By RICHARD D. OXLEY
Staff writer

KINGSTON — Dragonfly Farms has provided nursery and landscaping services for nearly 15 years at its Kingston-area location. Now, the business has aims to become a draw for weddings and other events, and is using online crowdfunding to seek the support it needs to do so.

Dragonfly Farms has a crowdfunding site on www.indiegogo.com. The website allows givers from across the Internet to donate to causes, filmmakers, inventors, and more.

Dragonfly Farms has many branches, from plant nursery to landscaping service.

“Dragonfly Farms is a nursery that is located at my house,” owner Heidi Kaster said. “I have 10 acres out there. I grow a lot from seed, I do cuttings and I work with another gentleman and we graft hard-to-find conifers. Since I do landscaping, I strive to find cool and unique things that make the gardens I design special.”

Kaster said she’s been in the landscaping business since the 1980s and started the nursery in part to supply many hard-to-find selections. She opens the nursery over the weekends from spring to fall.

Kaster spent her career in business for herself and, in business, she said, you have to adapt.

“The nursery has been slowing and I think it’s partly because people’s gardens are full,” Kaster said. “And the younger people, I’m not sure if they are into gardening as much or they are buying from Home Depot. But there are a lot of small nurseries, like myself, that are going out of business. Especially if you are at the outskirts of town.”

Kaster now has aims to grow a few more branches of the business — mainly, events. (Earlier this year, she received a conditional use permit allowing her to host up to eight events per month — themed festivals, classes, workshops, tours, wreath-making parties, fundraising activities, and a farmers market for the sale of local fruits and vegetables. Events are limited to 50 people.)

“By having a wedding or an event on Saturday, that is going to make enough money to keep the nursery open on a Friday or a Sunday,” Kaster said.

Kaster said the area is lacking in wedding locations — in all of North Kitsap, Port Gamble and Kiana Lodge are two prominent venues — and she believes she could craft quite an attraction. She has already begun working with a wedding planner to put Dragonfly on the track to becoming a wedding venue. Other interests have been piqued such as gardening groups, classes, and organizations looking for fundraiser space.

“The wedding planner I’m working with is from Seattle and she’s been looking for a place out of Seattle for years,” she said. “The Seattle side is so expensive and totally booked and she’s been looking in Kitsap for a new venue. But getting the property up to snuff will take some elbow grease, and a little money as well.”

Kaster has gone to the online sector to crowdfund additions to Dragonfly — additions such as a wood structure for outside events and a fire pit.

“The structure that we are going to build is a log structure, with huge 24-inch trees,” Kaster said. “There will be these cool light fixtures in there, made out of old pulleys, and a lot of the tables inside are going to made of old metal gears and wood.”

Kaster said artist Ray Hammar, who will be involved with the construction, loves to use recycled materials. “We will put in a burn pit, with propane. It’s made out of an old rock crusher with a patio around it,” Kaster said.

Dragonfly has a fundraising goal of $75,000 on www.indiegogo.com. So far, the nursery has raised nearly $1,000. There are different donation levels, from $10 on up to $5,000, each with an incentive. A $50 donation gets the donor a Dragonfly T-shirt. There’s a hoodie for $75. A donation of $200 will get the giver’s name burned into the side of the log structure. There are also necklaces, photography specials and, for $5,000, Hammar will spend two days with a donor, providing one-on-one art instruction and helping them to weld their own sculpture.

Kaster hopes that the community will answer her call for help. She said that she is a small business who, in turn, supports other small businesses in the area.

“It’s sad that small businesses are struggling, and people need to think about where they spend their dollar,” Kaster said. “Whether it’s at Walmart or going to downtown Poulsbo to buy Christmas presents. It’s important, and I am one of these small businesses.”

Of her proposed expansion, she said, “I think it will benefit the community in the Hansville/Kingston area,” she said.

To see Dragonfly’s Indiegogo site, visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/dragonfly-farms-events-center.