Janniebird Farm brings floral cheer to the Gunnison Valley
By Kendra Walker
People ask me all the time if I have a greenhouse in order to grow flowers up here in the Zone 4 plant hardiness zone. But I can proudly say that I do not have a greenhouse,” says Annie Amrich of Janniebird Farm. “Crested Butte is the Wildflower Capital of Colorado. There are so many flowers that love the colder temperatures. I may not have a greenhouse, but I’m still able to grow thousands and thousands of beautiful flowers. It’s totally possible.”
Janniebird Farm in Gunnison specializes in growing local, in-season specialty cut flowers, herbs and edible blooms. Annie grows her flowers for various events, elopements and weddings and provides four CSAs (community supported agriculture) throughout the year – one for every season.
“The flowers we grow are truly unique to our region’s climate and flora,” says Annie. “All of our flowers are grown eco-consciously with organic practices.” Annie understands the challenges of trying to grow in the Gunnison Valley year-round and has experienced them firsthand, “so one of my main goals is to educate people about the industry and growing flowers in this climate.”
Before flower farming, Annie was in medical sales for 16 years. “I got my master’s degree in physiology at the University of Colorado and I was an athletic trainer there.” She and her husband, Jason, lived in Louisville, Colorado with their two sons, Zaiden and Xavier. “Jason was running operations for two local hospitals, and I was working full-time in medical sales, but I didn’t picture myself in it anymore,” she says. “I really loved gardening and did all of our landscaping, and thought, what can I do to have my hands in the dirt? How can I be outside in the garden and create an income?”
So Annie signed up for a flower farming course in 2018 and jumped into the world of starting a flower farming business, while simultaneously working her full-time medical sales job. “I remember thinking, flower farming sounds great, no one else is doing this. And then I found three women in the area already doing it,” she laughs. “It became this up-and-coming thing. We were kind of the frontiers in our area.”
During the height of COVID in 2020, Annie connected with the Colorado Flower Collective. “Local farmers grow organically, sell to the collective and educate people on locally grown flowers. I would grow stuff in my yard and get flowers from the collective and I started building my business,” she says. “Selling flowers during COVID was actually a really great time. People were craving beauty and wanted to pass that onto their friends and neighbors. So I would take orders and drive around and deliver bouquets.”
In 2021, Annie began the search for more space to grow her flowers. “I was emailing every organic farm in the area asking if they knew someone leasing land. Then I found this farm in Lafayette. It was the most beautiful piece of land, with beautiful views of the Front Range and stunning sunsets. They had this little quarter acre that had been a veggie CSA garden, and it just needed a little love. So I jumped in and sowed thousands of seeds.”
Annie loved that first farm, but she and Jason had been talking about moving to a smaller town. “It felt like the area on the Front Range was getting overdeveloped, we were always driving in traffic and we had several years of bad wildfires with ash raining down on our neighborhood. We were running ragged,” she remembers.
Then Jason had the opportunity to apply for the CEO position of Gunnison Valley Hospital.
“We came here to check it out, and just fell in love. We thought, oh my gosh this is perfect, we’re in the mountains in a small town, a great community. We had been here before to bike and hike and camp and ski. And the opportunity to stay in Colorado was a dream. We were excited to move here.”
The family found an old Victorian house on south Main Street in Gunnison. “We love it, but I didn’t have anywhere to grow flowers so I was sad I wouldn’t be able to grow that first year.”
However, Annie didn’t waste much time. “I remember we were still getting settled in and unpacked and everything, and I went for a run one day. I came across a salvage yard with a fenced-in plot of land, and I was snooping around a bit. It looked like a garden but it needed a little love. I started going on runs every day to check it out,” she laughs.
Annie learned that the land belonged to longtime valley local Joe Bob Merritt and his partner. “I met with them, and it really felt like it was fate,” she says. “That whole area over there has a really great atmosphere for agriculture and growing things and community. They started that garden in 2020 to help feed people during the pandemic. But after that it was too much for them. Then I popped into their life.”
