Poppy's Garden

07/11/2024

Thank you for being the man I have waited so long for. Loving you has been the happiest season of life yet. You make me smile, laugh, cry happy tears, give me butterflies, and make me feel so loved. I can’t wait to go on all the journeys life has in store for us, I know we’ll conquer them all together. 🩵

06/25/2024

Find the bride that bounces. Find the bride that can’t stop smiling from ear to ear, find the bride that jumps for joy, find the bride that can’t help but bounce up and down from pure happiness. From someone in this crazy event industry I can whole heartedly say, when you find a bride like that it reminds you that every struggle, that every bit of the blood, sweat, and tears you’ve shed is worth it a thousand times over.
rhoades I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to look back and see captured moments of you so happy that you were literally bouncing. Those captured moments will forever hold a special place in my heart and be a core memory for me. Thank you Hanna for reminding me why I continue to do what I do. You truly have a heart of gold (and blue and white 😘)!!!

06/06/2024

A memory came across my newsfeed, reminding me it's been 8 years since I finished floral design school. I remember the long drive home from Portland. My car loaded out with Millie, too many clothes, my moped, hopes and dreams. I remember the feeling of accomplishment I felt. After so many years trying to find my niche in college and failing, to finally finding what I knew I was meant to do in life. I can't describe the weight that was lifted from me during that time of my life. I didn't quite know what the future held, I just knew I wanted to start my journey with flowers.

Dreams are a funny thing. In the early moments of realizing your dreams it’s exciting, like a fire you think will never burn out. No one tells you how hard you will have to fight to keep living and chasing your dreams. How you will go through seasons where that fire you once had quite literally burns out and every fiber of your being questions whether or not to keep doing it. I guess that's what makes your dreams worth it in the end, if there wasn't a little fight and grit in the game would it really be worth it? Probably not.

This life with flowers has taken so many twists and turns. I've had opportunities I never dreamed I'd have and accomplished goals I never knew I'd reach.

This journey has taught me so much. It's taught me what's important and what I need to prioritize in life, when to trust my gut and say no, and when it's time to walk away from people or dreams that in reality were only meant to be temporary. It's given me the confidence to say yes to challenges, to know it's okay to change my mind, to feel right with my decisions, and most importantly the confidence to not take so much stock in what others think. I'm thankful for every single lesson I've learned along the way, every win and loss carried a lesson with it.

I'm not sure I would call myself a veteran floral designer at this point, but the experience I've gained throughout this journey has given me a priceless amount of perspective and knowledge I am grateful to carry with me as I continue this crazy flower journey.

So here I am, still dreaming, still learning, and still crossing off goals only to make new ones.

03/28/2024

Last year was my Meme’s 90th birthday and we had the honor of celebrating her with a surprise birthday party. It was the absolute best day, filled with the best memories that I will carry with me forever. It was so fun to see her relish in her celebration with her family and friends that loved her.

This year her birthday celebration looks and feels quite different with her up in heaven. It feels very strange to not be wishing her happy birthday, going to dinner with her, or giving her a hug. My Meme passed away in July and our world still feels so strange without her in it. My family and I are still in “the year of firsts” without her - the first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, now her first birthday without her, soon it will be the first Mother’s Day, and soon after will be the first year without her. Experiencing my first birthday without her here to wish me happy birthday was the worst. I’m not someone that cares too much about my own birthday or the acknowledgment of it, but not hearing her tell me happy birthday was not something I realized would hit so hard. It’s very hard to beleive it’s already been 8 months without her. I miss her more than I can even begin to describe. While I still have moments of sadness from time to time when I think of her being gone, I have more moments of thinking of her with so much happiness. I’m so lucky to have so many amazing memories of her that I will cherish forever.

Happy Birthday Meme! I’m sure you are celebrating with Papa and your friends and family up in heaven! I’m sure you are up there telling us not to be sad. I’m sure you’ve still been keeping up with us, like you always have. I love and miss you so much! 🩷

02/17/2024

Some people soft launch their boyfriend, which seems a little silly to me, and some people soft launch their return to social media. Although, I suppose both are a little silly 😂

Either way, I’ve missed you all!

03/17/2023

Alright, this is the last time I’m going to use my breakup as a business ploy to drive sales…it’s fine, you gotta do what you gotta do in this economy.

