How DIRT Flowers blossomed into a community gem

As Sonya Worden-Eudaley works in her shop, trimming stems and meticulously arranging flowers, it’s apparent this is what she was made to do.

Without a glance in the direction of her collection of flowers, she grabs a stem and cuts it to the perfect length, shedding leaves and popping them into the display.

Worden-Eudaley is the owner of DIRT Flowers in the heart of Bishop Arts. The bustling little flower shop is open for delivery seven days a week and offers wedding arrangements or flowers for any occasion.

Worden-Eudaley runs the shop alongside her husband Chris. The pair originally met in high school, but they only knew each other casually. They went their separate ways when she moved to Boston and he moved to New York, but both moved to DFW around the same time.

They ended up running into each other and met up for lunch. Within a year, they were married.

“We work well together, fortunately,” she says. “I know it’s a challenge for a lot of people, but we seem to make it work pretty well.”

Worden-Eudaley had been doing flowers for about 10 years before she and Chris opened DIRT in 2010, which was originally run out of her apartment down the street from the current location.

Her background is theater — starting her own flower shop was risky. But as soon as she started in the tiny apartment space, she knew she could make it work.

“There was no advertising — we just went for it,” Worden-Eudaley says. “The location was everything. The storefront was the advertising.”

DIRT is not your average flower shop. The flowers are hand-selected two to three times a week and are always fresh. Most shops don’t hand-select their flowers, opting rather to order them online or over the phone, Worden-Eudaley says. By hand-selecting, the DIRT team is ensuring they get the freshest flowers.

“A lot of times, if you’re not hand-selecting them, they’ll send you what they’re trying to get rid of,” Worden-Eudaley says. “ We can get the unusual stuff. Sometimes, if something’s only on a list and you don’t recognize the name or you don’t know what it is, you wouldn’t order it. But if you’re going to hand pick out your flowers and you just see something you like, you can get it.”

DIRT takes same-day orders and walk-ins and is open seven days a week, another aspect that sets them apart from other flower shops.

“It’s really hard to find a flower shop that’ll deliver on a Sunday, especially one that will take a same-day order on a Sunday and deliver it, and we do all that,” Worden-Eudaley says.

With a unique, earthy style, the loose and wild arrangements are classified as “airy,” meaning there is negative space around the blooms.

Everything is made to order — nothing is premade.

“We want to know the occasion, we want to talk to you about what it’s for, who it’s for, and we want to design with that person in mind,” she says. “If you’re going on a first date, I don’t want you to buy a premade bouquet for your first date. I want to know you, and I want to know what you know about this person, and we want to help you get the exact perfect bouquet, so I think that’s very different.”

Going on 15 years, DIRT has been along the journey of several clients in the neighborhood. Building those connections is what makes the job particularly special.

“We’ve done people’s prom flowers, and then we’ve done their wedding flowers, and that’s been really special,” Worden-Eudaley says. “We know when people get married. We know, sadly, when they lose loved ones, and we know about their happy times and when their pets die. You just start to learn about what the community is going through and what they’re doing.”

Additionally, all the card messages are handwritten to add another personalized touch.

“We think it’s special, and reading and writing the card message helps us understand what we’re doing this for. Purpose, I think, is really big with us, and community,” Worden-Eudaley says.

In addition to the flower shop, the pair owns the next-door House of DIRT. The funky and ultra-unique event space is completely customizable for any event, whether it be a Saturday night wedding, Friday graduation dinner or a mid-week corporate luncheon.

“Oak Cliff is really its own community, and it’s really unique,” Worden-Eudaley says. “You have such a wonderful combination of different folks, and it’s neat to see the art of flower giving. It’s kind of an old-school industry — giving flowers, sending flowers. It’s nice to see older people passing the tradition of sending flowers down to younger people.”