Family flowers

QUINCY — Looking over the options, Ashley Ko knew immediately there was one that wouldn’t do.

Ko, co-owner of the Flower Basket in Quincy, had an arrangement for a client in mind as she checked the flowers being delivered.

“Mmmmm, they’re not going to like the yellow,” she said.

Ko and her sister Kristin Mead know their customers and their business - their mom Sue Stetner opened the Flower Basket at its current location, 109 F St. SE, about 20 years ago. Sue Stetner had been working in the flower shop for about 20 years prior to purchasing it, Mead said. The sisters bought it from their mom after she talked about selling it, and they weren’t sure they wanted it to be sold outside the family.

“This is our sixth year that we have been doing it together,” Ko said.

They are keeping the business in the family and at the same time making it their own. They are changing some of the products, adding some classes and, sometime this summer, changing the name.

“It will be the Forage Sisters,” Ko said.

The sisters spent a lot of their childhood and youth at the Flower Basket.

“Born and raised in the flower shop,” Ko said. “My mom used to have a little bouncer (chair) that I would bounce in.”

Mead said she was in high school when her mom took over ownership.

“That’s when I started officially working,” she said. “Doing deliveries, washing buckets, things like that.”

Both sisters initially took different career paths, not thinking they would be owning the flower shop someday.

“I used to do hair - and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t necessarily my passion,” Ko said. “I’ve always wanted to do something creative. And I’ve always loved working with the earth and creating beautiful things.”

“I was going to be an art teacher,” Mead said. “I was taking art classes and (classes) for education. Then I needed to transfer to another school and was trying to decide which one to go to, and I realized I don’t actually want to be a teacher.”

Ko said she did some thinking when her mom started talking about selling the shop.

“When hearing they were talking about selling, it definitely felt like it was tugging at my heart not to let it go, that it would be a sad loss for the community,” she said. “I just felt it was something that we should do and continue on Mom’s legacy that she had created.”

Ko and her family were living in Massachusetts at the time but were planning to come back to Central Washington. Mead said she was a little hesitant when Ko talked to her about buying the shop.

“At the time my youngest was a baby,” she said. “And I (said), ‘It takes a lot of energy to run a business.’ I was not sure I was able to do that at that time. But actually, (we said) ‘We can do this,’ so we started the process.”

The sisters have been working together so long that they can pick up on each other’s thought processes, as they demonstrated when they were examining the options from a seller on a recent Monday morning.

“That’s -” Mead said as she pointed to a bunch of flowers.

“Yes,” Ko said.

The raw materials are an asset when it comes to building a floral arrangement, Ko said.

“You don’t have to necessarily be super-talented because flowers are so beautiful on their own,” she said. “It definitely helps to know how to do it, but I would say they’re so beautiful, I don’t feel you could go completely wrong. I think you could take anything, any type of flower and they would work well together.

“It’s helpful to know color schemes and the color wheel. Knowing what a focal flower is versus a filler flower, knowing the different shapes and different styles behind them,” Ko said.

After years in business, the sisters know what their customers like, she said.

“We have some people who don’t like certain flowers, so when you get an order from them, you don’t put those flowers in there,” she said.

“We keep track of whether someone likes carnations, or the longer lasting (flowers), we have some ladies who love stargazer lilies and roses, more fragrant things. We definitely do try to keep track of all that,” Ko said.

Over the years the sisters have made some additions to their services, providing flowers for larger events, and have started adding more houseplants to the products available in the shop. They built an outside patio, which will be the display area for still more plants. It opens in early May.

“We will have outdoor pots, garden accessories, plants, and at that time we will have hanging baskets,” Ko said. “Then we will be starting our classes.”

The class list will be announced, but Mead and Ko plan to offer art and craft classes such as embroidery and jewelry along with flower arranging and raising plants, they said.

“It’s been this process,” Ko said.

“Mom still gives us advice,” Mead said. “But we have gotten to the point where we do feel it is our shop now.”

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.