So Annie got to work. “Joe Bob was so open minded and flexible and got the skid steer out and moved salvage out of the way, and then I just kind of kept expanding outside of the fenced area and into the field. I hadn’t started any seedlings that year, but I decided to plant whatever would bloom in 60 days or less.” She recalls planting sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, phlox, marigolds and dahlias that first year. “It really was a great first season.”
Now after several years of trial and error, lessons learned and earning her Zone 4 green thumb, Annie and her Janniebird Farm produce thousands of flowers every year. (Annie + her husband’s nickname, Jaybird = Janniebird Farm). “I really feel like I’m getting a better grasp on what does well here and can tolerate this climate. I have a good idea of what I can grow here. I love that there aren’t drastic swings in temperature or hailstorms like on the Front Range. And I don’t need a greenhouse!” she says.
Annie’s goal is to offer flowers year-round. “I knew I was going to really have to think outside the box to do things all year, and I plant a lot of perennials, frost tolerant flowers and hardy annuals like snapdragon, poppies, larkspur and bachelor’s buttons.” She also started growing roses this past year.
Annie says her outdoor season typically ends at the beginning of October. “After that I let everything go and I transition to closing the field down.” During the holidays, she sells holiday wreaths to local businesses and holds wreath and dried floral workshops. Over the winter, she grows tulips indoors and sells them from February to May. “I plant about 9,000 tulip bulbs into crates and they go into different cooling holding spaces during the winter. “Then I pull them out of the cooler and put them under lights. And we have tulips for Valentine’s Day all the way to Mother’s Day. It’s really fantastic to deliver those bright, cheery flowers in the dead of winter. It’s one of the best, most magical times of the year for me.”
Following tulips, Annie says the month of May is busy with planting and getting the field prepped for summer and then she’s off to the races with the outdoor growing season.
While many other places would allow her a longer outdoor growing season, Annie is very happy living in the Gunnison Valley and proud to grow local, organic flowers. “Flowers that you see in grocery stores are often imported and grown under circumstances where a lot of pesticides are used to make them hardy. But by growing local and according to our climate, you can grow more delicate things like sweet peas and dahlias, herbs and edible flowers,” she explains. “Flowers that you might not find in the grocery store, that don’t handle shipping well.”
Annie encourages people to support local when they can when looking for flowers. “There are so many farms growing flowers now and our local florists are buying local and then supplementing only when they have to. I love that people here are happy to use whatever is growing at the time,” she says. “That’s who we really speak to.”
Annie’s flowers are available for a variety of events and occasions, from weddings and elopements, to holidays, local events and fundraisers. Many local restaurants use her flowers for decoration, and folks can buy her bouquets at Gunnison Vitamin and Health and online.
Starting Mother’s Day, Annie’s flowers will be available in the Hope & Glory/Misty Mountain Floral shop on Main Street. “We’ll have some grab-and-go plants and specialty cut flowers available there. It will be really nice to have this spot in town where people can pick up their flowers.”
Annie also plans to develop a plot of perennials out at the I Bar Ranch this summer and hopes to hold more workshops and pop-ups throughout the year.
Annie and her family have settled in nicely in the Gunnison Valley, and she feels grateful that flowers have connected her to this place. “One of my biggest missions is to create community with flowers. I love the small community and I love the access to the outdoors. It’s been a great move for our family and our boys can have more independence and run with their friends downtown or take the bus and ski up at Mt. Crested Butte for the day. I love that we can go out and fish, paddleboard, mountain bike, ski, hike…really just take advantage of everything the valley has to offer.”
When it comes to choosing a favorite flower, “it changes seasonally,” Annie says. “The tulips tug at my heartstrings. They are so beautiful, especially because we’re growing them in the middle of winter. But I love dahlias and roses and one of my favorites is called rudbeckia, the black-eyed Susan. They’re this yellow daisy-like flower, and they are very cold-hardy. There are so many varieties in this family where you can get some deeper reds and purples and peaches and then yellows. When you put them all together it’s a bouquet of sunshine.”
As Janniebird Farm’s operations continue to grow each year, Annie’s happy that she gets to do something she loves. “It’s just really cool that I get to grow these beautiful things on my own. I love that everything is naturally coming together and the business is growing organically.” Just like her flowers.
