Beyond the Blooms: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Serenity Hill Flower Farm

1. It all began with 10 acres and a dream. 🌱🌸

We purchased our 10-acre farm in 2023, and what an adventure it has been! Little by little, we’ve been transforming the property into the flower-filled place you see today—with cutting gardens, animals, berries, an orchard, native plantings and, of course, plenty of projects still in the works.

After several years of dreaming, planning, planting and LOTS of learning - we finally opened the gates of Serenity Hill Flower Farm to the public in July 2026.

Photo: Our new roadside sign to welcome our guests..

Our Grand Opening welcomed about 125 people to wander the flower fields, meet our growing menagerie of animals and experience Serenity Hill for the very first time. Seeing so many people enjoying this place we’ve poured our hearts into creating was a moment we won’t soon forget.

And the best part? We’re really just getting started.

There are more flowers to grow, more gardens to create, more experiences to share and plenty of new ideas already taking root. We hope you’ll visit often and grow right along with us.

2. Come for the flowers…meet our feathered farm family! 🐓

The flowers may get top billing at Serenity Hill, but our chickens, ducks and turkeys have developed quite a fan club of their own!

Silly Chickens: We currently have 36 chickens, including six teenage pullets. Pullets are young female chickens that haven’t yet reached full maturity or started laying eggs. Our free-range hens provide us with the prettiest rainbow-colored eggs and are always happy to have visitors stop by and say hello.

Photo: One of our new (and very silly!) white Polish pullet chickens.

Adorable Ducks: Then there are the ducks! Our three grown-ups include Puddles, our handsome male Pekin, and two female Muscovies, Daisy Duck and Quacksley. They’ve recently been joined by three little girls—a Cayuga, Rouen and Saxony—who are only about four weeks old and still need names! We’re taking suggestions.

Personality-Plus Turkeys: And finally, we have nine young turkeys growing up on the farm. They’re curious, entertaining and getting bigger by the day.

We’re raising them for Thanksgiving, so if you’re interested in a locally raised turkey for your holiday table, talk to Jayne.

When you visit, be sure to leave a little time to meet our feathered residents. They’re part of what makes a visit to Serenity Hill feel like a true trip to the farm.

3. Thousands of Flowers Pass Through Our Victorian Greenhouse. 🌱

One of the prettiest and hardest-working places at Serenity Hill is our Victorian-style glass greenhouse. But many of the flowers you see in our fields actually begin their lives somewhere else entirely.

Each season, thousands of tiny seeds are started in the grow room in Jayne’s studio, where we can carefully control the warmth, light and moisture they need to germinate.

Once those tiny seedlings are strong enough, they “graduate” to the greenhouse. There, they have more room to grow and begin adjusting to natural sunlight and cooler temperatures while we wait for unpredictable Illinois weather to decide that spring has actually arrived.

Photo: Jayne working in her greenhouse. (Photo by Justin Bennett)

Finally, when the soil is warm enough, they make one last journey—to their permanent homes in the flower fields.

So when you’re walking among towering flowers in July and August, remember: many of them started months earlier as one tiny seed in a little grow room in Jayne’s studio.

4. You don’t need to know a thing about flowers to come to a U-Pick Event! ✂️🌸

Never picked flowers before? Perfect. You don’t need to know a zinnia from a dahlia to have a wonderful time at Serenity Hill.

When you arrive, we’ll give you a basket and snips and show you exactly what to do, how to recognize a bloom that’s ready to cut, where to snip the stem and a few simple tricks for creating a beautiful bouquet.

Photo: Our beautiful sunflowers are showing off in the field.

Then the fun begins. Wander the rows, follow the colors that catch your eye and pick the flowers that make you happy. There are no bouquet rules here. In fact, some of the prettiest arrangements are created by people who simply choose what they love.

And if you need a little help along the way, just find Jayne. She’s always happy to identify a flower, offer a suggestion or help you choose that one last stem your bouquet needs.

Come for the flowers, stay for the peacefulness of the farm—and leave carrying a bouquet you picked yourself. No flower experience required.

5. Our bouquet workshops begin in the flower field. 💐

Our workshops are about much more than arranging flowers. They’re a chance to experience the entire journey from field to finished bouquet.

We begin by learning about the different roles flowers play in a beautiful arrangement from show-stopping focal flowers to supporting blooms, delicate accents and foliage.

Then we grab our snips and head to the flower fields!

Photo: Some of our favorite Queenie Zinnias.

You’ll wander the rows choosing the blooms that speak to you. Maybe it’s a perfectly ruffled dahlia, an unusual Queenie-series zinnia or a flower you’ve never seen before. Your bouquet becomes uniquely yours from the very beginning.

