Wildflower Farm Hitting National Market

By Rosalyn Graham

What is a wildflower story doing in a business publication? This wildflower story is a business story. A story about a tourist business which has grown into a direct mail business, a seasonal business which has become a year-round operation. It is also a lesson in the importance of flexibility and listening to what the marketplace is telling you.

When Ray and Charlotte (Chy) Allen bought 20 acres on Route 7 in Charlotte in the spring of 1982, it was with the intention of turning their long-time fascination with wildflowers into a business which would allow them to live in Vermont, a state they loved and had visited frequently while living in New York and more recently, Florida, where Ray was a partner in an advertising agency.

They renovated the multi-leveled, multi-roomed commercial building on the property to accommodate a retail shop, and laid pathways through the meadow. woodland and swampy area behind, erecting signs to identify the wildflowers. They were delighted to find many species of wildflowers growing naturally in their "farm," and they planted more. The Vermont Wildflower Farm was sown.

Merchandise in the gift shop had a flower theme and ranged from expensive china and crystal to kitchenware, novelties, books and ornaments. The first year they were surprised to find a great interest in buying seed from their wildflowers. Still, they thought of it as a sideline to the main objective, which was to provide an attraction for tourists; carloads and busloads of tourists. Making the sale of seed a major focus, and relying on it as a significant profit-maker was not in their plan.

"We should have seen it coming," said Ray Allen. "The very first year we sold six dozen packages of chicory seed in one day. But it took years to confront what we should be doing. The customers demanded it."

In 1983 they did a small test marketing of a mail order offering of seeds. The next year a catalogue was sent to a small list of potential buyers. Nineteen-eighty­five saw 25,000 catalogues and this year 125,000 copies of a 12-page catalogue, replete with color photographs and a wide selection of mixtures, specific species and kits.

Sales generated from the second catalogues were 300 percent of the first year's, and 1985 sales jumped 500 per­cent over that. They expect to ship 5,000 pounds of wildflower seed this year ­in one ounce envelopes costing from $4.95 to $6.95, or sizes ranging up to four pound bags which will plant a half acre. They also sell a "Big Acre Bag" boasting eight pounds of seed for $350 - three million flower seeds.

Selling to the gardening market involves getting the catalogue (a freebie) to a mailing list in January. "You have to get the catalogue in gardeners' hands at exactly the right moment to compete for the $35 they will spend on seeds," Chy Allen explained. There is a predictable cycle to the process. Orders begin at about 600 a day, rise to a "frantic" level of activity in April and May and continue through September and October.

As the direct mail business has grown, activity at the Wildflower Farm has become year-round, with eight people including the Allens handling the order taking, shipping and logistics. During the summer two more come on as work expands to include working in the flower meadows, handling admissions, staffing the shop and continuing to fill seed orders.

Although the mail order business is bringing in three times the income of the attraction business, tourist traffic continues to grow and play an important part in the overall picture. Numbers have grown from 16,000 visitors the first year, to 28,000 expected this year. For Chy the people who come to the store are a resource, providing an opportunity for an exchange of information among those who know about wildflowers or want to know.

Ray sees the Wildflower Farm as giving credibility to the products they sell in-their catalogues and also providing an opportunity for quality control and testing of wildflower seeds. They hand­gather seeds from black-eyed Susans. Queen Anne's lace and New England asters for sale, although most of their seed comes from California distributors and much of that seed is grown in South America.

An important element in the success of the Allen's "wild dream" is their effective use of advertising and public relations; A major advertising campaign , focused on the national "shelter" magazines which they find reach their market more effectively than gardening magazines. offered a free catalogue. The demand was "unbelievable," they said.

Public relations has been very effective also with press releases prompting tories in regional and national publications. A story in the Sunday New York Tunes brought 6,000 requests for catalogues. Public relations is handled by the Florida advertising agency in which Ray still works part of the year.

The Allens describe themselves as "pioneers" of wildflower seed selling. The big nursery and seed catalogues may have a page of wildflower seeds, but their specialization is unique. "We are the wildflower center of the east," Ray said.

They attribute some of the success to the fact that gardening is the number one hobby in the country, But there is also a growing interest in low- maintenance wildflowers.

States are doing plantings of wildflowers on roadsides as an erosion­control measure as well as part of beautification programs. Developers have discovered that wildflowers planted on the raw soil around their model homes and condos "turns browsers into buyers." Vermont Wildflower Farm is selling wildflower seed in large quantities for such uses and the wholesale business is the next project on their list.

"We are capitalizing on the whole trend toward environmental protection." Chy said. People see the use of wildflowers as environmentally responsible, and they count ease of care and maintenance as a bonus. But most important, she feels, is the emotional attachment people have to wildflowers. "There is a mystique to wildflowers," she said.