Five Blossoms Farm blooms into business

by Porter Gable

John Tup­per nev­er imag­ined he would describe him­self as a bee­keep­er and flower farmer while in his cor­po­rate job in board rooms across North and South Amer­i­ca. The deep roots he and his wife, Angel­i­ca, plant­ed at their local farm dur­ing the pan­dem­ic changed their lives. Just 20 short months ago, the cou­ple opened Five Blos­soms Farm, a ven­ture that has been a wise deci­sion for them, both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

At that time, the York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers and their four chil­dren want­ed to start over. Tired from the stress­ful hand the pan­dem­ic dealt them at home and in their cor­po­rate jobs, and bro­ken-heart­ed from the loss of their son, Drew, the Tup­pers were search­ing for a way to restore life’s hap­pi­ness. Angelica’s over­flow­ing flowerbeds and John’s back­yard bee­keep­ing were hob­bies that became a suc­cess­ful busi­ness when Five Blos­soms Farm was born.

The seed

John and Angel­i­ca met in Bogo­ta, Colom­bia, through their work as soft­ware engi­neers, in 2010. “I didn’t even have a house­plant in my apart­ment in Bogo­ta,” Angel­i­ca says. “After mar­ry­ing John, and mov­ing to the Unit­ed States, my moth­er-in-law, a mas­ter gar­den­er, gave me tips on what to plant on our porch.”

Those planters mul­ti­plied through the years, spilling into flower beds that cov­ered every sun­lit part of their back- yard in Lake Wylie. After a long day at work, Angel­i­ca would go to her flow­ers to reset. She still finds this to be true, though now she has an acre of blooms to work with.

Angel­i­ca recalls admir­ing beau­ti­ful pho­tos of a peony farm in North Car­oli­na in a mag­a­zine. After a vis­it, she plant­ed peonies from the farm at her Lake Wylie home. Years lat­er she remem­bers think­ing, “We could do this, too.”

“I had this crazy idea to turn our hob­bies into a busi­ness, move to the coun­try and give it a go. I asked John what he thought, and he said ‘yes.’”

The Tup­pers cap­i­tal­ized on their pas­sions, invest­ing their time and ener­gy into some­thing more ful­fill­ing than their day jobs by turn­ing to the land where they’ve “had unex­pect­ed suc­cess,” accord­ing to John.

Deep roots

John and Angel­i­ca are proud to come from hum­ble begin­nings, not tak­ing their fam­i­ly and cul­tur­al his­to­ries for grant­ed. Instead, they look at this oppor­tu­ni­ty as a bless­ing afford­ed to them because of their fam­i­lies and expe­ri­ences.

When they decid­ed to make this change, the whole fam­i­ly pitched in to offer sup­port. John’s sis­ter designed the farm’s logo, a trib­ute to their five chil­dren. Their two boys are rep­re­sent­ed by blue hydrangeas, twin girls, rep­re­sent­ed by the pink peonies and their late son, Drew, the angel in the cen­ter shown as a white orchid. It’s no sur­prise to them that the ele­ments of life Drew loved most are at the cen­ter of their farm’s suc­cess: nature, cre­ativ­i­ty, and pho­tog­ra­phy. Redefin­ing their pur­pose and cul­ti­vat­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between their fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ty has been life-chang­ing.

“Even the folks who know us see us dif­fer­ent­ly,” says John. “We even have a deep­er con­nec­tion to fam­i­ly in New Zealand because they are also in the flower busi­ness, sell­ing flow­ers com­mer­cial­ly.”

His grand­moth­er loved barns sim­i­lar to the one they own and paint­ed them often, along with oth­er still-life images of flow­ers, much like those grown in the field. John’s dad sur­prised him with a door mat with “Tupper’s Barn” writ­ten in the cen­ter that his grand­moth­er had made years ago. Now, it is front and cen­ter as folks enter their barn for events fea­tur­ing John’s bees or Angelica’s flow­ers.

Angelica’s moth­er and broth­er recent­ly vis­it­ed from Colom­bia, glad­ly help­ing on the farm, cut­ting flow­ers for bou­quet orders, plant­i­ng new flow­ers, greet­ing cus­tomers, and enjoy­ing the gifts of nature.

“My grand­fa­ther, a farmer, was pushed out from his land because of war, and John’s grand­fa­ther was pushed into war [World War II]” Angel­i­ca says. She and John appre­ci­ate their respec­tive his­to­ries and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences but con­tin­ue to grow togeth­er as busi­ness own­ers and as a cou­ple. She sur­pris­es folks with this busi­ness.

“In my cul­ture, it is cus­tom­ary to get away from the land to be suc­cess­ful by study­ing to be a pro­fes­sion­al. I fol­lowed this trend, now an engi­neer by trade. How­ev­er, I have found that I’m a flower farmer at heart. I’ve proved you can do both,” she says.

The Tup­pers moved to the farm on Cross­land Road in Clover in Feb­ru­ary 2021 and by July of the same year, sold their first flower.

“We lit­er­al­ly moved with planters full of peonies that were set to bloom in April and trays with seedlings ready to be plant­ed,” John says. “Angel­i­ca learned all she could about soil, plant­i­ng rota­tions, grow­ing the best crops, mar­ket­ing on social media, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er local grow­ers and cre­atives, while I over­saw larg­er projects, like the con­struc­tion of our new green­house, and busi­ness trans­ac­tions. Our kids even join in the fun and get their hands dirty.”

Isabel­la, the qui­et one, says she “loves [her dad’s] hon­ey the most.” You can often find her walk­ing among the flow­ers and mak­ing her own bou­quets. Her sis­ter, Natal­ie, loves talk­ing to their fre­quent guests and hav­ing the open land to run. “I love the trees and the space we have for our dog, Milo,” she says.

Rich soil for gen­er­a­tions

Whether they first learned about the farm through their CSA sub­scrip­tion pro­gram or one of the Tupper’s work­shops, the farm sees repeat cus­tomers who bring friends and help spread the word.

“Sup­port and encour­age­ment come from every­where,” John says, adding that they appre­ci­ate the out­reach of their neigh­bors and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty they have joined has pro­vid­ed friend­ships, part­ner­ships, and excit­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions.

“From pho­to shoots and flower arrang­ing class­es, to nat­ur­al dye­ing with flow­ers and the byprod­ucts of bee­keep­ing, we con­tin­ue to find new ways to serve and con­nect the com­mu­ni­ty,” Angel­i­ca says. Their work has offered them peace and heal­ing, but they have also offered the same sanc­tu­ary for their cus­tomers.

Since 2021, Five Blos­soms Farm, which is served by York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, has tripled its sales. Now, they are focused on what is next, and excit­ed for what the future holds.

“We are invest­ing in the busi­ness and even ordered a new elec­tric truck that will be here in a few weeks,” says John.

“Our hope is that we cre­ate some­thing here that lasts for our kids,” says Angel­i­ca. “A lega­cy root­ed in good soil.”

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Con­nect with Five Blos­som Farms – Fol­low Angel­i­ca and John Tup­per on their jour­ney

• Web­site
• Email
• Insta­gram
• Face­book 
• Vis­it York Coun­ty web­site
• Sign up for a Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture (CSA) sub­scrip­tion and pick up a week­ly order of fresh flow­ers right from the farm.
• Join in one of the many cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion work­shops in the barn.