Page 7 - Harnett Life Fall 2021

Bouquets of ranunculus that were given out as party
favors at the Patron’s Party of the Azalea Festival in
Wilmington, NC.

If you can get your favorite music, magazines, beauty and munity of American cut flower and foliage farmers from the
grooming products and cleaning supplies in a monthly subscrip- United States. Consumers spend almost $27 billion per year on
tion, why not flowers? This question and brainstorm prompted floral products. While most consumers would prefer to buy lo-
fifth-generation farmer Ashley Johnson of Buies Creek to take cally grown flowers, only a small percentage sold in the United
a leap of faith and start Foxhound Flowers in 2018. The flower States are grown here. Foxhound Flowers joined those quaint
subscription business has since blossomed in two locations ― ranks when Ashley started her own cut flower farm.
Harnett and New Hanover counties ― and grown to include
business collaborations, seasonal workshops, pop-up markets While nearly spontaneous opportunities led Ashley to discover
and both custom and wholesale orders. her creative talent for working with blooms and passion for
them, her skill as a grower and penchant for hard work is as
A Happy Accident organic as the flowers she grows and the family she comes
After graduating from UNC-Wilmington with a degree in cre- from. The great-granddaughter of Caswell “Cack” Johnson ―
ative writing, the now 30-year-old developed her passion for the foxhunter for whom her farm is named ― granddaughter
flowers after a short stint in her first career, journalism, work- of Marshall Johnson and daughter of Scott Johnson, Ashley
ing for the Wilmington-based magazine, Wilma. Unhappy comes from a lineage of males who farmed themselves or de-
behind a desk, she yearned to get outside, travel and try new voted acreage for agriculture. She is proud to be the first female
things. Ashley cobbled together jobs in subsequent years by in the family to work the earth for a profession.
freelancing, teaching yoga, working at an art gallery and coffee
shop and learning floral design while employed part-time with A Family Tradition
a Wilmington florist ― a “happy accident,” she said. Moves to Foxhound Flowers operates on the Johnson Farm Road fam-
Key West and Alaska fueled her flower fetish; she even worked ily land that Cack Johnson inherited from his father in Buies
at a large peony farm in the 49th state and helped coordinate Creek, a farm enterprise for tobacco, soybeans, sheep, chick-
the Certified American Grown LLC Field to Vase event held ens, hogs and horses through the years and now, Ashley’s start-
while there. up. While much of the track is still leased to outside farmers for
row crops, Ashley uses nearly two acres for her plantings and
Launched in 2015, CAG represents a unified and diverse com- equipment and even converted her great-grandparents’ home

Harnett Life ~ Fall 2021 Page 7