Connect your children with the seasonal nature around them by preparing their rooms for spring. Read the following Flower Clvb tips, then hear advice from baby registry expert and founder of Poppylist, Sarah Hollingsworth.

Spring Nursery Tips

Bring something from outside, inside. Whether a blooming branch or bunch of daffodils from your garden, incorporating nature into your baby’s room will add a fresh feel to their space.
Go through your books and pick out any ones related to growth, birth and of course, spring to have available and accessible for reading. Place non-seasonal books away for later.
Notice what is blooming outside. Sprinkle a few bud vases around the room and place either real or faux flowers in them to mirror what is growing around your neighborhood.
Plant a few seedlings and allow them to bud along the windowsill of your baby’s room.
Find ways to incorporate spring colors in your baby’s space. While yellow can be a tricky color to design with, it is one of the first colors we see during spring. Pull out any blankets or sheets with spring colors and put away the blankets or sheets that might resemble fall colors.
Find a local artist that you can support and invest in one new piece of artwork whether an image or sculpture. This will help your child visually connect with the season and encourage them to take note of the growing life around them. If you are unable to buy a piece of art, take some water colors and create a painting based on an observation from the nearest garden. In my ideal world, I would have one frame in the baby’s room that changes imagery based on the season.
When you can, open the windows and allow your children to hear the chirping of the birds and to receive the fresh air as much as possible.
Select an oil such as as lavender or rose and dust the dresser, counter and book-shelf tops.
Consider the way light enters into your child’s room during certain times of the day and identify ways to . elevate it. Whether shifting the reading nook ever so slightly, or the play rug where the baby does tummy time, find a way to take comfort in the natural light.
Dangle some faux blooms or dried flowers. Having something dangle, will lift the eye in the room and will be an interesting, contrasting and evocative element for your baby to focus their attention.

*FULL DISCLOSURE: These are my suggestions that admittedly, I do not follow to the letter, as my life circumstances do not permit. Currently my kiddos are sharing a small room and all they do in there is sleep. Do what you can/want but do not fret if baby’s room is simply a crib and blank walls. Your love is all they need.

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This week I am highlighting fellow mompreneur, Sarah Hollingsworth, Founder of Poppylist.

Poppylist provides you with a curated baby registry list matched to your lifestyle and needs, without all the added stuff. Our product recommendations are sourced directly from a network of parents, with additional input from over 350 moms and dads.

Sarah Hollingsworth.png — My Interview with Founder of Poppylist, Sarah Hollingsworth

**Why did you decide to start Poppylist?**
When I was purchasing items for Amelia, I accidentally bought a mini crib. I didn't even know such a thing existed! It was in that moment, after having already spent over 20 hours researching items, that I knew this experience for all future parents needed to be better. To be simpler. And it was in my own overwhelming experience building my baby registry that Poppylist was born.
**What is the most rewarding part of being a mom and running a business at the same time?**
The most rewarding part right now is having the flexibility to adjust my schedule to support my family without having to request time off from work or get approval from a boss. It's rewarding and liberating wrapped into one. In the future, when Amelia can truly understand what it means to have a parent running their own business, then I think it'll become so much more rewarding in a different way. And I can't wait to share this part of my life with her!

…Continued

**What about the poppy flower made you decide that "Poppylist" was the perfect name for your company?**
When I first found out I was pregnant, I downloaded an app that tells you the size of your baby. Amelia was the size of a poppy seed. And since I'm from California (it's our state flower), I've always loved poppies. And so Poppylist just felt like a natural fit from the beginning.
**What do you think is the most important item to have in a baby's nursery?**
A comfortable chair or daybed with a side table. Hands down. A place to rest, cuddle, nap, nurse, read, etc. And you want a side table next to that space for your water, snacks, phone, books, etc. Create a corner where you, the mother, will feel at peace. It'll be a corner where both of you grow together.
**If you could give any advice to new mothers, what would it be?**
To have an open mind, no expectations, and listen to your gut. No one mother's experience is the same, so it's important to go in with an open mind about everything from your birth plan to feeding, and just accept that whatever is best for the mother and the baby, then that's perfect. Since there's so much information out there, sometimes we second guess what we truly know to be true as mothers. And I would tell every mother to pay attention to their intuition and do what feels right to her.

I am offering 15% off of silk flower poppy bunches with discount code, “POPPYLIST” at checkout. I hope these blooms make your baby’s room feel a little more vibrant this spring!