I posted about my breakup during Valentine’s Day and at the time I was handling it quite gracefully, if I do say so myself. I’ve moved on in the grieving process from sad to down right sassy. The sassiness set in a few days ago when I was supposed to be getting on a plane for a two week trip to Ireland and London…

I was supposed to be waking up in Ireland today, and spending St. Patrick’s Day wondering the streets of Dublin with my boyfriend, now EX-boyfriend. But no, here I am in good ole Muskogee, Oklahoma USA, waking up at 6:30am to schlep flowers. Luckily I do love my job and I’m thankful for that! But still, Ireland ⚖️Muskogee…I’m sassy about it to say the least. 😂😂😂

So come see me at the shop today and tomorrow, buy my sh🍀t, and help distract me from the fact that I was supposed to be out of the country…ice cream, queso & chips, and Diet Pepsi from Beacon Drive Inn are also accepted as forms of payment today and tomorrow.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day 🍀☘️🍀

03/03/2023

Here’s to the first Friday we’ve been open with our new store hours! It’s been a busy day at the shop and we’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone out shopping downtown.

We’ll be open tomorrow from 10am to 4pm, so come see us!

Thank you all for being so supportive of our new hours! We’ve really enjoyed the change and can already feel that it was the right decision for our team. We appreciate all the kind words, support, and understanding you’ve shown us. Please let us know if you have any questions about our recent change, we are always happy to help!

03/01/2023

Happy March 1st everybody! Which lets be honest, is actually a florist’s New Years Day - since from the holiday season to Valentine’s Day is usually a complete blur and I don’t know a florist that isn’t excited about the beginning of Spring flower season.

So Happy New Year everybody!

02/28/2023

You all are really outdoing yourselves with our caption contest! Some of the captions have us cackling 😂😂😂

There are 6 hours left in the contest, go to our stories to submit your caption. We’ll choose a winner tonight and announce tomorrow. We may even have a couple winners, it’s going to be hard to choose our favorite.

02/28/2023

Our announcement may have been a little shocking. Some of you may not understand this change, I know it doesn't seem conventional or normal, but do any of us even know what normal is anymore. Look at this insane world we live in right now. Nothing is normal anymore, we can't go on doing business as if it's normal.

At the end of the day, I want to feel like I am accomplishing something. I want to proactively approach my tasks, my business, and my goals. I want to start my day with a plan and be able to check things off the list by the end of the day. I may not finish the list each day, but I want to check things off knowing I did them to the best of my abilities. I can't continue to work as hard as I am and feel like I've accomplished nothing at all by the end of the week. It makes me feel like a failure and I know I’m not a failure. So, while this may not be a normal way of doing business for a retail flower shop, it is the necessary change myself and my business needs right now.

A friend of mine recently made the decision to see a therapist, we were talking about how her first appointment went. She told me something her therapist said that stopped me dead in my tracks. Her therapist said, and get a pen & paper for this golden nugget of knowledge we could all use in today's not normal world - "You can't problem solve, because you are only putting out fires. And that's all you can do right now." Her therapist went on to tell her the solution everyone thinks is the easy and logical thing to do, is to take things off your plate - but, when all the things on your plate are important, how do you take them off your plate? The answer is you can't, the answer is you need to problem solve, but how can you do that if all you are doing is putting out fires, often everyone else's fires.

I can't tell you how much her words resonated with me. The past two years I feel like I start the day with a plan and am hijacked by fires, and I have to stop and deal with the fire roaring the loudest. It's not productive, doesn't serve my business well, certainly doesn't serve myself well. So, I'm giving myself permission to make a change. I’m giving myself permission to trust my gut.

02/27/2023

Coming in hot with our announcement we promised you this evening, even better we’re closer to the 6ish timeframe, rather than 8ish 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

We’ve unpacked quite a bit of important information for you. Please do me a solid and read through all 9 slides of my PowerPoint presentation 😂 We tried our best to anticipate any questions you all might have, but please let us know if you have any additional questions you’d like us to answer. This is a change for all of us, so I’m sure there will be an adjustment process. We will do our very best to make this an easy transition for our customers and our team.

Thank you all for continuing to support us and love us through the changes and growing pains we’ve gone through over the past few years. We love our customers and we hope you all understand that we are making this adjustment so we can better serve you. 💗

02/25/2023

We have an announcement coming tomorrow evening, sometime between 6-8pmISH 📣📣📣

It’s nothing bad, nothing over the top exciting, just some news and changes that we need to fill you all in on! Keep an eye on our social media tomorrow!

02/23/2023

With events like these I often think of my Papa. If you’re new here, I named my business after my Papa. The last few years of his life I started calling him Poppy. He passed in January 2015 and my life took a drastic turn that year. I lovingly refer to it as “the year of suck.” While I was picking up the pieces of my life, I believe my Papa somehow lead me to flowers.

He had an incredible attention to detail. He loved gardening with my Meme and took pride in making the yard perfect. My Papa was a veteran and chose to never take advantage of his veterans benefits throughout his life, but the last few years of his life he decided he wanted he and Meme to be buried at the National Cemetery. I believe it was for no other reason than he knew the grounds would always be pristinely cared for. He had a plot at another cemetery, he even bought the rest of us plots, so we could all be buried together - but he ditched us heathens for the better lawn. That always makes me giggle!!! He would’ve loved Harweldon Mansion, the craftsmanship, the history, and mostly how pristinely the mansion is taken care of.

