Fuggles Flowers is located in Camden, NC, approximately 45 miles south of Norfolk, VA and 50 miles north of the Outer Banks. We produce sustainably-grown fresh cut flowers and foliage and seasonal floral designs of the highest quality for market and events.
Emily Nekl and her yellow Labrador, Mr. Fuggles, established Fuggles Flowers in 2015. Being a first generation farmer, Emily has strived to build her business using sustainable growing methods. She started by selling straight bunches of flowers (sunflowers and zinnias), until she started making market bouquets, and fell in love with spreading the joy that flowers bring to her customers and herself. Very quickly her passion for high quality floral material, along with flower artistry began. She realized she could create a visual story using botany, both in her growing efforts, as well as for her customers, based on flower seasonality. She focuses on both production and specialty crops as her business has developed multiple sales outlets, including event work (wedding), custom designed pieces, market bouquets, and direct sales of bulk flowers to multiple regional designers. Her passion drives the growth of the business to supply locally grown botanical material to more people.
Fuggles Flowers focuses on creating a growing environment that is healthy for our plants, through responsible land stewardship. We recognize the importance of healthy soil biology, and thus use cover cropping techniques and biologic based amendments with sustainable and resilient organic practices in mind. (We love most of our farm insects and want to foster a healthy environment for them, as well as ensuring that our water systems maintain a high level of cleanliness.) We produce a lot of our own compost, including vermi-compost for all of our seedlings. We also focus on integrated pest management to attract beneficial insects and minimize our negative effect on pollinators. Finally, we use mechanical cultivation and biodegradable weed barriers to decrease weed pressure, rather than chemically based herbicides. We just want to be responsible with our land and all of her organisms.
THE FARM & THE FARMER
THE FUGGLES TEAM
Mr. Fuggles
Mr. Fuggles was the inspiration for the farms name. His name: Humulus Fuggles is derived from the hop plant - Humulus lupulus - with Fuggles being the variety. (This is Emily’s favorite hop that Casey uses when he brews beer!) Mr. Fuggles was a rare soul, who was a total mammas boy. He loved a good scratch and goes out every afternoon to play with the girls when they come home from school. He had a heart of gold. Sadly, Mr. Fuggles decided to move onto the next level of existence in late fall 2017. We miss him terribly, but he will remain with us forever, and continue to help us flower the world.
Emily
Head of all things Fuggles Flowers. Earning a PhD in Plant Biochemistry on plant hemoglobins in 2002, Emily completed post-doctoral fellowships in plant developmental pathways and plant-insect interactions. She was the Plant Physiologist at High Point University for a number of years when she was given the opportunity to move to a farm. Having always been in love with the reproductive structures on plants she jumped at the opportunity to build a cut flower farm. Being a serious plant nerd, her background in the plant sciences, and currently learning farm-growing techniques, Fuggles Flowers, is absolute perfection for her professional life. ‘My goal is to grow every type of cut-able material suited for this environment (zone 8a), and in large quantities! The nerd in me is so satisfied!’ She is the head seed-starter, farmer, harvester, email communicator, and designer. Her floral artistic designs reflect abundant bounty from the garden, creating whimsical, lulling, and passionate statements.
Casey
Having a career of his own, but having grown up on a farm, and having great knowledge of building and fixing everything, Casey is instrumental in helping Emily take her ideas and make them reality. Casey is our head family vegetable grower, ensuring that we always have delicious and a huge variety of edibles. Casey also grows and maintains the food-based plant material that Fuggles Flowers uses for event work.