Taking care to know the land where flowers are grown is important not only to my brides but also to the philosophy that guides my floral design. When a bride touches a bouquet, puts her face down into a collection of blooms accompanying her on her most prized day, it’s only appropriate that her flowers breathe back life into her. The journey of an imported flower, doused in chemicals, made to survive days of transport is in many ways depriving the blooms of their true nature. Wedding flowers should feel like they are not just playing into a production but rather reflecting the space and even time when a wedding occurs. An anniversary is only made more sweet when walking down the sidewalk and seeing the same wedding flowers celebrating you year after year.

When booking a wedding, one of my first priorities is identifying a local farm. While I do not buy every bloom from a flower farm, the flowers that steal the show are ALWAYS local. My hope in writing this article is to elevate flower farmers and to get more local blooms in your bouquets. As floral designers, we have the potential to shift the industry towards uplifting the flower farmers and the blooms they grow so that our customers receive the freshest and most excellent of blooms.

On the Northern, most Eastern tip of New York, sits North Fork Flower Farm, a small two acre flower farm where a gaggle of color grows in between the bay and the sound. Monarchs and bumblebees hop from flower to flower filling up on the pollen of blossoms so fragrant you can taste them. Quite literally, the farm is home to an assortment of edible flowers where one farmer makes syrups and potions you can eat.

Drianne, one of North Fork Flower Farm’s Partners and Founders—along with her rescue Shepherd— walk me through fields of Dahlias, Cosmos, Gomphrena, Madam Butterfly Snapdragons, Ageratum, Lisianthus and so much more. She describes the color palette she gravitates towards, as one on the spectrum of purples, pinks and blush. Though, there are colors of all kinds popping up and catching my attention. After observing her fields, we go inside to see where the flowers are housed after they are clipped. The cooler found inside the barn serves as a temporary home for flowers, bringing them life and sustenance through cooling hydration. In this space she shows me the deliberate and delicate way she places each flower together to prepare the blooms for her flower share. As she selects varieties for each bouquet, it is as if she is picking colors and kinds that will most enjoy living next to each other in a vase.

Drianne and her farm partner, Charles, met years ago and were impressed to learn that they shared the same dream of starting a flower farm. Charles, having followed the slow flowers movement for years, maintained his own garden on a horse farm during his life as an NYC attorney. In 2015 he was ready for a change of scenery and a more intimate life with the land and soil he had spent so many years cultivating. He planned to go out west to start his dream of pursuing a flower farm but California was experiencing a drought and without water, flowers cannot grow. So, tucked just beyond wine country in the North Fork of Long Island, Charles decided to plant roots.

FIve years ago, Peoninc Land Trust was taking applications from farmers seeking land to use for agricultural purposes. The goal was to save land from the kind of development that would deprive the North Fork community of its quaint magic. Talking to Drianne and Charles, it is clear to me that they don’t just grow flowers to sell them, they grow flowers because they love the earth and its pollinators. Drianne adores the bee creatures who visit her garden, welcoming them as kings and queens of little flower kingdoms. When thinking about what she wants for her farm, so much of it is about attracting these pollinators, growing Dahlias, and bringing scented flowers back into bouquets.

Many people might not know about this little farm. They do not advertise and don’t need to. People searching for flowers, find it. On the drive up to the flower farm, we pass so much land full of growth and that Iowa Field of Dreams feeling. If flowers are to Drianne what baseball is to Ray Kinsella, I can hear the voice of Constance Spry saying, “if you plant it, they will come.” There was once a time when Long Island was full of flower farms but when the industry started outsourcing in the 1960s *(Stewart, Amy; Flower Confidential) , roses and carnations were imported and inexpensive, making them the only flowers people ever really purchased. Fast forward to 2020, people are hungry for the kind of fresh, unique and native flowers that North Fork provides.

The land is located next to a farm to table chef who grows heirloom plants for Shelter Island and the surrounding areas. When Drianne told me about her neighbor, I immediately offered my idea, “ what a wonderful place to have a collaborative dinner where you can invite people to show off your farm.” But then I realized that this farm is slow in more ways than just growing flowers. It is listening— listening to the land, listening to their own inner voice, as well as each other. The farm does not need the praise of others to persist in its purpose and offering of beauty. There is an evident solace that comes from the soil’s position to the neighboring sea surrounding it. Most people visit the North Fork for the ocean but spending my time among the fields, I left the farm feeling all the pleasures of a day out at the waves.

The wonder of this place is not just in the flowers themselves, but rather it is in the farmer’s souls and the hands that till the ground. The difference between a farm and a meadow is that one is cultivated by a living and breathing human soul and the other grows wild. Both are beautiful in their own way but this farm reminds me of our responsibility to the small and the slow. To see every precious life from the flower to the Sapien and offer them care, gratitude, and grace is what I want my life to exude as a florist, as a mother, as a friend.

*Stewart, Amy; Flower Confidential, pg 139. 2007