Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

Austin Graf always imagined that he would have his own flower shop in the next five to 10 years, but when he heard that The Mossy Pot’s previous owner was moving on to a new opportunity, he decided to take that step earlier than expected.

“I don’t think there’s ever the right time,” he explained. “If anything, I felt like it was the absolute worst time, but I heard Logan (Stuteville) was going to close and I was like ‘No, we can’t do that,’ so I just jumped in and here we are.”

Graf didn’t want to see the Manchester community lose another, as he describes it, “really fun, great funky shop.” His love for house plants and flowers and how they add to the community motivated him to take the reins at The Mossy Pot.

While many people develop an enjoyment for flowers through family members like mothers and grandmothers, Graf’s involvement in the flower business stems from a gardening hobby that he found on his own.

“I actually planted a packet of zinnias and then a bunch of sugar beets because I had some grand idea that I was going to be a sugar beet farmer,” he recalled. “That’s not a thing. It is a thing, but you do that on a huge commercial scale. So the flowers worked but the sugar beets all died, and so I kind of realized that I can grow some flowers and then over time I really learned to appreciate them.”

Graf describes his relationship with flowers as a “slow burn,” but he eventually began to take notice of the varying occasions that they fit into.

“Happy or sad, they’re always with us, and I kind of feel like they’re an exclamation point for everyday life,” he said. “You can have a great occasion without flowers, or you can have a horrible occasion without flowers, but regardless, it’s just a little better if you have flowers.”

That appreciation for flowers led him to start Buzzed Blooms, a local flower farm that actually supplied cut flowers to The Mossy Pot before he took it over. A health crisis led to the closure of Buzzed Blooms, but Graf says he hopes to revive and expand it.

“We are growing a small percentage of our flowers and sourcing a percentage of our flowers locally,” he explained. “The goal is to expand it and have our farm funnel into the shop, so we’ll have that creative sort of funky feel that you don’t see in a traditional florist all the time.”

Running The Mossy Pot has also given Graf the opportunity to rehire a worker from Buzzed Blooms who was laid off when the farm closed and now helps him at the shop.

“It’s really, really great to be able to bring her back,” he noted.

Graf has gotten the opportunity to meet a lot of The Mossy Pot’s regular customers and make connections with them.

“They’re all sad to see Logan go, but Logan was really careful in her selection of who took it over to make sure that we could service her customers the way she liked them to be,” he said. “I’ve met quite a few awesome people, some of which are like ‘I didn’t think we were going to like you, but now we do like you,’ so it’s been going pretty good. I think everyone is just happy to see it stay. No one wants to see businesses in Manchester close up.”

Graf was born and raised in Manchester, and while he’s done a lot of travelling, moved away and came back, he says it’s hard to find nicer people or a similar feel to what his hometown has to offer.

“You think that everywhere is going to be better or more exciting, and there are some real exciting, beautiful, wonderful places out there, but at the end of the day, Manchester has just a warm hometown feel that is kind of hard to replicate anywhere else,” he explained. “I love when people come in and they immediately know who I am. They know my name, they know my momma, and they’re excited to support each other, and I think that’s why I’m here and why I stay here.”

Graf says he is planning on having a grand reopening for The Mossy Pot some time in September.

Over time, the shop is going to start adding various workshops where people can learn how to properly take care of plants and also make crafts like wreaths and succulent pumpkins, which are designed pumpkins that have succulents growing on top of them.

While Graf assures that The Mossy Pot will continue to be able to accommodate all of the big flower occasions like birthdays, holidays and funerals, he wants to put an emphasis on making people feel welcome and that The Mossy Pot is a place they can come and shop.

“We’re really trying to build out more of the gifty items and also build out the workshops so people can come and be here and feel like they’re part of something,” he noted. “That’s really important to me because it’s hard sometimes, especially if you’re new in town, to make friends, so I want this place to be a place that connects people.”