The first time you travel to Country Girl Flowers in Copeland, you might think, “Is my GPS wrong? Because I’m surrounded by gravel roads, fields looking for a drink of water and not-a-cloud-in-sight skies. There’s no way there’s a business up the road.”

GPS was right; and there is a business up the road run by Nicole Nightengale, a suitable name for a place like the one she owns. Those fields abruptly end at Country Girl Flowers — an oasis tucked behind a windbreak of trees and sits just across the Gray County line in Haskell County.

As you enter the driveway, there’s a gorgeous, barn-inspired building on your left — a surprise after your initial thoughts about likely being lost. An old truck parked outside sets the scene for a rustic, timeless experience. There’s a push and a pull of going inside the building but also staying outside among the Boston ferns hanging symmetrically on the rafters of the porch. The chair in the corner is begging for someone to sit and read a book.

The smell of coffee and freshly baked bread ultimately wins out, and inside the building, a Volkswagen Beetle steals your eye. It’s decorated with an assortment of flowers and macrame, stacked jars of jams and jellies surrounding it and a trunk loaded with blankets to purchase.

Nicole wants that feeling of belonging to permeate everyone who visits.

“When anyone walks in my door, I want them to feel the warmth and the feeling of rest,” she says. “You can sit on my front porch, and you don’t have to buy a thing — and a lot of people do that. It’s so quiet out here; it’s medicinal.”

A little spot of soil

Country Girl Flowers is a flower store, a coffee bar, a bakery and a catering business all run by Nicole. She’s passionate and energetic — necessary qualities to have multiple business ventures. She was born and raised in the very location of Country Girl Flowers, making the effort she puts in even more meaningful.

“I grew up just a few feet to the south here,” she says. “I was that little girl who liked to get dirty; my dresses were usually stained and had holes. My mom didn’t garden but she had flowers, and it was where I wanted to be. Dad would give me a little spot of soil, and I’d dig and play and plant and have so much fun.”

When Nicole was 16, she started working at a garden center in Montezuma and her passion for growing things blossomed.

“I had no idea at that time that it would be my lifelong passion,” she says.

The greenhouse for sale that started it all

She grew her talents working at the garden center, where she went from being a waterer to the head florist. After 23 years, Nicole switched from the garden center and began selling her baked goods at the farmers market in Garden City and creating floral arrangements from her home.

Then a greenhouse came up for sale in Copeland in 2014, and Nicole saw an opportunity.

“I wanted it, but it needed to be right here on this property,” she says. “I ran over to my mom and dad’s and told them my plan, and I’m very passionate. If something feels right, I’m going for it. My mom asked me where I was going to put it and dad said, ‘How about in the pond?’”

Nicole explained the “pond” was originally used for an irrigation system, but it hadn’t been used for years since pivot irrigation, so what was once filled with water for crops became a dry, weedy hole. It was the perfect spot for the greenhouse since the property had trees to help break the 80-mile-per-hour wind gusts the area can get. The Nightengales did the necessary dirt work and built their haven.

“It’ll blow right over the top of us,” Nicole says of the wind. “We can’t feel it down in here. It’s just lovely.”

In only four months, Nicole and her husband, Caleb, had the greenhouse built on the pond and opened in April. But Nicole wasn’t quite done.

“We started to have events here, and many people came,” she says. “That made me realize I needed a warm spot to serve my people. I was doing so many things, but I needed a place for guests to go. I told my husband I wanted a barn. His eyes lit up, thinking he was getting a Cabela’s with deer antlers, but I said, ‘No, it’s going to be whitewashed with stained beams and pretty. A lady’s barn.’ And I told him I wanted a big chandelier.”

Nicole says she and her husband dream together. She knows what she wants and likes and he tells her to send him a picture and he’ll build it. He did. The barn-inspired building is whitewashed with stained beams and beautiful. The only thing missing was the big chandelier.

