Blooming Romance Was Just the Start

Anna Bynum met Aaron Stancombe in a bar. They were both attending a fundraiser for community farms at West Sixth Brewery in the winter of 2013. Although she worked full time as a nurse, she dreamed of having her own farm one day. She’d grown up planting tulips with her mother in the front yard of their house in Georgetown, which bordered an old hemp plantation.

“I was interested in farming,” says Bynum, 37, adding with a laugh: “And farmers.”

Stancombe, now 31, grins. He spent a few years working with his first love — vegetables — on market farms in North Carolina before managing the high tunnels at the University of Kentucky research farm. Then, six months after meeting Bynum, he found trays of flower seedlings a grad student had abandoned. At the time, she lived just a block away from West Sixth Brewery, on Bellaire Avenue. Together they tore up her front yard and filled it with thousands of colorful blooms. They called their garden project Bellaire Blooms.

By winter Stancombe was constructing a greenhouse from PVC and plastic and Bynum was making a business plan for the following year. By spring, they’d found land to lease in Woodford County, and spent the year farming remotely — which Bynum calls “ridiculous.” They started their first CSA, with pickup down the road at West Sixth, and sold at their first farmers’ market. By 2015 they were living on the farm in a tiny cabin that they describe as cold and in dire need of renovations. Two years later they moved into a small white clapboard house on the property, nestled between a pond and the Kentucky River.

“We said, ‘Let’s just see what we can do,’” Bynum recalls of their plans six years ago, “and then it spiraled into this.”

This is three acres of flowers, two giant hoop houses, a greenhouse, a walk-in cooler, a storage container re-fabbed into a floral studio, over a dozen pigs and two dozen chickens and a Great Pyrenees dog named Willett. Their property is on a ridge just above the Kentucky River, and offers beautiful sunsets and blankets of fog.

“Mother Nature is such a drama queen out here,” says Bynum, whose favorite part of farming is evening harvests. “The light is golden and you’re holding armloads of flowers in front of these amazing views.”

Their business plan paid for itself their first year, and they drew a profit their second year. Stancombe, who wasn’t interested in flowers at first, says there’s more money in flowers than vegetables. Investing in local flowers is important, not only for their business, but for a sustainable future.

“A lot of people don’t realize the flower industry is covered in chemicals and that 80% of flowers bought in the U.S. come from outside our country,” says Bynum, who enjoys supporting the “field-to-vase” movement. Although they’re not certified organic, they grow organically — the only additives they use are compost, mulch and fish emulsion. Plus, Bynum says, local flowers are fresher, last longer, smell better and are available in more varieties. Popular flowers like dahlias, for example, are too fragile to ship, but Bellaire grows them locally.

Val Schirmer of Three Toads Farm likes to tell her customers that there’s no comparison between buying local flowers and internationally grown flowers: “I like to compare buying supermarket tomatoes to tomatoes bought directly from the farmer or plucked from the garden,” says Schirmer. She’s been one of the biggest cheerleaders for Bellaire, and she helped them get set up at the Lexington Farmers’ Market. She doesn’t worry about competition, believing that “a rising tide floats all boats.”

Schirmer is thrilled to see the increase of young farmers across the country. The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers — of which Schirmer is the southeast regional director — has seen a 20% increase in members from Kentucky over the last two years.

Although it sounds idyllic, all farmers face challenges. They’ve struggled finding the right markets for their products, and they’ve experimented with grocery stores, restaurants, CSAs and market distribution. Then, in 2018, 70-mile-per hour winds tore across central Kentucky, taking down a high tunnel Bynum and Stancombe had built less than a year before. Thankfully, a grant from the federal government came through, allowing them to build two more by the fall. And although they adore the owners, they want to have their own land someday.

But for now, they grow almost 80 varieties of flowers, exclusively for farmers’ markets in Lexington and Frankfort, and they’ve taken on two new employees — Raya Stearn and Kathy Ramsey — who run the design side of the business. They work out of the converted storage container, and this year they plan to double their budget-friendly business — offering locally grown flowers for weddings and special events, including native flowers, plants and herbs. Stearn, who met Bellaire Blooms at the farmers’ market while buying a sprig of baby’s breath, is grateful the small gesture led to such a fruitful friendship. She calls working for Bynum and Stancombe “the easiest decision you could ever make.”

And the two young farmers who met at a fundraiser are now married. In 2016, Stancombe planted sunflowers sporadically in a row. Bynum walked by for weeks, frustrated at his erratic planting pattern before she realized the sunflowers spelled out “Marry Me?” They signed their marriage certificate at West Sixth, before going home to their farm.

To pick up Bellaire Blooms flowers, head to the Lexington Farmers’ Market (Downtown and Southland Drive locations) or the Franklin County Farmers’ Market during the 2019 season. For floral design inquiries, contact Raya Stearn at bellairebloomsky@gmail.com.