Hi, I’m Anne, the founder of Garden and Roads, a flower farmer, sustainable florist, artist and dreamer. More than 20 years ago, I provided the floral centerpieces for a wedding using some ivy and hydrangeas and I was hooked. My floral dream stayed simmering on the back burner as I worked in the corporate world, but gradually, garden bed by bed, it bloomed into my life until I decided to launch Garden and Roads Florist & Flower Farm in 2017.

During breaks in my corporate career, I’d worked at local florist shops and I would find myself thinking, if I were going to become a florist, I would….

• grow my own flowers

• be as environmentally conscious as possible

• help people understand the beauty and value of flowers

• create experiences that bring as much joy to others as flowers bring to me

Because I’d worked in the floral industry, I knew it isn’t glamourous despite beautifully staged floral photos. There are countless vases, buckets & tools to wash, thorns and leaves to strip and a lot of literal heavy lifting. Then add growing your own flowers and life gets all sorts of messy! My car has not been stem and petal free for more than 5 years and don’t get me started about hauling alpaca manure to various garden sites - let’s just say, I’ve learned to break and corner gently!

Land around Boston is premium real estate, so finding places to grow flowers while keeping our offerings affordable has been challenging. I’ve been lucky to extend my growing space to a couple other locations in Medford, Winchester, Lexington. In 2021 we built a dahlia patch in West Bridgewater. Click to see a short video of the build-out on Instagram

So, you have some fancy set-up for your flower shop? Not unless you count a 120 year old house with potting benches smothered in hop vines as ‘fancy’. My floral design studio and primary gardens are at our home in Medford Hillside. I’m lucky to have the support of my partner, Russ, who helps out from time to time, but mostly puts up with having seed catalogs, flowers and various other paraphernalia permeating many aspects of our lives and most of our storage space!