“When we ordered a chandelier online and saw how small it was, I didn’t like it,” Nicole says. “My dad asked me what I wanted. I told him and said it’d probably cost $10,000 for what I wanted and he said, ‘No, just draw it. I’ll build it.’”

Nicole’s dad made a chandelier in two weeks — an incredible six-foot chandelier, perfect for the area of the building. The not-Cabela’s barn can host small events of about 40-60 people in the upstairs loft portion, which overlooks the handmade chandelier.

Family ties in their own niche

Family is a strong asset of Country Girl Flowers. From Nicole’s husband and parents to her daughter, Sami, generations of her family have proven to be innovative, hard workers. This year, the farm turns 100 and is honored through Kansas Farm Bureau’s Century Farm program.

“We’re now a Century Farm,” Nicole says. “Our family was here in 1926. We’re the fourth generation and I hope that continues. My daughter is my heartbeat. The good Lord gave me one beautiful daughter and if I don’t have her support, then I don’t do very well.”

Sami isn’t unlike her mom in wanting to find her niche as an entrepreneur. The coffee bar in the corner of the barn was Sami’s idea — and a delicious one (get a matcha). During Country Girl Flowers’ event days, Sami will be at the coffee bar for hours making drinks for guests. Like her mom, she doesn’t want to stop there.

"I would like to eventually start either a coffee wagon or cart or something like that at weddings and events,” Sami says. “It might just be Saturdays or on certain days, but I would love to do that. And I also would like to start selling my own homemade syrups too."

“The coffee bar has added a whole other dimension to the space,” Nicole says. “I love that she can have her footprint in this business.”

The store also has freshly baked breads in several flavors and a lot of fun merchandise to peruse. A table in front of the bar serves as a gathering place and a design counter for Nicole to create floral designs for weddings, funerals and everything in between.

“Being a florist is my favorite part of this whole thing,” Nicole says. “I can have a hammer down busy day, but if I can work on floral arrangements, I am so relaxed. The other night, I walked out of here at 1 a.m. getting prom flowers done. As I closed the door and the stars were shining and it was just quiet, I was like, ‘I’m not even tired.’ It is so relaxing to me.”

Customer service at its best

Nicole is a wealth of knowledge and is willing to share it. Country Girl Flowers also sells trees and many times, customers will travel long distances to Copeland just to buy from her.

"We do lots of tree sales,” Nicole says. “That's a huge one out of here. We’ve had people come from Topeka with a trailer to buy trees from us. I asked them why they came out to Copeland; that they passed a lot of garden centers before getting to us. They told me they heard there’s a country girl out here who will talk to them. And I will.

“I won’t sell something to someone if it’s not right for their conditions,” she says. “I’ll ask people about the pH in their soil and whatever they tell me, I’ll recommend something that will work and tell them the kinds of trees that won’t grow, even if I won’t be selling anything because of it.”

The faith of flowers

The family leans on their faith to lead them in decisions and in how they want customers to feel.

“I know my mom just wants everybody who walks through here to feel Jesus,” Sami says.

“Absolutely,” Nicole says in response. “It’s more than the nature aspect, even. The blue sky, the birds that sing, the flowers; they’re all reminders of Him, but it’s also in the way you’re treated here. You’re not a number and I don’t care if you spend any money here at all. It’s to know you’re a person and to feel that kind of belonging.”

The next project for the Nightengales — for Nicole to dream up and draw, and for her husband and dad to build — are grain bins turned into Airbnbs for people to feel the warmth of Country Girl Flowers for an extended period. Even though she has plans to grow her business, she wants to maintain the connection to her community.

"I want to keep my business small enough that I can continue to be personal,” Nicole says. “My community, my family and my faith are everything to me. Well, and my goats.”

We’re glad we were wrong and continued to trust GPS this time. Country Girl Flowers is a breath of fresh, calm air in rural Haskell County.

To learn more about Country Girl Flowers, visit www.countrygirlflowersandcatering.com and keep up to date on their events on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nicolenightengale77. 

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