Robyn Chubey at Prairie Glow Acres growing cut flowers.
In spring, this charming greenhouse is filled with flower and vegetable seedlings.
Robyn Chubey sets the stage in her greenhouse for brand photography.
Raised beds from SproutBox Garden frame this flower-filled seating area.
Prairie Glow Acres, a five-acre farm on the outskirts of Winnipeg, provides the creative backdrop for Robyn Chubey’s home and garden photography. The captivating visuals that she shares on her popular Instagram account depict dreamy, flower-filled spaces and a bountiful, family-centred lifestyle that inspires her followers. Chubey’s photography skills and gardening expertise combined with her talents for designing beautiful rooms, indoors and outdoors, are also setting the stage for marketing collaborations with brands.
Chubey loves inspiring people about the art of gardening. She thrives on all the opportunities that the garden offers — from cultivating beauty through all the flowers she grows and seasonal vignettes she designs to growing and harvesting healthy food for her family. She starts hundreds of plants from seed, sells flower bouquet subscriptions, hosts workshops, offers family photography sessions in amazing settings, and styles product shoots. She’s just getting started.
Prairie Glow Acres offers a lifestyle that many people aspire to. It’s not about the size of the property. It’s the feeling one gets at the sight of a large tree with a garden swing overlooking an expanse of lawn with rows and rows of brightly coloured flowers and vine-covered trellises beyond. Dappled light, pathways, the sound of leaves or crushed pea gravel underfoot, raised wooden beds brimming with ripening veggies, a white greenhouse with windows, a quaint potting shed and a children’s treehouse — this is the calming atmosphere and relaxed ambience that we all desire.
“A lot of the lifestyle imagery I shoot is about creating a feeling around a particular scene — cosy, eclectic, that going-to-your-granny’s-cottage kind of feeling,” says Chubey. And it is why brands have come calling.
Chubey and her husband Dan, built several wooden raised beds which are planted with veggies and companion plants that deter garden pests. But next to an area planted with an abundance of cutting flowers are metal beds that were provided by SproutBox Garden, a Canadian company. “The beds are made of Aluzinc Steel and have stainless steel hardware,” says Chubey. “They are easy to assemble, and lightweight.” Chubey and her husband, Dan, have arranged the metal beds in a half-circle and created a beautiful seating area.
In early June, Chubey’s greenhouse arrived from Horizon Storage Sheds. Sunlight pours into the white painted interior through the gable roof and windows along three sides. The greenhouse exterior has white wood siding and a centre entranceway. Chubey installed flower beds around the greenhouse and installed an adjacent checkerboard patio with giant chess pieces and benches for seating. Van der Meer Garden Centre, which opened a garden centre at a new location in Ile des Chenes this year, reached out to Chubey and provided all the plants for the new beds around her greenhouse. Chubey shared information about Van der Meer’s grand opening on her social media. Influencer marketing enables businesses to collaborate with an online influencer for increased exposure of their product. “It has been a really great partnership and now Lori Van der Meer, who specializes in David Austin roses, is helping me to grow my roses for the first time,” says Chubey.
Every January and February, Chubey starts flower and vegetable seeds indoors in mini greenhouses with shelves and grow lights. Now she will be able to move the seedlings into her new greenhouse by late March. Once outdoor temperatures warm up enough to transplant seedlings into her garden, the greenhouse space will become a staging area for photo shoots such as the one she recently did for Ruggable, a company that makes machine-washable area rugs. Starting in September, the greenhouse will serve as a workshop hosting area where Chubey will offer workshops on a range of topics such as seed saving, wreath-making, companion planting, and more. Groups of four to up to a dozen people will be able to choose a topic and book a date.
Chubey loves to grow pumpkins and this year she is growing 75 pumpkins, including mini pumpkins. Some of her favourite varieties include Baby Boo, Porcelain Doll, Blue Jarrahdale, and Jack O’Lantern. Once the pumpkins are ready to harvest, she plans to decorate the inside of her greenhouse with pumpkins and sunflowers which she also grows. Fall décor with pumpkins and corn tassels will dress up her front entrance as well.
Chubey is busy harvesting tomatoes and peppers from her garden. Her children, ages 9 and 11, assist with weeding and harvesting. Many of the vegetables she grows are featured in her photography — richly coloured varieties such as Feher Ozon paprika pepper, spicy Biquinho Red pepper, Italian long hot peppers, jalapenos, and long Italian cayenne peppers. She enjoys experimenting with different types of tomatoes but would never be without San Marzano plum tomato that is perfect for making sauces. Her favourite slicing tomato is Black Prince, an heirloom variety. She also grows Pink Brandywine tomato. Chubey has created an entire series of imaginative photos of her children together with rainbows of pumpkins or peppers, tomatoes, beets, carrots, garlic, or sunflowers. “The kids are growing so those rainbows are getting bigger and bigger,” she says.
Chubey plans to expand her pumpkin patch and is incorporating mushroom compost to prepare the soil for planting next year. She enjoys cooking and baking with all the fresh produce that she grows. But she uses flowers to decorate her photography sessions and has already ordered her seeds for next year. She is looking forward to growing Pearly Everlasting, Echinacea White Swan coneflower, Star scabiosa, rattle poppies, and Blush Corn Cockle. Chubey grows an entire bed of Ammi False Queen Anne’s Lace and zinnias, of course, are a staple.
Chubey plans to harvest and save seeds this fall so that she can begin offering her followers and garden visitors a curated selection of seed mixes. “I might offer an essential flower mix with five different types of flower seeds.” Garden tours are a possibility, as well. In July, Prairie Glow Acres was featured on the Manitoba Master Gardener Association’s annual garden tour.
Chubey and her husband purchased their property in November 2018. They have developed two acres of the five-acre property and plan to focus now on planting more trees, and refining details such as completing a firepit seating area. Chubey likes to design interiors and outdoor garden rooms that are filled with inspiration and creative ideas for everyone. “Anything can be incorporated on a smaller scale,” she says.
It’s not surprising to learn that Martha Stewart, a popular influencer known for her lifestyle brand, is someone that Chubey admires. “The thing that I love most about Martha Stewart,” says Chubey, “is that she does everything with a connection to people. She liked baking and cooking, but she loved to do it for other people and started catering. She has beautiful gardens and opens them for tours. And it doesn’t matter what she is doing, she likes to help other people. I just really love that with all Martha Stewart’s talents, a huge reason why she loves doing what she does is that she loves to share all those things and teach others how to do them.” Chubey does, too. To learn more, visit www.prairieglowacres.com.
colleenizacharias@gmail.com
Photo credit: Life of Glow Photography
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