While we were designing I held back the buckets of poppies, I knew we wanted to use them, just wasn’t sure what for quite yet. In the dining room we planned on centerpieces, but the tables were narrow, plus we didn’t need heavy floral on those tables since they were surrounded by flowers. One of the many things I enjoy about working with Annie is her willingness to not stay rigid to the design plan. We always seem to stumble upon the best option at the last minute or in the midst of a problem. When I realized my centerpieces were too big for the tables, the poppies and moss centerpieces came on the scene. The poppies dancing around the dining room tables in all their delicate unruliness was exactly what the tables needed.

While we were making our final walk through the event, our teammate Nicole mentioned the poppies on the tables, it wasn’t apart of the original plan so it was a nice surprise - she said it literally is like Poppy’s Garden in here. The comment made my heart skip a beat, and I realized it was as if we made a garden for my Papa, we made Poppy’s Garden.

02/23/2023

Go check out our reel on instagram of our amazing memories from last year’s wedding on 2/22/22!

55 Likes, 9 Comments - Meagan Ferren () on Instagram: "Happy 1st Anniversary Marinn & Cope! Thank you Marinn and Marilyn (Marinn’s amazing grandmother) for trusting us with bringing your enchanted garden dreams to life! When we met with Marinn she told us she wanted her venue to look...

02/21/2023

We’ve decided to be closed today! So sorry for the inconvenience.

I think we need one more day to recoup from the busyness of last week, before we dive back into normalcy.

I went by the shop this morning to take care of a funeral order. After I got that out the door, I looked around at the shop and saw the tornado of what remains from Valentine’s Day, turned off the lights, and said not today✌🏻

We’ll be back at the shop with our mess and normal shenanigans tomorrow!

02/16/2023

Thank you all for helping us spread a little happiness the last couple days and ending our Valentine’s Day week on the best note it ever could’ve been ended on!

We are closing up a little early because we are down to the last little bit of greenery.

We’ll be closed for the next few days to rest and we’ll be back in the shop on Tuesday. All orders that have already been scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday will be fulfilled as planned. See you all next week! Thank you!

02/16/2023

If you haven’t seen my Dad’s stories this morning it’s worth a watch.

I didn’t know that my Dad would be the one making us all cry today. I had a message from a customer about my Dad’s stories and I thought, oh gosh what is he up to now. I was not expecting to find myself crying after his stories, usually his stories leave me either 🤦🏻‍♀️ or 😂.

I’ve seen my Dad cry a handful of times in my life. One of the things I know about my Dad is that there are two main things he cares about the most and it’s my Mom first and then me. He’s one of the good ones. I’ve never been married, come close, but haven’t found the one yet. I often blame my Dad, because I still haven’t found someone that can hold a candle to him. Sure my dad and I bicker, sure he drives me nuttier than a fruitcake, but he’s my best friend too, and I’m so glad I get to have him around everyday. I’m so glad I get to have our goofy stories to look back on one day, I know how much I will cherish them. So thank you Dad for being you, for making us all cry today, and for usually making us laugh so hard we cry.

02/16/2023

Today was pretty amazing! Thank you all so much for coming by the shop.

I was messaging with a customer that came by and got flowers today. She shared with me why she came and got flowers and what a difference they made for her. She mentioned that it may be painful for me as a business owner to see the flowers go for free, but that they made a difference for her. So many others shared with me why they were there today and one customer even got emotional while sharing her story.

If some of you are scratching your heads wondering why I did what I did today, why a business owner would give away hundreds if not thousands of free flowers instead of figure out a way to make a profit off of them, THIS is the reason. This is what the purpose was today. To bring joy and happiness to others. There was no pain today. It would’ve been painful to throw them away and know they wouldn’t have been shared with others.

Something I rarely get to see is the joy on your faces when you receive flowers. Sometimes I don’t even get to see brides on their wedding days. I don’t get to make the deliveries, I’m back at the shop working on orders or still making sure all the flowers are done in time for the wedding. Can you imagine working that hard and not getting to see the very reason of why you’re doing it in the first place. It’s not for the recognition, I couldn’t care less about that. That’s the part of social media that makes me uncomfortable, because at times it almost feels like showing off and boastful. I understand that I’m talented and I don’t need to post a picture to know that. It makes me happy to make others happy. I think that’s why I’ve come to share so much and be an open book, because it’s more about the sharing in it for me than it is about the “look what I did.”

So doing this today was exactly what I needed to see after Valentine’s Day. It was the celebration my team and I needed. I’m grateful my Mom and Dad were able to experience this with me today, there is no one else more deserving of happiness, joy, and appreciation than them. They’ve worked so hard to support me in this crazy business and it felt good to see them share in this with me.

Thank you 💗