney and Emily, a “sisterhood business” means sticking together through thick and thin.
“Anyone who has started a business can likely attest to how lonely and isolating the entire process can be, and having someone on your side can truly make a difference in keeping that positive mindset,” Britney said.
Equally, both sisters lean on faith as they navigate running a small business together.
Britney says it’s because of her faith that she is able to trust the process more.
“We’ve had years where our harvest of a specific crop hasn’t been what we would have liked it to be,” she said. “We’ve had years where expenses were much higher than we had planned for ... we’ve had to adjust ... and even during our most difficult years, things have always seemed to work out.
“When I think back to those moments, I often think of that quote, ‘Sometimes God takes you on a journey you didn’t know you needed, to bring you everything you ever wanted.’ Trust the plan! If I didn’t have faith ... I think I would have quit this whole flower farming journey a long time ago.”
Emily is a devout Christian, and her faith has even inspired her to write books.
“I have been blessed to be raised in a faith community,” Emily told The Epoch Times. “When I was 8 years old, God put the desire in my heart to become a published author, to turn around the stereotypical thinking that special needs people are not content with life. I wanted to write books to show people that I may act differently because of my physical disability, but I have some of the same dreams and desires they have.”
Emily, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 4 months old, has published four books about her life, faith, and challenges: “Chapter By Chapter,” “Open His Word,” “Dimly Lit,” and “Spirit Written Life.”
“Perhaps the biggest ’success’ with our farm has been that it allows us to live a life that we absolutely love,” Britney said. “It may sound cliché, but we really just hope that our story conveys the idea of possibility. Everything that we’re doing today seemed like such a far-off dream for us a short while back.
“We tend to think that if people just have the courage to start, they will be amazed at what they’re able to accomplish in a short amount of time!”
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