Amanda Arens and Kim Flake are very passionate about flowers.

So the sisters-in-law from Montgomery City teamed up to start a privately-owned family business called the Flower Outpost, which will sell many types of flowers. Arens and Flake decided to start their business last fall.

“Kim has done a tremendous amount of work,” Arens said. “She took a class online. We both read books. We did a lot of reading and listening to how we can figure out the process. In the fall of last year, we decided that we wanted to make this happen by purchasing materials.”

Flake said she is excited that she and Arens will be sharing their love of flowers to Montgomery County residents.

“I think what we’re going to offer is a fresh flower,” Flake said. “That is the big thing. When you get a fresh flower, it is going to have a longer vase life. It is just the beauty of it. It makes people happy. That’s something that we just want to share with the people in Montgomery County.”

Currently, Arens and Flake are planting cool hardy flowers. There is a stand of cool hardy flowers in the back of Flake’s residence.

“If everything works out according to the way we have it mapped out on the calendar, we should have a few things blooming by the end of April,” Arens said. “Throughout May, we’ll start to get more and more cool hardy flowers. By then, we will have a lot of things in the garden. By June and July, we will have way more blooms than in the spring.”

Flake said cool hardy flowers can survive under cold weather.

“They can go down to 30 degrees,” she said. “If you cover them, they can go below freezing. They will be our first group to come out. Then, we will get into a lot of the summer flowers.”

Arens said she and Flake will be sharing more information about the business on its Facebook and Instagram pages.

“Our hesitation is we do not want to over promise before we actually have things blooming,” Arens said. “Now that we have things growing, we will be a little more confident. But we want to start sharing soon.”

Flake’s daughter came up with the name of the new business.

“She also did some work to search to make sure that it wasn’t a name that was being used by someone else, especially close by,” Arens said. “So we wanted to make sure that we were not overlapping with someone else that had a similar name.”

Flake, a retired teacher, said planting flowers has been one of her biggest hobbies for most of her life.

“When I went to Mizzou, my two choices for a career were education or horticulture,” Flake said. “My draw to helping children was a little bit stronger back then, so it led me into education. Now, I get a second chance with my second love, which is growing flowers.”

Arens said she and her husband, Jeff, have flowers outside of their home.

“It brings both of us enjoyment,” Arens said. “We both love being outside with the flowers.”

Karen Knowles, a Montgomery County resident, said she is impressed with the work Arens and Flake have done with their business.
“They are hard at work planting various flower seeds with the hope of selling bouquets from what they produce,” Knowles said. “It is a lot of fun for me to see the photos, monitor their progress and appreciate the science and hard work of producing beautiful flowers.”
For more information about the Flower Outpost, contact Flake (573-544-4267) or Arens (314-780-1316) or email thefloweroutpost@gmail.com.