Growing business, a family affair for one Battle Creek family

Attracting more bees to produce honey has become the Lapp family’s prosperous U-Peak flower enterprise.

“We have honeybees,” said Mike Lapp, an engineer with Parker Engineering. “In an effort to produce more honey, we planted a lot of wildflowers.[Rebecca]stopped on the side of the road and started selling hugs one time and word just spread.

In addition to a quarter acre of lush flower beds on the 9 1/2 mile road to the left of their home, 1 1/2 acres in the back of their property grow pumpkins and cabbages, which they will begin selling on September 18. The planting, cutting, pruning and harvesting is done by Rebecca Laupp, a third grade teacher at Penfield Elementary School. She gets a lot of help from her daughter Ella, son Zach and husband Mike.

Name of their business- ZEMR Family Farms It contains the first origin of each family member.

Rebecca Lapp looks at the zinnias among the variety of flowers in the U-Peak Flower Garden.“It started with a row of wildflowers,” says Rebecca Laupp.

“She said she never bought flowers,” husband Mike says with a smile.

“So it made me their turf,” Rebecca Laupp says with a smile.

This happened four years ago. There are now more than a million flowers, including 500 zinnias that the family hand-picked and vases hanging from a wooden stand near the entrance to their property. People have the option of buying pre-cut bunches or cutting their own flowers for 50 cents per stem.

Two hours a day are devoted to the care of the flowers, which includes the removal of dead heads and weeds. On Thursday, flowers are picked and made into bouquets for those who don’t want to pick their own.

Ella Laup on a bike, with her mom and dad, Rebecca and Mike, right, and her brother Zach, front and center. The bike was added to their garden as a photo opportunity for visitors.“We have regular customers who expect bouquets,” says Rebecca Laupp. “I always make sure I have nine, and I make sure we start with nine again on Saturday. Sunday is usually slow. This is our fourth year and it’s going up every year. We went from one room for bees. Then we did four or five rows. Now we have 28 rooms in the U-pick area and We have 14 rows, each row has different flowers.

Cosmos, zinnias, blue Chinese forget-me-nots, yarrow, echinacea, and snapper pads are among the flowering species. Recently, she has added blast grass to the mix. Their tops are so small that they look like patterns made of fireworks.

“We weren’t sure what the blast grass would look like,” she says. “It was very trying.”

In addition to the grasses used in the previously prepared bouquets, 2,000 tulips were planted last growing season. Mike Lapp said he and his family can’t wait for them to bloom. They finally made it in time for Mother’s Day. The family spends most of that day selling tulips.

“We had tulips growing and coming out and they weren’t blooming,” he said. “You only have a small window to sell and they finally opened in time for Mother’s Day.”

It is more than flowers

On a recent Saturday, the family held a pollination event designed to encourage people to plant seeds that will grow into flowers that attract monarch butterflies. Endangered species.

Ella Laup, standing among flowers at her family’s u-pick flower farm.Those who attended the event were given a free packet of seeds with a $5 purchase.

The Loops hosted residents of local assisted living facilities, allowing them to come out to enjoy and pick the flowers.

Their biggest annual event is a display of pumpkins and gourds that people pick and buy. Ella, a seventh grader at Harper Creek Middle School, uses her artistic skills to paint pumpkins with different designs. She sells them for $5, $10 or $15, depending on the size of the pumpkin.

The designs on her pumpkins and gourds include the logos of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, the Detroit Lions and Halloween-themed paintings. Many of the sports-themed pumpkins are on display at the Copper Athletic Club in Marshall, one of her grandmother’s favorite hangouts.

“Her grandmother’s friends all cheer for different teams and when (MSU) brings pumpkins, they all say they have to represent their team and she ends up with all these orders,” Rebecca Laupp said.

A set of pumpkins decorated with ellipse. She sells them in the fall at her family’s U-Pick flower farm. In addition to flowers, the family also grows pumpkins and squash to sell in the fall.Ella also decorates mason jars that are used as vases for sale at the family farm. And every year, she makes a T-shirt with a new logo for the farm for a private family gathering before the pumpkin and gourd sale. The sale starts in September and ends in October.

“I wanted to do something to help out here,” Ella says of her work for the farm.

Zach, 10, who also attends Harper Creek Middle School, took responsibility for planting watermelons this year. “That was his summer project,” Rebecca said.

As the farm grows and improves, Rebecca says she wants to make it a full-time business. She and her husband encourage people to come out and take pictures among the flowers and other plants. Inside the vases, people found two chairs and a bicycle that people could use as props.

“I’ve always loved flowers,” says Rebecca Lapp. “They make me very happy and I want to share this with others.”
Rebecca Laupp shows an example of blast grass growing in her family’s U-Peak gardens.