Flower business stems from dream
[attach]5323[/attach]Ever since Erin Paterson started working in a flower shop when she was in high school, she was hooked.
“It’s the only job I’ve ever had,” she says. “I knew since that first day when I started working in the flower shop that I wanted to have my own shop one day.”
Although her best friend and business partner Jessica McEwen didn’t stumble upon floriculture until her 20s, once she did she says she also didn’t look back.
“I thought, ‘Flowers, how hard could that be? That sounds great.’ So I took it and did the work placement and turns out I loved it and still love it so I sort of fell into it accidentally but then couldn’t get out,” she says.
Although McEwen and Paterson attended different schools, they had their placements at the same flower shop and bonded over greening floral arrangements in the basement — or the dungeon as they referred to it — for three months. After working together for six years at various shops around the city, they then fulfilled their dream of opening their own store 10 years ago.
“I think our style has become very pinpointed,” says McEwen. “At first we would sort of do any style that we thought the person would like, now people come to us because they like our style, which is very whimsical, very creative, we often put little feather butterflies or imitation birds and little nests, there’s always a little surprise, a little fun happy thing in all of our arrangements.”
They chose to open Periwinkle Flowers on Avenue Road south of Wilson Avenue because they didn’t want to be located in a mall and liked the idea of being surrounded by a community after working in the downtown core. In addition to supporting local schools, churches and synagogues they’ve also been involved with many charities over the last decade like Second Harvest, Camp Kirk and Amnesty International.
Paterson says they are part of the Ontario Flower Growers Co-operative and she heads to their central warehouse several times a week to bid on flowers, which is where the majority of their stock stems from.
“We always just want our customers to feel happy when they come in here and feel good about shopping at our store and getting something that’s unique and original and expresses the sentiment that they’re trying to express,” says Paterson, who lives at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West. “We just always envisioned our shop to be the friendly local neighbourhood florist so we just always want people to feel friendly and happy.”
McEwen says each order goes out with a custom care tag and adds they are in the process of creating their own YouTube channel, which will be focused on providing more tips for floral care.
“A lot of these people have been with us for 10 years and we see them every week or talk to them on the phone and we know what’s going on in their lives,” she says. “We did their kids’ Bar Mitzvah or christenings so we really want them to feel like we know them.”
“We know who they are and they really value that,” she adds.
