From Corporate America to Flower Farming: How One Entrepreneur Found Her Dream Business (and Built It with Cash!)

Turning Dirt Into Dollars! Meet Jennifer Gulizia — a woman who took a four-week toe-dip into corporate America, followed by a five-year deep dive into banking, to finally realize that a creative career was her true dream. After building a successful six-figure photography business, Jennifer pivoted once again, this time to flower farming — and she did it all in her own backyard, with cash. No debt, no loans, just a modest (hint the sarcasm) $20,000 investment and a whole lot of grit.

Despite a rocky start, Jennifer turned a quarter-acre lot into a profitable flower farm, fueled by her relentless determination and a commitment to learning. This isn’t just a success story — it’s a story of resilience, reinvention, and the power of building a meaningful, sustainable business. If you’re ready for a dose of inspiration, Jennifer’s journey will show you how to turn your passion into profit, no matter the obstacles.

Press play for the full interview or keep reading below!

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How Jennifer Gulizia Got Her Start in Entrepreneurship

Well, life is kind of funny. I definitely never expected to be a flower farmer. If you’d asked me when I was 10 years old—my daughter is about that age now—there’s no way I would’ve said I was going to be a flower farmer. I thought I was going to grow up and go into corporate America. I went through college with that exact plan.

It’s actually kind of a funny story, but I really believe that life only makes sense when you look backward. After college, I took a job in corporate America—and it just wasn’t for me. I left about four weeks later, moved from Portland, Oregon to Hood River to windsurf, and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

In the process, I got hired by a bank and worked my way up in the banking industry for about five years. But I’m a creative person, and banking just sucked my soul dry. I needed a space where I could be creative and use my imagination.

This was back in 2011. I was also planning a wedding at the time, and I decided to take a leap from banking. From the time I was little, I’ve loved two things: photography and flowers. I never thought either of them would become part of my career.

In 2011, I launched my photography business and started as a sports photographer. My husband works in the sports industry—we actually met kiteboarding. He taught my last kiteboarding lesson, and we like to joke that the rest is history. Thanks to him, I got my start in sports photography, and everything kind of came full circle from there.

 

Dipping her toe into photography

Shortly after that, a local photographer named Michael Peterson reached out. He said, “Hey Jen, my wife is sick this weekend—she’s my second shooter. I need you to come shoot a wedding with me.” I told him, “I’ve never shot a wedding before.” He said, “If you can capture people going off a waterfall, you can photograph a wedding.”

I do love connecting with people. So that weekend, I tagged along for a couple of weddings—and I instantly fell in love with the idea of photographing weddings here in my hometown, the Columbia River Gorge. It’s such a scenic area and one of the top wedding destinations. On any given weekend, there are hundreds of weddings happening here. It was a perfect fit. We were also thinking about starting a family, so wedding photography made sense.

Then I got pregnant and started dabbling in newborn photography, which wasn’t really big at the time. The one thing I’ve always believed in is investing in education. So I sought out the best in the industry. I trained with Robin Long in Salem, Oregon; I went to California to train with Ana Brandt and Julia Keller—leaders in the newborn photography space. That training really helped propel my career.

 

A lightbulb moment

By 2014–2015, I was primarily doing weddings and newborn photography. My daughter was born in 2014. In 2015, I was photographing a wedding at the BCH Hotel, about an hour east of here. The bride, Ashley—we still keep in touch—asked me to take extra photos of her bouquet. She said, “I grew all the flowers myself.” I remember looking at her bouquet, thinking, “Wait—I grow all these same flowers in my own garden.”

I’ve always had a garden. The second I graduated college and bought a house, I went out and planted as many flowers as I could. Every clearance plant I could find went into my yard. Every time I’ve moved, I’ve done the same—how many flowers can I squeeze into this yard?

After that wedding, I was chatting with a local florist and mentioned I grow all those flowers. She asked, “What do you do with them?” And I said, “I give them away to people.”