Once our baskets are filled, we head back to our cozy Flower Cottage, where Jayne teaches you how to turn those freshly picked stems into a beautiful hand-tied, wrapped bouquet to take home.

And because gathering around flowers is even lovelier with something delicious, we enjoy refreshments prepared by Jayne along the way.

A little learning, a walk through the flower fields, something delicious and a gorgeous bouquet you created yourself—that’s a Serenity Hill workshop.

6. We can grow the flowers and you can create the DIY magic.

Love arranging flowers yourself? Our DIY Flower Buckets are perfect for weddings, showers, dinner parties and other special celebrations.

Simply tell us what you’re planning, the colors you love and the overall look you have in mind. We’ll select the best seasonal flowers and foliage growing on the farm, then harvest, clean and properly condition every stem for you.

Photo: Flowers harvested from the field.

When you pick up your buckets, the hard work is already done. Your flowers are fresh, hydrated and ready to arrange—so you can get right to the fun part: creating!

Use them for centerpieces, bud vases, bouquets or whatever your celebration calls for. You get the beauty and charm of locally grown farm flowers with the satisfaction of saying, “I made these!”

7. We love helping you celebrate life’s sweetest moments. 🌸🥂

Flowers and celebrations just belong together. Serenity Hill hosts bridal showers, baby showers and flower-filled activities for bachelorette parties right here on the farm.

Bring your favorite people, wander through the fields together, choose your flowers and create beautiful bouquets while celebrating someone you love. It’s relaxed, creative and a little different from the usual party—and everyone gets to take home something beautiful.

Photo: A bachelorette party beautiful creations in our darling flower cottage.

Prefer to celebrate somewhere else? We can bring the flowers to you! Our Bloom Bar can be prepared and delivered to your venue with a gorgeous selection of fresh, seasonal flowers for your guests to create their own arrangements.

Whether you’re celebrating a bride-to-be, welcoming a new baby or simply gathering your favorite people together, we’d love to help you make it bloom.

8. Flowers aren’t the only things we grow! 🫐🥚

Serenity Hill may be a flower farm, but there’s plenty growing—and laying!—beyond the flower fields.

Around the farm, you’ll find blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, along with our developing orchard. We love the idea of Serenity Hill being filled with beautiful things you can cut and delicious things you can eat.

And then there are the eggs!

Photo: Our rainbow eggs layed by our happy organically-fed free-range chickens..

Our organically fed, free-range hens give us a wonderful assortment of rainbow-colored eggs—shades of brown, cream, pink blue and green that almost seem too pretty to crack. Pick up a dozen to take home when they’re available.

For something a little different, we have fresh duck eggs, too. They’re larger and richer than chicken eggs and especially prized for baking.

So you may arrive at Serenity Hill for flowers and leave with a bouquet in one hand and farm-fresh eggs in the other.Sounds pretty perfect to us!

9. Our flowers aren’t just pretty. They’re grown with purpose.

We want Serenity Hill to be as welcoming to bees, butterflies, birds and beneficial insects as it is to people. 🐝🦋

Photo: Oh the lovely butterflies and pollinators you’ll see!

That means thinking beyond what looks beautiful in a bouquet. We’re continually adding native plants and pollinator-friendly areas while looking for ways to create a healthier, more diverse ecosystem across our 10 acres.

For us, growing beautiful flowers and caring for the land go hand in hand. We’re always learning, experimenting and looking for ways to work with nature rather than against it.

Because a flower farm should be buzzing with life in more ways than one.

10. The biggest surprise? Serenity Hill is about much more than flowers. ❤️

This may be our favorite thing people don’t realize until they visit.

Yes, we grow flowers—but what we’re really growing is connection.

Photo: Longtime friends meeting up at our Grand Opening Event.

It’s watching someone wander the flower field to choose just one more stem.

It’s friends laughing over their bouquets at a workshop.

It’s a bride celebrating with her closest friends.

It’s a child discovering Puddles, Daisy Duck and Quacksley ducks for the first time.

It’s someone arriving at the farm after a busy week and realizing they’ve slowed down without even trying.

And it’s meeting people who arrive as visitors and leave feeling a little more connected to this beautiful place. That’s the part of flower farming we never expected and perhaps the part we love most.

So the next time you visit Serenity Hill Flower Farm, linger a little longer. Say hello to the ducks. Check on the teenage pullets. Wander through the zinnias. Admire a dahlia you’ve never seen before. Take a deep breath and enjoy being surrounded by things that are growing.

There is always something blooming, growing, waddling or getting into a little mischief at Serenity Hill.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way. 🌸