RANGELEY — Thirty-five years ago, Priscilla St. Louis began setting out bouquets of flowers at a roadside stand using a flowerpot as a cashbox. Before long, business began to blossom at Sunrise View Farm, paving the way for a transformation from an honor-system flower stand to full-service organic garden center.

Priscilla and her husband, Brian, own and operate Sunrise View Farm at 2963 Main St. in Rangeley. They have witnessed many changes as their business grew and became deeply rooted in the community.

During the early years, Priscilla taught at Rangeley Lakes Regional School and Brian was the manager at Saddleback. Summers gave them the opportunity to work in the extensive gardens they created on their hilltop property.

“It looked like Saddleback was getting to be a little shaky,” Brian said. “We had kids going into college and we needed things to be a little less shaky, or at least under our own control and under not someone else’s. In the five years or so leading up to that point, we had people visit our gardens and ask if we could do that same at their house.”

They began offering garden design services on a part-time basis in the summer.

As expected, Brian was laid off. Rather than take unemployment, he focused on the business – building nurseries and expanding design and landscape offerings.

“It grew from there,” he said. “We started carrying stone and plants. I put in gardens and stonework for people. We put a lot of gardens in around the area.”

Priscilla admitted there were challenges as business grew.

“When I was at school there was usually an employee here. We had days when someone couldn’t be here and Brian would be off landscaping. I would leave flowers and a note with instructions for anyone who needed to take anything.”

The couple has donated their services and products to many community projects over the years, including providing the town with its Giving Tree, located adjacent to Rangeley Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce.

Priscilla retired from teaching in 2015. A few years later, Brian retired from landscaping. The day-to-day operation of the garden center keeps them busier than ever.

The storefront and workshop was originally located in an old camp that had been moved to the property. Today, Sunrise View Farm has a dedicated building used as a gift shop and workspace. The lush greenery of a variety of houseplants overflows from an attached sunroom.

Creative workshops are held throughout the year, Priscilla said. The full-day classes include basket weaving, building fairy houses and arranging flowers. Summer workshops will be announced in early June, she added.

“We once did a wedding workshop where the grandparents and grandchildren made fairy houses. Everyone came up the week before the wedding and it was a fun activity for them. They had a great time and they used the fairy houses as centerpieces for the wedding,” she explained.

Priscilla said creative skills are not needed to take part in the workshops.

“Children and their parents take workshops together. I tell people that if a 9- or 10-year-old can make a basket, so can you,” she added.

In the summer, Sunrise View Farm sells vegetable, herb and flower seedlings, perennials, and fruit and ornamental shrubs and saplings. Seasonally, mums, pumpkins, and Christmas trees and wreaths are available.

“We don’t sell anything that won’t grow in this zone,” Priscilla noted.

In addition to plants and gardening tools, they sell mulch, loam, garden soil mix, fertilizers and compost.

“Over half the compost we sell, we make here,” Brian said.

They have long-standing relationships with Living Acres and North Country Organics, and sell those products exclusively.

“We don’t deal with synthetic fertilizers,” Priscilla said. “We tell people that if they are living down on the lake, they should be using organic fertilizer. You don’t want the phosphorus running into the lake.”

Sunrise View Farm specializes in floral services for weddings and special occasions. Priscilla estimates they have worked 350 weddings over the years, offering bouquets, arrangements and decor. She clarified that Sunrise View Farm was not a wedding venue.

They are both Master Gardeners and agreed they enjoy the time spent with customers diagnosing soil and garden issues. Investing in soil is key to having healthy plants, Brian said.

Even after 35 years in business, Priscilla is amazed that first-time visitors will comment they did not know the business existed.

“As the saying goes, sometimes there are diamonds in your own backyard and you don’t even know it,” she added.

Sunrise View Farm is open Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. For more information, visit sunriseviewfarm.net, call 864-2117 or visit the Sunrise View Farm Facebook page.