How It All Started
My grandmother, Eleanor, kept a garden that was honestly ridiculous. She had something blooming in it from March through November. She also had a reputation for sending the most thoughtful flower arrangements to people—friends going through tough times, neighbors with new babies, people she’d only met once or twice. When she passed away in 2016, we cleared out her place and found notebooks full of plant knowledge, sketched garden designs, and lists of people she wanted to send flowers to.
That’s when I realized something: I didn’t have that skill. I didn’t know how to put the right arrangement together for the right moment. So in 2017, I opened Multnomah Flowers in her honor. The shop is basically my attempt to do what she did—send flowers that actually mean something.
Behind the Blooms
I work out of a small storefront in Southeast Portland, not far from where we grew up. The neighborhood’s changed a lot since I was a kid, but it still has that feeling of people who care about their immediate surroundings. That’s who I wanted to serve—people in this neighborhood who understand that flowers aren’t just decoration.
My first month open, I remember a woman came in looking for flowers for her daughter’s surgery recovery. I spent probably thirty minutes talking to her about what the daughter liked, what colors felt right, what the recovery was going to look like. We ended up with this bright, garden-style arrangement with sunflowers, celosia, and dahlias. She came back three weeks later just to say it had made the recovery less scary.
That became my north star. Every arrangement should do something for the person receiving it.
Our Design Approach
We lean into what Eleanor would have done—which is to say, we respect the flowers first. We use a lot of garden-style arrangements, a lot of seasonality, and we build things that feel like they could’ve come straight from a cottage garden. Most of our work features lots of greenery, varied heights, and a focus on texture over pure color.
Our signature arrangements—The Sunday Garden and Eleanor’s Dozen—are designs we’ve refined over the years. The Sunday Garden is basically what it sounds like: a very garden-like arrangement that changes with the season. Eleanor’s Dozen is our take on the classic rose arrangement, but with way more greenery and a much looser, more natural feel.
“Eleanor taught me that flowers aren’t about being perfect. They’re about being honest. That’s what I try to do here.”—Marcus
Values We Stand By
We source from four growers within 40 miles of Portland. Two of them are farms we actually visit regularly. We know the owners, we know their growing practices, and we trust the quality. If something isn’t in season, we don’t force it. That means some arrangements aren’t available certain times of year—and we think that’s fine. It means what we’re offering is real.
We also don’t do single-use plastics. We wrap in kraft paper and recycled materials. We compost stems and leaves. And we keep our ordering process simple and honest—you tell us what the occasion is, what the budget is, what the recipient likes. We go from there.
Local Partners & Growers
Our relationships with growers are fundamental to what we do. We work with small operations that care about what they grow—not just volume, but quality and variety. Most of them have been farming for decades. We visit in person, we know what’s coming in each week, and we build arrangements around what’s actually fresh and beautiful right now.
Come Say Hello
We’re in Southeast Portland, and we love when people stop by the shop without an order in mind. We can show you what’s fresh, talk about what we’re excited about, or just chat flowers. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and closed Sundays and Mondays. Phone and online orders available anytime.