 

Finding a way to pursue her passion

Around the same time, I was leasing space for my photography studio. Thanks to my background in banking, I had a good grasp of finances. I realized I was paying for childcare and for commercial space. I thought, “What if we found a house where I could have a flower garden for photography and a studio attached?”

We asked our mortgage broker: if we took the $800/month I was paying for a lease, could we put that toward a bigger house with a studio and garden? And it turned out we could. So we started looking for land. At the time, I thought I’d have a ‘you-pick’ flower farm alongside my photography business. In hindsight, I’m really glad we couldn’t afford more acreage—because that wasn’t where I was meant to be.

We found a third-acre lot. I was also on city planning at the time, so I understood zoning rules. I helped our builder design a house with a north-facing studio window so I could use natural light. The house was built in 2018, and we moved in that October.

 

Becoming a flower farmer

In 2019, I grew flowers in the front yard while still doing weddings and newborn photography. I started selling a few flowers to florists, but they gave me feedback: the colors weren’t quite right. Most florists here focus on weddings, so they needed more muted tones—not bright colors. So I began adjusting.

We were in a unique neighborhood—on one side, our neighbor had a two-acre plot, and behind us, another neighbor had nearly an acre. My neighbor Becca had about a quarter acre of land that was overgrown with wildflowers and weeds. I asked if I could grow flowers there, and she loved the idea.

I told my husband, “I really need to learn how to grow flowers.” I’d heard about Floret and Erin Benzakein. Everyone said, “You have to read her book.” So I bought it and found out she offered a course on how to become a flower farmer.

For my birthday and Christmas—because it was a big investment—my husband and I decided to go for it. We signed up for the course. Little did we know, COVID was right around the corner. My newborn photography business shut down.

 

Understanding change is constant as an entrepreneur and finding her true passion

But I’d learned early on that change is constant, so I knew I had to pivot. I’d pivoted before. I turned my 400-square-foot studio into a grow-light room and focused on that quarter acre. Erin’s course emphasizes how to grow flowers successfully on a small plot, and that was exactly what I needed.

In 2020, I launched my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)—and it took off. People were hungry for flowers, for beauty, for connection. I sold out of everything I could grow. Each year, I kept expanding—more CSA members, more growing space.

That’s when I realized: this is my passion. My soul lights up doing this. Photography still brought me joy, but physically, it was taking a toll. My hand was starting to hurt from the heavy gear, I was having vision issues, and I was being pulled away from home. My daughter was growing up, and I didn’t want to miss the important moments.

Then something really solidified my decision. Before one wedding, my grandma passed away. And just five minutes before photographing another—my last wedding—I found out my father-in-law had died. I still had to show up and do the job, holding back tears the entire time.

That was my turning point. I wanted a job that gave me flexibility, that fit my life, that let me be present for my family. And that’s when I made the decision to go all in on flower farming.

 

Jennifer Gulizia on Going “All In” On Flower Farming

So I want to clarify something. I was very fortunate that when I started transitioning into flower farming, I already had a six-figure photography business. And my husband has a great career too—he’s a partner at a major water sports retailer here in Hood River. So we were in a solid financial position. We had saved enough to have a cushion in the bank, which meant I could afford to cut back on some of the photography income while building up the flower farm.

From the beginning, we made a conscious decision: we weren’t going to finance anything related to the flower farm. Everything would be paid for in cash. That was actually something Erin emphasized in her Floret flower farming course, and it really stuck with me.

In my first year, I think I made about $20,000 as a flower farmer on just a quarter acre, through my CSA—which was a big deal. But that wasn’t all profit.

 

Re-investing 100% of profit in the first year

Going from making $3,500 in a single weekend photographing a wedding to suddenly having that amount be what I might make in an entire month—or even over two months—as a flower farmer starting out was definitely a shift.

