By Shelley Widhalm

The Surveyor

   Natalie Greene of Berthoud turned her love of growing flowers in her backyard garden into a unique bouquet business.

   Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Greene opened Natalie’s Unique Bouquets on Feb. 1 as a home-based business. She converted her basement into a floral shop with a flower cooler, tables, shelving and fresh cut supplies—her tagline is “Fresh flowers that last!” since her flowers last two weeks or longer. “I like to mix unique flowers you don’t find in King Soopers or Safeway. I try to make them pop,” Greene said. “There’s a huge variety. A lot of them are really fun.”

   For Valentine’s Day, Greene offers a Valentine’s Day Line with three different varieties of bouquets, such as Small Town Love, Forever Mine Valentine and Love Story Valentine. She also offers a seasonal line called Specials, and this winter, it is Winter Frost in small, medium and large sizes (the bouquets have roses with white greenery). “It’s very vibrant and very beautiful. It’s one of my favorite lines,” Greene said, adding that for the spring line, she will bring in tulips and other spring flowers in an assortment of vibrant colors.

   Greene’s two other lines are Standard Bouquets in small, medium and large sizes and Business in three options. There are two tabletop options for restaurant tables and other types of seating and a bouquet option for offices, lobbies and other areas of a business or establishment. The Business bouquets can be delivered biweekly or weekly and according to the number of bouquets desired. “I like how they make people happy,” Greene said. “Flowers are a way of speaking to people in different ways in different situations. I think they can make people feel better and feel happy.”

   Greene provides flower arrangements for small weddings, dinner parties and events. For example, she was asked in late January to arrange 7 appreciation bouquets for a boy’s wrestling team, so she came up with something masculine and creative that included cattails and dried grass in the displays, she said. “I really enjoy being creative and using nature itself. I love unique sticks and decorations in the pieces,” Greene said, adding that she also uses things like pinecones and fresh pine. “I love working not just with colorful florals but seeing what nature has out there and using it to add charm and character into each bouquet.”

   Greene made her bouquets on the side for four to five years before deciding to open her shop. She originally started gardening about nine to 10 years ago to having multitudes of flowers to cut fresh from the yard, which she then started to make into bouquets. She started getting calls to see if she had any flowers available, and she did. “I did bouquets on the side, because I really enjoyed it,” Greene said. “It got to the point where I grew in my passion with it.”

   Greene first gardened in Broomfield, where she and her family used to live, after learning the skill from her mother. She took that skill to Berthoud with a move here in summer 2018. “I just discovered gardening gave me a sense of joy; it gave me a sense of peace,” Greene said.

   To create her bouquets, Greene uses some of the flowers from her garden. But since it is new, she must let it establish first and wait for the flowers to become fuller and taller (she expects it will take one to two years). For now, she combines her own flowers with those from a wholesale florist.

   Greene grows anything from cone flowers to cutting flowers and has a large variety of roses, sunflowers, mums, daisies, clematis and baby’s breath. She also plans to experiment with flowering bushes, such as lilacs and wisteria. One of her favorite rose bushes is the Oranges ’n Lemons Rose, plus she likes Lucifer’s tongue, or crocosmia, a fiery red flower similar to an orchid.

   “I offer a fresh look of creativity,” Greene said, adding that she finds out from the client what they want, such as range of colors and something that’s brighter or darker. “I would take that and add personality and nature elements as well. They’re very beautiful, but they’re very personalized because I’m making them for somebody. When they pick them up, I want to see that they’re loving what they’re getting.”

Natalie’s Unique Bouquets, 436 Ellie Way, Berthoud, offers pick up services, as well as delivery in the Berthoud zip code. The shop is open 9 a.m. to 6 or 7 pm. Monday to Saturday. For more information, visit www.nataliesbouquets.com or contact Greene at [email protected] or 970-308-0478.