March 29, 2024

For the love of flowers and friends

Union County couple shares master gardening experience with Creston Community

Jill Hoakison, rural Union County, said it was never her intention to launch a business selling fresh cut, farm grown, flowers from her garden, but simply a personal interest to bring more color and joy into her own home. Due to the growing interest in her blooms, she created “Three Little Birds Marketplace” on Facebook. It’s a moniker inspired by her three children.

Growing up, Hoakison said her grandmother always had a vegetable garden and her mother regularly tended her potted flowers. She had a childhood familiar to many Iowans, one that involved meals made with fresh vegetables and ears of sweet corn. She also recalls her mother regularly tending to her own potted flowers, but Hoakison was less interested then.

“I didn’t really find the love of gardening until my husband and I got married and had my own home,” she said.

For Hoakison, flowers are something she’s attracted to as it enhances the beauty of her space and mood.

“Even having a small bouquet of fresh cut flowers in your home, and you have friends over or you come home from work, that adds just a little more heightened joy into your space,” she said.

Hoakison, a self-proclaimed lifelong learner, has a partner who supports her growing interest in her husband Caleb. Caleb has a background in agronomy and ag business from Iowa State University. On their family farm, Caleb is active in maintaining the vegetable garden, from which his green peppers that won first place in the Peppers — Sweet, Green, Bell Type division at the 2019 Iowa State Fair, were grown.

“He does all sorts of canning. We freeze a whole bunch of corn,” said Jill.

Three years ago, the Hoakisons took a master gardener class through Madison County Extension. There, they participated in workshops and hands-on demonstrations in ecology, eentomology, horticulture, floriculture and landscape architecture.

“From there, it just, for lack of a better word, bloomed,” she said.

In addition to the master gardener course work, the Hoakisons are required to complete a number of service hours within the community to become certified.

With a garden abundant in produce, the Hoakisons donate butternut and acorn squash and a variety of peppers to organizations such as Creston Area Food Pantry. Through her employer, she has been involved with tending the Creston Community Garden, which she helped plan. For Caleb, he’s particularly interested in educating others, such as local Clover Kids, and helping them learn how to start plants or understand the resources in their own backyards

“We have a bunch of silver maple trees located on our farm and this early spring he tapped those maple trees and we had a handful of kids and we talked about how you make maple syrup and how you tap a tree to make maple syrup,” Jill said.

Jill also has a passion for sharing her knowledge with others. Wanting to do something with a larger visual aesthetic, she set out to gauge the interest of increasing the amount of potted flowers in Creston’s uptown.

In partnership with Kelly’s Flowers, the Union County Development Association, uptown businesses and other individuals and organizations such as volunteer group Creston Area Little Stuff, Jill was able to see her vision realized.

With Kelly’s Flowers and Garden Center owner Jacque Greene, Jill selected combinations of flowers, decorative grasses and plants that uptown business owners purchased to add the splash of spiller and filler plants now lining the sidewalks of the uptown. She also offers her advice through email to help business owners maintain or change their arrangements.

“If you stick your finger into the pot up to your first knuckle, and the soil is dry, that is how you know you need to water them,” she said.

As the summer blooms go dormant, and the season shifts to fall, Jill is helping those maintaining uptown hanging baskets and planters with the selection of new seasonal plants.

“The purple fountain grass you see in the middle can easily be kept, but some of the other stuff like the petunias need lots of water, food or fertilizer this time of year,” she said. “They can easily be cleaned out and replace by gourds, some mums, or even some of that ornamental cabbage you see sometimes urban landscaping, which is so nice.”

Jill said it’s also possible to forage for things to include in arrangements.

“You can walk around in your own space and forage for different coniferous type branches, so whether that’s cedar, or different pine – short needle, long needle – and how you can adjust to change those uptown planters pertaining to the season,” she said.

Jill did a late planting of flowers this summer so she will be able to decorate the UCDA’s upcoming Farm to Fork event Sept. 5.

“Color, texture and movement of any kind, whether you planted in our own residential home or you have it in an urban concrete area, it just adds a space of coziness,” she said.

And creating that “welcome home” feel is something she hopes to enhance in Creston’s uptown.

“Uptown of Creston is really the front door of our community, so we want to have that same aesthetic appeal as of the front doors of our homes in our community,” Jill said.

SARAH  SCULL

SARAH SCULL

Sarah Scull is native of San Diego, California, now living in Creston, Iowa. She joined Creston News Advertiser's editorial staff in September 2012, where she has been the recipient of three 2020 Iowa Newspaper Association awards. She now serves as associate editor, writing for Creston News Advertiser, Creston Living and Southwest Iowa AgMag.