I want to be clear: I took 100% of the money I made that first year and reinvested it. I used it to buy a greenhouse, and we paid for a walk-in cooler. So by the end of that first season, I had made no profit—zero. Honestly, I probably ended up in the negative once I factored in the cost of irrigation supplies, buckets, seeds, and all the dahlia tubers I invested in. But I still had my photography business at the time, so I was hustling—working both jobs.

I started slowly cutting back on the number of weddings I took. By 2022, between shooting my own weddings and second shooting for other local photographers, I only did four weddings that year. So I had drastically scaled back.

I still wasn’t making six figures with the flower business, but we were okay with that. We were in a place where our lifestyle—and me being home more with our daughter—mattered more than maintaining that six-figure income.

 

Jennifer Gulizia on Growing Her CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)

Going back to 2019 and 2020, I was so excited about having a flower farm—I tried to grow everything. I remember feeling so proud; I think I listed 72 varieties of flowers on my website. I was like, “I’m growing everything!”

Well, I quickly learned that when you try to grow everything, you can’t do it well. And I’m a perfectionist to a fault, so that was really tough for me. The weeds were getting out of control, and I couldn’t keep up with harvesting everything. That’s when I realized that dahlias are what truly bring me joy.

I still grow other flowers to fill out my bouquets, but I recognized that dahlias were going to be my main source of income. So I shifted. This is going to be my fourth year doing an online dahlia tuber sale, and over the past four years, I’ve been steadily niching down and focusing on growing dahlias.

 

Niching Down to Dahlias

I’ve been building up my dahlia stock, and now my business outlets have shifted as well. I had a very small CSA this year, and my main focus has become hybridizing dahlias. It’s a long-term process and not profitable yet—it takes about five years to really get going.

Hybridizing dahlias means working with seeds instead of just tubers. Traditionally, dahlias are grown from tubers, and when you plant a tuber, it produces an identical plant. But when you plant seeds collected from a dahlia, you’re growing a brand-new variety—something that’s never been seen before.

Most people don’t save dahlia seeds because it’s quite a process, and most of the time, the results aren’t what you’d want to keep. It’s really a numbers game. You might get one desirable plant out of a hundred, even with experience. So I’ve been growing in volume, trying to select for very specific traits.

I decided I was going to sell my dahlia tubers across the country, and to do that, I got certified. I’m licensed by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which means I’m inspected every year. They ensure I follow proper sanitation practices and that I’m not shipping out diseased tubers. That certification allows me to ship my tubers nationwide.

 

Jennifer Gulizia on Being Resilient Through Tough Years

Throughout the years, I kept scaling up. Each time I realized, “Okay, I understand this, I’ve got this, I’m ready to make the leap,” I was able to grow my operations by leasing additional land. Then last year, everything came crashing down. I was leasing land from two properties—my neighbor Becca, and another neighbor next door who had two acres. She was the sweetest, kindest lady—95 years old—and unfortunately, she passed away unexpectedly. It was heartbreaking. It felt like losing a grandma.

I also lost my growing space. I had 90 days to clear everything out. I found out last November—almost exactly a year ago from now. Actually, one year from today, when we’re speaking, was our last frost, and it was my last time with my dahlias in that magnificent field. It felt like life came crashing down in November.

I turned 40 last November, and about a week before my birthday, I found out I’d no longer have that field after the end of the year. By the end of February, I had to be out. That was part of my lease—it stated I’d be given 90 days’ notice. It came as a bit of a surprise, and of course, it was a huge heartbreak. A part of me had always hoped I could buy that land someday, but that wasn’t an option.

 

Pivoting Her Flower Farming Business

So I really pivoted last year. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or lie—I’m an open book. I think if you want to educate others and be an educator, you have to be willing to tell the full story. Last year was really hard. It was a really dark place. I felt like my business was crashing down. I kept asking, “Why is this happening to me?” My whole income stream was tied to that land. I had thought 2024 was going to be my six-figure year, my breakthrough, where I’d finally be super profitable as a flower farmer.

