This Rattlesnake Harbour area family is big on dahlias and peonies

Nick and Hilary VanderHeide.

By Diane Baltaz

When they moved to a small, Hartford-area acreage in 2008, newlyweds Nick and Hilary VanderHeide asked, “How can we make some money from this acreage?”

At that point, Nick ran a construction company and Hilary, with a Bachelor of Education degree, became pregnant with their first of four children.

“’We wanted to live in the country after marriage and we settled on the acreage near Hartford primarily as a spot for Nick to run and store construction equipment,” said Hilary. “We were interested in farming, but we needed to find a viable crop or livestock that would fit in with our lives; we preferred a seasonal addition to Nick’s construction business.”

Presently, Hilary thought back to her childhood on a hobby farm near Niagara-on-the-Lake where her parents grew multiple varieties of fruit and flowers.

The VanderHeides opted to grow peonies on an experimental plot in 2009, with her parents helping to establish it. They named their fledgling business, Creekside Growers.

They added other varieties ranging from zinnias and dahlias to sunflowers in 2010. Nick also dropped his construction business to grow flowers full time. By 2011, they settled on exclusively growing peonies and dahlias for the wholesale cut flower market.

The business has since expanded into multiple sectors.

In 2017, they bought their current 25-acre farm, located on Windham Road 11 west of Rattlesnake Harbour. In 2021, VanderHeide built the first of their greenhouses, which now total 32,300 square feet.

Today, Creekside Growers wholesales cut flowers from Thunder Bay to Eastern Canada and the southern United States. Their website states that Creekside Growers is “Canada’s Premier Dahlia Farm.”

“We have a huge distribution network,” said VanderHeide, adding that 99 per cent of their flowers sell wholesale.

Dahlia production is so specialized that the VanderHeides constantly build and modify farm equipment to make it work for their crop. In 2016 the couple won an Agri-Food Innovators Award for a single-row planter they designed. They’ve since replaced it with a three-row planter.

The plants are field-grown, with the peonies cut down around Thanksgiving, while the VanderHeides or local staff machine dig the farm’s 400,000 to 500,000 dahlia tubers to be stored in the barn and split over the winter. In January, staff plants the tubers in the greenhouse in time to harvest and sell cut dahlias in April.

“We’re the only ones in North America with Dahlias in April, May and June,” said Nick. “Otherwise they must be imported from Holland.”

Some flowers sell locally through an on-site sales centre that Hilary began during the pandemic – the Flower Shack. The “shack” is a restored driveway shed and retails to drive-in customers who want to cash-purchase cut flowers. Most of these customers live within 25 kilometers of Delhi.

“We established the Flower Shack because we were worried about how the pandemic would influence sales; it was a way we could get rid of stock,” said Hilary.

Like Creekside Growers’ wholesale arm, the Flower Shack evolved into a full-time retail occupation for Hilary. The business began when friends and relatives asked her to design floral wedding arrangements, but it quickly expanded to other people. “They asked, ‘Hey, can you do my wedding?’”

Today, Hilary works from a full-service studio near the Flower Shack, creating wedding arrangements and bouquets as well as for other events, specializing in “all things Dahlia” as her website states.

The floral arrangements include additional varieties of cut flowers which she sources through Nick’s contacts in the Ontario cut flower industry.

“The Flower Shack works so well because of the wholesale side,” said Hilary. “I never dreamed that we would have this business.”

In 2023, the VanderHeides designated a 4.5 acre tract of field for Pick Your Own peonies and dahlias; it operates as a cash-and-carry business through the Flower Shack. Their website markets this patch as “the largest u-cut dahlia field in Canada.” While most of these customers are local, some come from as far away as Barrie and the Greater Toronto Area, said Hilary.

“We began it as some people asked if they could go into the fields to pick the flowers.”

Customer inquires about sourcing dahlia tubers prompted the VanderHeides to create an on-line mail-order business selling greenhouse-grown tubers from divisions and cuttings, with the orders being filled in April. They also market a “Bloom Box” which contains recommended dahlia varieties, fertilizer, plant tags and clippers.

The couple home-school their four children: Elijah, 16; Josiah, 15; Asher, 13; and Lydia, 11. All of them assist on the farm and interact with the public at the Flower Shack. Lydia is “the florist in training” said Hilary because she enjoys designing wedding arrangements. 