Ward's Flower Farm
Sunflower Design Class
with Jennifer Reed
Harry and I enjoyed a wonderful visit to Ward's Flower Farm this summer to participate in a Sunflower Design Class by Jennifer Reed. I've wanted to go there for a few years now; we finally had the perfect opportunity. Ward's Farm is in scenic Mannington Township located in Salem County, New Jersey.
Their parking lot is next to their beautiful meadow featuring lots of colorful cosmos with butterflies fluttering about. Allen, one of the owners, gave us a brief history of their farm and walked us down the leading path to tour the grounds. He explained some of their plantings.
I wish I knew the variety of white asters they grow. They were a lovely touch to the gorgeous floral arrangements that we made.
I've always loved driving through Salem; it's surrounded by lots of open space and preserved farm land. Like many Jersey farmers, their neighboring farm was growing soybeans. Ms Ward was sick on the day we visited, so we did not get to meet her. Allen gave us the tour and picked the flowers for the group.
It rained during our visit, but we did need the rain, the group in attendance didn't seem to mind. They had a large hoop house for cover that they use for weddings and parties. That was where floral designer Jennifer Reed awaited for us so she could start the Sunflower Design Class.
Jennifer of Jennifer's Designs does amazing floral designs. She has won many accolades from designing large scale award winning displays, including most recently, best in show at The Philadelphia Flower Show! She was also among a select group of esteemed floral designers at The First Lady's Luncheon and lead designer for the Grammys Red Carpet!
Wow! How lucky to have Jennifer share her talent with us right here in South Jersey. I can't write about all of her many achievements to do them justice, best for you to visit her website for more information about her very accomplished floral designer background.
The tour at Ward's Flower Farm included a stroll to admire flower fields; a honey bee area; and a pond that must make a lovely wedding backdrop in photos. We walked over a bridge over the pond to see the sunflower patch and another huge flower field in the distance where they grow dahlias and other flower varieties.
We were provided with everything from the wide mouth glass vase to pruners and gorgeous fresh picked flowers to design individual, large floral arrangements. I loved that the designer uses a lazy Susan to spin the arrangement while designing! This reminded me of my pastry chef cake designs. Why didn't I ever think of that for our church flower guild arrangements?
Jennifer taught us to start out with greens fanned along the vase base; we included Baker Ferns and Lemon leaf greens. Then we positioned about 5 sunflowers around the bottom atop of the greens, followed by solidago filler. We added another layer of sunflowers around midpoint, and a center sunflower to set the height.
Additional accents included: white zinnias and asters, greenhouse-grown blue-grey eucalyptus, asparagus fern, and bright orange marigolds to complete the arrangement. The sturdy stemmed, large, yellow, sunflowers were the highlight.
Jennifer pointed out that according to a study, the color yellow may bring positive results to hospitalized patients. Yellow is very cheery and uplifting!
To complete our NJ adventure, when we got home, we cooked Jersey Corn and fried Jersey tomatoes for dinner! I forget what our protein was, but we did have protein too, of course, to balance out the dinner.
Almost forgot to show you this brief pic of a spotted horse seen on their street at a neighbor's farm as we left Ward's farm. If a horse could be a dalmatian, this one was! It looks like a Leopard Appaloosa horse breed, which I've never seen before.
Thanks for reading!
Stay tuned for a post of what's growing in our garden, coming next.
Happy Gardening!
-Diana
Related Links
Largest Acquisition of NJ Farmland
Jennifer Designs PHS Best in Show 2025
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