Instead, I was left with a quarter acre to grow on. And you can’t make six figures on a quarter acre—not with what I’m doing in the flower business. I kept thinking, “What am I going to do?”

I already had plans to launch a membership. I knew niching down with flowers could be risky because of things like crop loss. I thought, “How can I hedge this?” I love education, so I was already in the process of creating a membership—an online community—to create another revenue stream. But everything felt like it was crashing down.

 

A Year of Scaling Back

For the last five years, we’d been searching for land. I hired a business coach in January. And let me backtrack—through all of this, I still loved flowers and didn’t want to lose my connection to the industry. My husband and I said, “Maybe this is the year to scale back.” We started thinking about selling our house.

We planned to sell in September, find land, and give ourselves four years to figure it out. But I thought, “If we sell the house and I don’t have a place to grow, how do I stay connected?” That’s when I decided to launch a podcast. In December, I decided to start The Backyard Bouquet podcast to interview flower growers and backyard gardeners and tell people’s stories. It was a way for me to stay connected.

I also started working with a life and business coach. She asked me, “What do you value most?” And I had to stop and think. Eventually, I realized—I value time. Time with my family. We started working on how to create a lifestyle that gives me more of that.

Because I wasn’t living that life. I was working 12–13 hour days. We’d eat dinner at 7 PM, and I’d head right back outside to tend the dahlias. Time was slipping away.

 

Getting Clear On What Drives You

I realized I had to get super clear on what I wanted. So this past year, I really dove into personal development. I started reading books, working with my coach, and just slowing down. Over the summer, a series of serendipitous events started happening.

I was co-president of my daughter’s PTO last year. One thing I learned—and I don’t know who said this quote—but it was, “When you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.” That stuck with me.

I realized that if I wanted more time with my family, I had to start saying no to other things and get crystal clear on what I really wanted. And what I really wanted was a place where we could grow our flower business, have time together, and build a meaningful life.

 

Making Moves to Build The Life You Want

At our last PTO meeting of the year, I told them I couldn’t be co-president again. Another mom—also named Jen—asked, “Are you sure?” She’s a realtor, and she scribbled something on a piece of paper. I told her, “We’re going to sell our house in September.” After the meeting, she called and said, “I have a buyer for you. Would you consider selling early?”

We thought about it. We were already working with an agent, and the two agents worked together. We ended up getting an off-market offer on our house. That was step one. We told them we couldn’t move until October—we needed to stay through the flower season and keep our daughter’s school year stable.

Then, our tenants from our investment property reached out. They said, “We know you’ve been looking. If we move out early, would you let us out of our lease?” That solved another part of the puzzle—we had a place to live while we searched for a farm.

But then I was like, “Okay, great, but where am I going to grow 2,000 dahlias?” Our lot was 5,000 square feet—not nearly enough.

 

Letting Go of Control

Then two things happened in July. One, a friend said, “Jen, you’re trying to control everything. You need to let go. Just sit with it. What do you really want?” So I started focusing on that. I got really clear—I want a place where we can build a life, grow the flower business, teach others, and expand the dahlias.

And at the same time, I started reading 10x Is Easier Than 2x…

I listened to the audiobook—I love audiobooks. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I’m out in the field. It was about a week before closing on our house, and nothing was really panning out. I’d been looking at all these options, but I finally just said, “You know what? Everything’s going to work out. I’m going to trust the process. I’ll keep taking one step forward every day, control what I can, and trust that things will fall into place.”

 

Buying a 20-acre Property

Then this 20-acre property came on the market. I drove out to see it—it was head-high in weeds—and it was on the Hood River Fruit Loop. For anyone not familiar, the Hood River Fruit Loop is a major tourism draw. Hood River is an agricultural town, and hundreds of thousands of people come each year to visit the Fruit Loop. And here was this 20-acre property—huge! But I had just read 10x Is Easier Than 2x, and I thought, why not 20x?

