About Magwyer Herring and River's Garden Co. — flower farm in Howden, Manitoba
About — Howden, MB
A garden of bones & blooms
Run by Magwyer Herring on a small patch of southeastern Manitoba, where the summers are short and the flowers know it.
The short version
Year one was the kitchen table. Year two is the truck.
River's Garden Co. started the way most good prairie things start — as a stubborn idea on a winter afternoon. Magwyer Herring had been gardening for years, mostly vegetables, mostly disappointingly, mostly losing them to the deer. One February she ordered cosmos seed instead of squash.
That first summer there were enough blooms for the kitchen table, then enough for the neighbours, then for friends and family. When the rows got ahead of her, she started selling bouquets online. People kept asking when she'd open the garden for picking, so by September she'd quietly opened up a few U-Pick afternoons. This year, she's leaning in.
The flower truck arrived this season — an old pickup that idles patiently while strangers pick stems from the buckets in the back. Regular pumpkins and pie pumpkins have always been part of the patch. Last year was the first time she added specialties — Cinderellas the colour of sunset, knobby Knuckleheads, slate-blue Jarrahdales. This autumn the patch will see somewhere around 4,000 pumpkins.
The garden grows on Manitoba's terms. Zone 3, late frost, short windows, big skies. We don't pretend otherwise.
The Flower Truck
Off the family farm. Three hundred horses, one Magwyer at the wheel.
The truck is a family piece — pulled off the family farm and given a second life this winter. Magwyer's partner led the rebuild with a small team of friends and family, working long evenings in the shop with more patience than instructions.
A 1958 Chevrolet Apache sitting on a 1975 Camaro front clip. A 1999 Vortec 5.3 under the hood, mated to a 4L60E. Three hundred horses — enough to move a lot of bouquets. Painted Tartan Turquoise and Bombay White, because a flower truck ought to look like one.
“The thing about a short summer is that you stop wasting time on flowers you don't love.”
— Magwyer
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