A Flower Farm Starts With a Vision
When it comes to putting together a flower farm or flower garden, the first and foremost thing that you’ll want to create is your plan. Your dream, your blueprint, your vision.
It’s important. Without this vision, you won’t know where you’re heading, you won’t know what you’re wanting to accomplish, you won’t know what you’re supposed to be growing or designing or what the whole point of this all is.
Think of it like trying to plan a dinner without knowing what the end dishes are going to be. Sure, foccacia, Fuji apples, pork tenderloin, vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate and toaster strudels may all sound great on their own and individually may be awesome, but putting it all together sounds like the world’s weirdest and worst meal that makes no sense and is bound to just confuse people.
On the other hand, if you’re able to create a vision of what you’re trying to create, you’ll be better able to make that dream into a reality. When you can visualize it, it gives you this sort of anchor that is a handhold in the ever shifting morass of flowers and plants and ideas.
And I think that it’s important to be able to have a vision in mind. After all, if you don’t know where you’re headed, how can you start off on your journey?
The way that I originally envisioned our first flower farm and the way that people the world over create a vision for everything from weddings to interior decor to gardens to lifestyle and fashion, Pinterest is an great way to be able to organize your vision all in one place. You can put images of flower farms, individual flowers, arrangements and bouquets, full scale wedding designs and even growing tips and ideas on a board.
You don’t even have to make the board public - you can make it private so that only you can see it as well. Of course if you want to share it to provide other people with inspiration that’s great too, but if you just want to keep it to yourself that’s a great way to put together a vision.
I personally like to store my vision boards on Pinterest over the years. Both to inspire me from previous years as well as to allow me to change it from year to year to keep providing me with inspiration and charging my creativity.
As far as Instagram, I usually use it as a source of inspiration from other flower farmers, growers, designers and gardeners and stylists. Most of my most transformative inspiration comes from Instagram - usually in the form of a stunning arrangement that uses unusual materials (violas and pansies? Purple pea pods? London rocket seed heads? Oh my!) or a flower farmer’s view of a certain crop in the field they are growing (this alone has convinced me to grow entire rows of certain varieties).
Instagram is also great because it allows for me to connect and follow a lot of other growers throughout the season to see how their flowers change throughout the year. I follow a few growers very closely who prove to always be growing new and beautiful varieties that I maybe wouldn’t have thought of growing (golden yellow Oklahoma zinnias, agastaches, ‘Sunny Reggae’ dahlias to name a few) that inevitably provide the trending flowers fo the future as well as demonstrating and providing the ways in which they assemble and put everything together.
Indeed, Instagram is one of the ways in which I was able to follow, learn and find mentors to learn how not only to grow but how to design, how to make a business and how to make my flowers work for my business.
Most importantly, Instagram is great for connecting with other people. I’ve created a lot of great friendships with other flower farmers, floral designers, gardeners and horticulturists and artists and creators that are some of my favorite people in the world and get me in a way that nobody else does!
WORD DOCUMENTS
Okay, so word documents aren’t necessarily the most sexy or photogenic to be able to put together a vision of your future farm and business - but it works.
It doesn’t require a ton of effort or technology savvy, is straight to the point and allows for a great amount of text and explanation. I like this because it allows me to have more than just the vision - it also has details and strategies and topics that I can leaf through when needed in order to review my vision.
Generally speaking I’ll create a large composite image of all of the materials I’m growing in each season, then I’ll follow it up with a body of text that allows me to go into depth as far as I need to. Or, you can add each individual image and then have a little bit of text below each image to clue me in as to what it is that I’m going for.
It’s whatever works for you, but this is an easy and very effective and easily printable way of setting up your vision.
Note: I actually use the free Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word
AN ACTUAL (PHYSICAL) MOOD BOARD
So we’re going to go retro here and actually put together a physical mood board. Filled with photographs and clippings and sketches, it’s the OG Pinterest board that I used to create back when I was a kid about my future career (veterinarian, then marine biologist, then dance choreographer) and is a great way of putting together a vision.
It’s nice of course to have that physical mood board present in a place where you’ll see it - in an office, on the fridge, on your wall, wherever. So long as you’re going to be able to see it, let your gaze fall onto it, memorize it and know even when your eyes are closed what your vision looks like, it will work.
WHAT TO PIN OR PLACE ONTO YOUR VISION BOARD
I’ve mentioned a few things that you should be putting onto your vision board. Flower varieties, arrangements, views of flower farms are all great. But you can also include other things as well. Layouts and sketches of your flower farm are great (even if they’re quick sketches that may not mean much to you) as well as lists and numbers are great.
I personally like to use photographs that capture the essence of emotion I would like to have when thinking about my flower farm. Perhaps it’s a feeling of abundance that I want to feel, so I would select a photograph of buckets full of flowers - too many to know what to even start doing with them.
Or perhaps it’s a certain esthetic quality. If you’re looking for that carefree, pastoral, wildflower esthetic, then perhaps photographs of maidens running through fields with flowers woven into their hair and picturesque wild fields of wildflowers and cottage gardens would be helpful.
Or perhaps you’re going for that Dutch masters antique oil painting quality, so you can include paintings of Dutch master floral arrangements, photographs of arrangements people have taken of floral arrangements in the style of the Dutch masters and everything else that might seem pertinent.
You can include words or phrases that might be relevant to the vision you’re creating. Although I’m visual, a word or phrase can sometimes convey my thoughts or emotions in a more concise way.
Lastly, it’s always great to include photographs of yourself in some form or fashion. It’s a bit cheesy, a bit on-the-nose I’ll admit, but I think that it’s important to put your face on there somewhere to ensure that you’re able to see yourself as the flower farmer, as the part of your business, and as a part of your success as well.
Think of yourself, envision yourself, and now you have a way of going forward!
I hope you found this useful
No matter your goals or vision or idea for your flower farm and what it means to you, having that vision set in place is one of the most important ways of designating how your flower farm will become reality.
By having oriented yourself and planned the vision for your future, you’ll be better able to plan and performing things accordingly and orient yourself to this vision in the future. It’s super helpful - like having a key for a map or a mission statement for your business, and when you are in the midst of planting and growing in June you can look back at your original vision to keep yourself on track.
And if you’re just starting your flower farm experience, here are a few posts you may find helpful