I drove down the driveway and just saw it. I thought, “This is what I’ve dreamed of my whole life. Everything I’ve done has led me to this moment.” I told my husband, and we went to see it together. His first reaction was, “No way. This is more work than we can handle.” The weeds were tall. But I started sharing my vision with him.

That night, we were having dinner and watched a documentary called Kiss the Ground. It’s about the importance of regenerative agriculture and how now is the time to act—to improve soil health and help others see the difference we can make. My husband looked at me and said, “You’re right. I see the vision. This is our chance to make a difference and share our story.”

 

Jennifer Gulizia on Buying Land & Investing in Her Vision

We encouraged our realtor to contact the seller’s agent. She did—and got them to mow the grass down. When they did, we could actually see the land. And it was incredible. A lot of work, yes. It hadn’t been cared for in years. But we put in an offer.

Then, of course, two other offers came in—after the property had been sitting for a while.

We had to regroup. “What do we do?” I pulled from my experience in my photography career—I did a lot of real estate photography and was part of many real estate transactions. I knew what it took to win a property, and I had this weird sense of calm. I thought, “Just trust the process. If this is meant to be, it will happen.”

We submitted an escalating offer, which means our offer would automatically increase to beat other bids up to a certain limit. That way, we could be the highest without necessarily offering our max upfront.

It’s not a common strategy—it can backfire because you might end up paying more than necessary—but we thought, “Let’s not lose this over $15,000.” We had been searching for land for five years. In a small town, land like this doesn’t come up every day.

We also wrote a letter. Oregon still allows personal letters with offers. So we told the owner about our dream—to build a regenerative flower farm, to educate others, and to make the space open to the community.

The owner loved our vision and accepted our offer. We weren’t even the highest offer, but they chose us.

So here we are. This past year, we had to completely tear down our business after losing our growing space. And now, we’re starting over—building out a 20-acre farm.

 

Making a Huge Financial Leap

It’s overwhelming, and it’s exciting. Had I not had the background I do—had I not had a career in banking, or experience in photography and marketing (I actually worked in marketing before banking), and had I not started small with a flower farm or developed a love for education—I probably would’ve been terrified of this opportunity.

But there was a seed planted many years ago—a love for flowers. And over time, there have been all these other seeds planted along the way. There’s a saying that landscape architects use: First you sleep, then you creep, then you leap. I really see that as what we’re doing now.

Those seeds I planted were in the “sleep” stage for a while. Then, over the last six years of building my flower business, they started to “creep.” And now, I feel like we’re in the “leap” stage. I feel confident now that everything is figureoutable.

I’ve got a long-term plan and a short-term plan. Every day, I ask myself: What’s my one-week plan? What’s my one-year plan? What’s my five-year plan? I break everything into bite-sized pieces and chip away at them, step by step. Because if I try to look at the whole picture at once, my anxiety just skyrockets. It’s too much.

But if I say, “Okay, today I need to order compost,” or “We need to secure the property and find someone to put up a fence,”—that, I can manage. Small pieces. One step at a time.

 

Building a Team

After I read 10x Is Easier Than 2x, I read Who Not How. And that really changed the way I think. I realized—I don’t have to do this alone.

This year, I scaled back. I didn’t have employees. But in the past, I’ve been able to afford part-time employees and build up my business that way. Right now, I’m not in a place to hire part-time help directly—but that doesn’t mean I can’t build a team.

So, my team looks a little different. I have an excavator who owns a company—he’s helping us dig holes and tear down the old well house. We’ve got a great fencing company working to secure the property, which gives us peace of mind. No worrying about cougars, coyotes, or elk eating our plants.

I’m building a team—but right now, it’s an external team. And they’re helping us move steadily toward our goals.

