Flower Power
Mohall has flower business reopenedBy ANDREA JOHNSON, Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
Article Photos
MOHALL Mohall has a flower shop for the first time in three years.
Sandra Anderson and her sister-in-law Michele Dean bought the "Perfect Petals" flower shop from Judy Duerre, who had gone out of business in 2006, and opened it last month.
"The town just loves to garden," said Anderson, who said business has so far been brisk.
Duerre's daughter maintains a greenhouse where people can purchase flowers to plant in home gardens, but the lack of a cut-flower business meant people had to order from flower shops in other towns for funerals, weddings, or every day occasions.
One man told Anderson that his wife had gone without flowers for three years because it had been inconvenient to order from a flower shop in another town. They work in the same building and now he can order flowers to be placed on his wife's desk the same afternoon, said Anderson.
"We have a lot of men who walk in and say, 'I want to order flowers for my wife and I'm not in the doghouse," said Anderson.
The flower shop also offers gift shop items, flavored coffees, balloons, and house plants, but Anderson and Dean said so far about 75 percent of their sales have been cut flowers.
"I lay traps for the customers," joked Anderson, who said she has a feeling for the types of items that will most appeal to her regular customers and will set them on display to tempt customers who come into the shop. Anderson has lived and worked in the area for 16 years and knows a lot of the town's people. Dean, who just moved to the area last year, is getting to know everyone, too. Both women live in Lansford and commute to the shop in Mohall.
Opening their own business was a good choice, said Dean. She moved to Lansford with her husband, who has a trucking business. She didn't want to commute to Minot to a job and said jobs were harder to find in the area.
Neither of them had worked in a flower shop before, but they like gardening.
They get excited when they see the new merchandise come in, like the stone swan garden ornament that just arrived this week. Picture frames have been popular, as have bean pod candles, said Anderson, and she noticed how the hand-made quilting merchandise caught the eye of some of her customers.
"This fills a need," said Anderson.
