Blue Ridge Country March/April 2023 - 50

'HOW DOES A SEED KNOW IT'S A ZINNIA?'
How Does Her
Garden Grow?
Kati Blalock tends anemones to zinnias at her East Tennessee flower farm.
By NANCY HENDERSON | Photos COURTESY OF KATI BLALOCK
K
ati Blalock was just 4
years old when she
first watched her immigrant
mom stretch
the family's dollars
by tending vegetables
on a small plot at
their church-sponsored home
in Knoxville, Tennessee.
" I vividly recall as a little
girl going out with her early in
the morning, to help her cultivate
and plant and harvest, "
Blalock says. " And it was just
fascinating to me. Throughout
her life, my mother was very
interested in plants and horticulture
and she taught me a lot
of things. "
Ten years ago, Blalock (her
first name is pronounced kahtti,
short for Katalin) turned
that childhood enchantment
into Sevier Blumen, a growing
flower farm in Sevierville whose
name also derives from her
folks' native Hungary. She and
business partner Robin Yeary supply florists,
wedding couples and other wholesale
and retail customers with approximately
100 varieties of seed pods, foliage
and, of course, full-blown blossoms.
A self-described late bloomer when
it comes to entrepreneurship, her voice
reveals not a hint of a European accent
although Hungarian is her first language,
German her second. She didn't speak
English until first grade. Fleeing Hungary
50 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
him she'd like to go into horticulture,
he retorted, " That's a
male-oriented
profession. You
should do something else. "
Heeding his advice, she
earned degrees in political science
and urban and regional
planning and for three decades
worked in solid and hazardous
waste management for the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the
private sector. But the gardening
itch never went away.
By the time she turned 50,
she knew it was time to do something
about her lifelong dream.
So she went back to school to
study plant sciences at UT.
" I remember some of the stuafter
World War II as Soviet Communists
made their way toward the Eastern
Bloc countries, Blalock's parents met in a
refugee camp in Germany and arrived in
Knoxville in 1951. Blalock was born two
months later.
In 1969, a professor for whom her
mom worked on the agricultural campus
at the University of Tennessee, discouraged
Blalock from pursuing her real passion.
When the incoming freshman told
dents asking me, because I was
the grandma and I guess a novelty
for them, 'Are you starting a
business?' And I would say, 'No,
I'm just a little too old for that.' "
Needing someone to help
with landscaping and vegetable
gardening at her home on 90
acres in the foothills of the Great Smoky
Mountains in Sevierville in 2012, Blalock
hired Yeary, who'd recently graduated
with the same credentials. Quickly recognizing
his talents, one day she asked him
about his long-term goals, half-knowing
what his answer would be. " I really would
like to be a grower, " he replied.
Without hesitation, Blalock pointed to
her nearly-vacant property. " Let's do it. "
The name of the farm, like her own,
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country March/April 2023

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