 

Jennifer Gulizia on The Best Thing She’s Learned About Money

I learned this in college from my professor, Dr. Meckler. He taught a lot about Peter Drucker, and one thing Drucker said that really stuck with me is, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” That’s always been a guiding philosophy for me, especially when it comes to money.

I’m constantly looking at the numbers. How many seeds am I ordering? How many am I planting? How many people do I need in my CSA subscriptions? How many tubers do I need to sell? I’m managing numbers across so many different areas of the business.

I definitely taught myself through trial and error. But a lot of it has also come from my commitment to personal development. I’ve always believed that you’ll never regret investing in yourself. Every time I’ve done that—whether it’s through a course, a coach, or even just reading—it’s moved my business one step closer to where I want to be.

Every time I learn something new about what numbers to track or what I could be doing differently, it adds another layer of insight. My podcast has actually become a big part of that learning too. Flower farming can be isolating—most people do it alone—but I’ve made it a point not to be an island.

Through the podcast, I’m talking to flower farmers all over: Tennessee, California, New Zealand. I ask, “How are you doing this? What’s working for you?” And then I measure and track based on those conversations. If something works for someone in New Zealand, I ask myself, “Can I apply that here, in my field?”

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I’m building a community—and learning through that shared experience.

 

Jennifer Gulizia on Filming Her Documentary

Right now, we’re making a documentary film to showcase the entire process of transforming our 20-acre fallow field. From dirt to healthy, living soil. We want to show how you can heal the earth and, at the same time, cultivate beauty in your life.

Yes, we’ve already started filming. This is going to be a long journey. We’re planning to film for the next two to three years—maybe even five. It all depends on how long it takes to truly heal the soil.

Our goal is to show people that change is possible. Small steps in your own backyard can have massive impacts—not just on the planet, but on your own mental health. Soil is everything. We want to shine a light on that. Right now, flowers are having a moment. Soil health is starting to get talked about. Climate change is on everyone’s radar. And we feel like we have a unique perspective.

There aren’t many documentaries out there where a female farmer is the one telling the story. And here we are—with an award-winning filmmaker (Michael Peterson) who believes in the vision and has the experience and resources to bring together an incredible team.

 

Funding the Documentary

The catch? We’re funding this ourselves—for now. We’re using personal money from the sale of our last house to build the farm. But we do need help to fund the documentary. So we’re launching a campaign to support the film. We’re asking people—if you’re able, please contribute, or even just help spread the word.

We’re applying for fiscal sponsorship right now, and the campaign will help cover our production costs. There are so many expenses—just the hard drives to store all the footage are a big investment.

We also need a production crew to capture all the little moments—the day-to-day, the transformations, the real-life progress. And we need an editing team to bring it all together. Our goal is to create a cinematic-quality film—something you could watch in a movie theater, something that makes you feel inspired and proud to be part of.

 

More from this Episode

To hear the full story and more about Jennifer, press play on the player above for the full interview or click here to download the transcript.

 

📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Floret Flower Farm

10x is easier than 2x 

Kiss the Ground

Who, not how

Jennifer’s Podcast

 

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Jennifer Gulizia

Jennifer Gulizia is a flower farmer, dahlia hybridizer, and cut flower educator based in Hood River, Oregon. After 12 years as a professional wedding and newborn photographer, Jennifer transitioned to full-time flower farming in 2023. She has been farming for six years and is the founder of The Flowering Farmhouse, where she grows a wide variety of blooms with a particular focus on dahlias.

Jennifer also hosts The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, where she shares insights into flower farming and interviews fellow gardeners and farmers. In addition to her hands-on farming work, she leads an online community called The Dahlia Patch, where she teaches dahlia enthusiasts and growers from all over the world.

Recently, Jennifer and her family began expanding their flower farming operation onto a new 20-acre farm, documenting their journey to share the challenges and beauty of building a sustainable flower farm from the ground up. Through this process, they aim to inspire others with the lessons learned, both in farming and in life.

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER:

Website | Instagram