Imagine walking outside at sunrise and seeing forty thousand zinnia blooms in your backyard. Ben Trione, descended from one of the first Italian families to come to Daphne, experiences this spectacular sight every morning from May through November. His ancestors were farmers, and he has the innate ability to grow hundreds of thousands of zinnias and sunflowers, which he generously delivers to 15 different Nursing Homes on the Eastern Shore.

We rode around his property in a golf cart and as he told me his story, I could imagine the glory of seeing rows and rows of vibrant flowers, covered with butterflies in the spring. “ Ten years ago, my Aunt Helen Calloway was in Villa Mercy, (Mercy Medical Home Health) and once a week, I usually took her a jar of flowers. The other residents were jealous, so Aunt Helen said I needed to bring some to them as well. I took 9 bouquets and that's how all this started. I do this for the smiles.” 

He has several different plots with multiple rows on his property and two on his neighbor's land. He plants in March and replants in July, staggering every 5 weeks, so that he will have prolific blooms, 7 months of the year. On Wednesday evenings, from 4 to 6:30 pm, volunteers come to pick and make 250 bouquets, load them in their SUVs or trucks, and then deliver them to the nursing facilities on Thursday mornings.

“I have had 6 retired teachers for the past 2 years help me, but I need more. More locations need bouquets.” He says that he enjoys having school service groups, like key clubs, come get service hours by volunteering at the farm. He has racks that hold pint-sized mason jars that are easily loaded into vehicles for delivery, and sometimes local schools are lucky enough to be the beneficiaries of his bounty.

Ben’s U-Pick Flowers is located just off Highway 54 on River Road in Daphne. The good news is that flower lovers can also go and pick their own bouquets for $5 or get a bucket for $25. If you call ahead, Ben will pick them for you. Ben said,“ I don't make any money on this project; all the proceeds go into buying more seeds, gas for the tractor, fertilizer, and mason jars.” 

He is planning this spring to make wheelchair-accessible rows so that disabled folks can come to pick. He accepts donations from professional photographers who like to bring clients for photo shoots in the fields of sunflowers. Appointments are necessary, of course. 

Ben was born and raised in Daphne and worked at the family store, Trione’s Grocery, until it was sold in 1984. He then opened Ben Trione’s Meat Market on the four-lane (Highway 98) and eventually bought the original store back and relocated the market.

Switching careers in 1998, he was in outside sales until growing flowers became his calling. And what a calling! Three years ago, his son told him he should go on Facebook to tell the community about his flowers. “I'd never even seen Facebook”, he says, “but now the word is out.” 

Plans for the future? Right now, he is preparing the rows to begin planting in March. He needs another golf cart so that people who need help accessing the flowers on foot can ride. Are there any generous donors out there? He needs more volunteers to help maintain the gardens as well as make bouquets and deliver. He has plans to border some of the plots with plants to attract hummingbirds and butterflies and make a sitting area for patrons to enjoy watching them.

An endeavor of love, “Flowers for Smiles” is his mission, and I am so grateful to have learned about his wonderful community outreach. A flower lover myself, it is true that the vibrant yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks of zinnias and the majestic heads of sunflowers, brighten everyone's day. What a happy place to volunteer and spread the love! 

Follow Ben’s U-Pick on Facebook or call 251 709-9101 for more information.