By Trish McClellan
The saying goes, “Bloom where you are planted,” and that is exactly what Melissa Blankenship, owner of Blankenship Blooms, has done.
Melissa, a former schoolteacher, has turned a hobby into a beautiful business. Located just outside of town on Holder-Sanders Road, her property is where the magic begins.
Her home, tucked back among the trees, is surrounded by a variety of flowering rose bushes and what might appear at first glance to be wildflowers.
In reality, the colorful flowers are carefully grown from seeds that are thoughtfully planted and nurtured. She explained what she grows are not truly wildflowers, but rather flowers that are not native to this area.
She shared, “True wildflowers, grow without any human help. They naturally adapt to their environment.” Flowers cultivated from seeds, however, allow for control of both the species and placement.
Melissa said “Gardening has always been a hobby and a way to unwind. No matter where we have lived I was always planting something.”
Her garden areas are filled with zinnias, poppies, sunflowers, larkspur, snapdragons, and ranunculus. The property includes 18 eighty-square-foot beds facing Hwy 23, where passersby can see the colorful heads of each variety bobbing in the breeze.
She hopes to eventually have that entire stretch of land covered in flowers.
The idea for the business blossomed when her daughter-in-law, Ashley, was preparing for her wedding.
She and her bridesmaids visited a you-pick flower field to gather flowers for their bouquets.
Soon after, Melissa and Ashley partnered to create Blankenship Blooms Melissa tends the flowers, while Ashley manages the social media side of the business.
Together, they harvest the flowers and design the bouquets. She has a small room off her kitchen filled with bundles of flowers hung from a rope stretched from wall to wall with bouquets of flowers in various stages of drying.
She shared, “There is no waste, we use them to make dried arrangements and wreaths.”
Each week, Melissa arranges fresh bouquets and delivers them to Treasures on Second located in downtown Cochran.
Customers can stop in and purchase bouquets of the locally grown flowers.
Orders can also be placed online at Blankenship Blooms. The website offers a variety of packages, from monthly subscriptions to flowers for special occasions to buckets of flowers for your DIY projects.
Customers are even welcome to visit the property and pick their own blooms, creating a hands-on experience that connects them directly to the beauty growing just outside town.
What began as seeds planted in the soil has grown into something much more than rows of flowers.
It has become a place where creativity, hard work, and patience bloom side by side.
With every stem cut and every bouquet arranged, Melissa Blankenship continues to prove that when you nurture what you love, beauty has a way of flourishing—and sometimes, it spreads joy far beyond the garden gate.
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