About
Sweet Piedmont Academy
Sweet Piedmont Academy is a growing library of educational resources for growers pursuing flowers as a business. With a vision to get more locally grown flowers into communities worldwide, we aim to provide the same business insights and support we wish we had when we were first growing our flower business. Our aim is to see growers thrive, not just in their skills and abilities to grow beautiful flowers, but to lead and sustain successful businesses. Whether your goals are driven by profit, passion, or both, we look forward to sharing everything we know with you.
After 10+ years growing and selling flowers, we have learned plenty about what works, what doesn't, and why. From growing 100+ species of floral ingredients and developing a proven design method for gorgeous (and also profitable) bouquets, to reaching six-figure sales and experimenting with nearly every revenue stream… we've done a lot of trial and error so you don't have to. Ideally, we hope to spare you the losses and help guide you into big wins for your business and ultimately, the locally grown flower movement as a whole!
Topics we’re passionate about include:
The Bouquet Blueprint Framework™ - we’ve developed a proven planning, harvest, and design method that results in gorgeous bouquet products that sell out AND enable profitability. We emphasize optimized planning processes that are repeatable, scalable, and time-efficient.
Revenue Streams For Flower Businesses - there are countless ways to make money selling your homegrown flowers, but which paths should you pursue? We help you identify which revenue stream makes the most sense for your business and provide resources that support your business model.
Sweet Piedmont Signature Color Palettes - our Signature Color Palettes have been carefully developed over years of floral design and can be used for any floral offering, from market bouquets to high-end weddings. Our color and variety pairings have brought repeated success to our business and we can’t help but share the beauty!
Sweet Piedmont Flower Farm
Sweet Piedmont is a sustainable cut flower farm nestled within the hills of Waterford, Virginia (USA). With a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west and our land set apart from traditional residential developments, our farm is a sort of oasis from the modern distractions and hustle of life. It is our hope that visitors are enlivened and refreshed by the natural beauty of this place. And for those who receive our flowers, we hope every bloom and branch serves as an invitation into the joy and beauty of every harvest season.
Sweet Piedmont sustainably grows, designs, and sells specialty cut flowers to our surrounding communities in multiple ways! From farmer’s markets to bouquet memberships, from wholesale flowers to self-serve farm shop, from floral design workshops to you-picks, from event rentals to full-service wedding design… we’ve done it all. As we shift our attention to supporting growers through Sweet Piedmont Academy, we continue to offer Signature Bouquets via subscriptions, Bloom Buckets for florists and DIYers, a handful of exclusive Flower Events throughout the year, and custom design for select events and weddings. Our flower farm is available for private events, professional photography, and volunteer opportunities. Learn more at www.SweetPiedmont.com.
Meet Sharon!
Founder of Sweet Piedmont Farm & academy
Sharon has always been an admirer of beauty and lover of nature. Her mother's stories of farmstead life and her father's passion for art and architecture inspired her love of growing and design. Trained as a molecular biologist, Sharon's career has spanned Congress and the White House, executive roles in a Fortune 500 company and the C-suite of mid-size companies—including running multi-$100M portfolios and roles as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Innovation Officer.
But at her core, her passion is flowers — growing, designing, and teaching others to do the same. She's just as drawn to solving problems—she started learning how to code in her 50s so she could build software tools that help flower farmers run a profitable business. There are few things she loves more than a good puzzle—connecting disparate dots like flower farming and technology, or color palettes and profitability.
Sharon and her husband,Mike, have plenty of animals on the farm—a dog, two cats, a 37-year-old Amazon parrot, and four hens named after famous women she admires. You'll rarely find her without a tumbler of flavored seltzer water in hand (OK, let’s be honest, it’s usually Coke Zero), and you can bet her camera isn't far away. When Sharon's not curating a flat lay of gorgeous blooms in her studio or cooking up her next batch of content for Sweet Piedmont Academy, she's usually running, baking, or watching reruns of The Lost Kitchen (and hoping for a new season).
Meet Lauren!
Business Manager
Lauren is passionate about empowering small businesses and guiding them to more efficient, sustainable, and profitable outcomes. From real estate to financial advising to mental health to floristry, Lauren has improved operations, internal communications, products, messaging, digital presences, and ultimately sales for all kinds of businesses. Before arriving at Sweet Piedmont, Lauren created and ran a 7-figure wedding floral brand and since then, she’s been running operations at Sweet Piedmont, where the quality of locally, sustainably grown flowers has given her a whole new perspective on what it means to run a successful business. She loves a good sweat in the fields and does a lot of floral design around here, but there’s nothing as rewarding to her than finding a way through tough business barriers and keeping the team on track.
When Lauren’s not at the farm, you’ll find her hanging outside with her husband Jake, working on passion projects and catching her daily dose of the Armchair Expert podcast.
Meet Sonnett!
Farm Manager
Sonnett is passionate about cultivating beauty through the power of streamlined, orderly systems and powerful planning. A certified horticulturalist of the Master Gardeners and seasoned flower farmer, she brings expert insight at each stage of a plant’s life cycle and is intuitively connected with the rhythms and relationships within our farm’s ecosystem. To her, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing a project completed or keeping her team and resources optimized for efficient, productive results. Here at Sweet Piedmont, nearly every (if not, every) annual flower we grow receives personal attention from Sonnett, having been germinated from seed in our award-winning greenhouse and nurtured to maturity in our tunnels, gardens, or fields.
When Sonnett’s not at the farm, she is tending to her own garden, playing with her two Australian cattle dogs, and trying out unique international cuisines with her best friend (who happens to be her husband 😉), Patrick.
The 8 images above, as well as the professional team photos you may find around our website are taken by the lovely Erica D. Photography. We work with her each and every year to take our team photos at the end of harvest season, capturing the hearts and hands that make our farm thrive. Inquire for family portraits and business shots here on her website.