Joan Ewer Thorndike and Le Mera Gardens

Joan has been farming fresh cut flowers in Southern Oregon's Rogue River Valley since the early 1990s. She was born and raised in Santiago, Chile where flowers come in huge bundles, small posies, and fresh abundance.  In 1992, after a short year on a family garden, she moved her flower growing business to a beautiful field along the banks of the Bear Creek on the outskirts of Ashland. In 2001 Le Mera Gardens and Fry Family Farms joined their worlds of flower farming, and have settled into growing and harvesting an ever expanding array of specialty cut flowers from certified organic fields.

Joan credits her "formal" education in commercial flower growing to the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, its research publications, regional and national conferences, and to the writings of author and professor of horticulture Dr. Allan M. Armitage (Specialty Cut Flowers).  Le Mera Gardens is a charter member of Thrive (home of the Rogue Flavor Trademark), and is an online member of Local Harvest.

Joan's two daughters, Camila and Isabella, spent their childhood summers seeking shade from 90-100ºF weather on the flower farm.  Her husband Dan has been known to moonlight carrying flats of plants, and to provide Le Mera Gardens with many an odd shaped metal structure generously built by Medford Fabrication, his family's metal fabrication business.

Here is what we'd also like you to know about Le Mera Gardens...

Our fields, season extending hoop houses, and propagation greenhouses are located in Talent, Phoenix and northwest Medford. All are managed and cultivated under Oregon Tilth certified organic farming practices. We employ dozens of women and men who live in our immediate communities and who seed, transplant, cultivate and harvest our flowers year after year.  Our farms produce an ever expanding array of annual and perennial specialty cut flowers, foliage, grasses, berries, and shrub and tree branches. (See Our Picking Schedule Archive)

Le Mera Gardens is grateful for the loyal patronage of its Rogue Valley customers, most especially of its area florists, whose purchasing practices allow us to manage, preserve and protect our Valley's beautiful agricultural lands.