About Do Right Flower Farm

Our Story

Do Right was born in late 2020 when owner, Kelly Brown, decided to take a massive leap after 11 years of gaining knowledge and experience at Blue Heron Farms in Corralitos, California. Kelly saw a growing need for local flowers, especially uncommon cuts for florists. Just as fine dining now features local high quality produce, floral trends were shifting to favor a more natural and garden-inspired aesthetic. This look can only be reached with small-scale locally grown blooms that would be destroyed if shipped from across the globe. Growing for florists and events is a great excuse to indulge in growing unusual flowers and an opportunity to connect to a passionate community of florists and small-scale growers. In the years since, Do Right has expanded to produce for the everyday shopper as well, providing bouquets for select grocery stores and the Berkeley, CA farmers market on Saturdays Spring through Fall.

Besides a deep love for flowers, Do Right was born with a desire to create a farm haven for other queer, trans and femme farmers to work hard outdoors without navigating the usual challenges of those workplace cultures. We want to shift the bottom line from increasing profit at all cost to creating work that is socially and financially supportive.

The Land

Do Right is farming four acres of flowers at the northwestern tip of Santa Cruz County, California, just upstream Waddell Creek from the Pacific Ocean. Do Right’s field is adjacent to Big Basin State Park nestled in what is known as Rancho del Oso on traditional land of the Awaswas people. Surrounded by a forest of redwood, fir, pine, and bay, our valley is habitat for swooping birds of prey, grazing deer, and stumbling newts. Growing organically is a baseline for protecting the health of our surrounding flora, fauna and waters as well as our precious workers and customers.

Do Right also strives to be good stewards to the land by contributing to the Amuh Mutsun Land Trust  so that they can continue their vital work of conservation and restoration through traditional knowledge. Check out native-land.ca to learn about the land you are on and donate.

Photo by Jay Melena

Kelly Brown

For Kelly Brown (they/them), plant connection is a method for coming home into their body and feeling a part of the magic among us. As a kid, Kelly was magnetically drawn to plants in their mother’s garden in Saratoga, California, pruning roses and cutting posies for the house. There was nothing more stimulating than being a small person in the fragrant overflowing flower shop with their step mom in Palo Alto. The seed was planted, waiting to take root.

At UC Santa Cruz, Kelly was immersed in learning and organizing around the intersections of race, gender and class, focusing on the rights of sex workers, LGBTIQ folks, and access to harm reduction services. Anti-capitalist sentiment and a boy connected them to the Bike Church, a Santa Cruz cooperative bike shop. There Kelly learned to build their own bikes, started working as a bike messenger for the neighboring co-op and met friends with whom to explore the vast mountain roads and trails of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

They were stoked but broke and picked up a side job selling flowers at the farmers market for Blue Heron Farms. These flowers were unlike anything Kelly had seen outside of an actual garden and their childhood intrigue with plants was re-sparked, leading Kelly to the farm. Learning about growing, arranging and selling flowers and gaining connection to the community of professional farmworkers, chefs, florists and visionaries in its network, made Blue Heron a rich and life changing environment. Owner, Dennis Tamura, taught Kelly many things but perhaps most importantly that 1. The garden is a great teacher, 2. When all else fails, laugh, 3. Persistent noticing is the best tool of all, and 4. Dream big. Do Right is an experimental culmination of all of this, an attempt to truly come home.

Photo by Justine Grajski

  • Photo by Anne Martinete

  • Photo by Justine Grajski

  • Photo by Justine Grajski

  • Photo by Anne Martinete

  • Photo by Justine Grajski

  • Photo by Jay Melena

  • Photo by Jay Melena

  • Photo by Jay Melena

  • Photo by Jay Melena

  • Photo by Jay Melena

  • Photo by Jay Melena