Posts in Garden
A Hot Summer and a Plum Cake
A Hot Summer and a Plum Cake

How is it already August? I feel like I was just planning the designs for the summer garden yesterday! And now today I’m looking to plan the garden for next year and am planning on sowing seeds of hardy annuals, biennials and perennials to overwinter and bloom in 2023.

I have been therefore been feeling the need to live more in the moment. I think this is something that we’ve been experiencing personally since the pandemic, and more so with the very unpredictable times (that seem to become much more unpredictable by the month for better or for worse) and I am finding a distinct need to ground myself.

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GardenWriterbaking Comments
Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Tulips for Flower Farmers
Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Tulips for Flower Farmers

Tulips are one of the most beautiful and venerated blooms of spring and for good reason. Coming in a rainbow of colors, they are some of the most spectacular and boldly colored blooms of the entire year and are also one of the first flowers to bloom (along with daffodils).

Although tulips are generally treated as an annual (with the exception of a few varieties) they can be a good spring flower for the flower farmer to grow!

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flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, cutting garden Comment
Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Daffodils as a Flower Farmer
Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Daffodils as a Flower Farmer

While tulips often get the focus and attention of spring flowers, daffodils should not be forgotten in the spring lineup!

A truly perennial spring-flowering bulb, daffodils are a great addition to any flower farmer especially for early spring sales. Some of the first flowers or plants to bloom in spring, they are as beautiful and graceful as any flower out there.

Here are some tips for working with daffodils and working them into your flower farm business

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterfrom the garden, flower farming, cutting gardenComment
7 Great Reasons to Start a Flower Farm
7 Great Reasons to Start a Flower Farm

Thinking of starting a flower farm?

Great! Because there has never been a better time to do so, and it’s also never been easier.

Now you may have already started your flower farm and are doing just fine - hats off to you. But there are also some of us (me!) that needed a justification or reason to start a flower farm. After all, it can be quite the laborious and complicated venture. Or perhaps we wanted to ensure that we’re doing the right thing and that we’re aligned towards a certain reason or goal for our flower farm.

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flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming Comment
Why I Don’t Use Charts or Spreadsheets as a Flower Farmer
Why I Don’t Use Charts or Spreadsheets as a Flower Farmer

Okay, so when I first started out flower farming, I made a lot of charts. Charts for seeds to be purchased, charts for seeds to be sown, charts for planting dates and succession dates and sales and clients. This was OK the first year, but it quickly got larger and larger and what started off as a fun and exciting business project suddenly started requiring spreadsheets, lists, charts and diagrams

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flower farming, Garden, simplified flower farmWriterflower farming Comments
Floral Design Tutorial: A Simple Summer Centerpiece
Floral Design Tutorial: A Simple Summer Centerpiece

I designed this centerpiece to be representing some of the best of the summer flowers - dahlias, zinnias, basil and other herbs, grass plumes, Queen Anne’s lace and the first of the flowering sedums and vitex seedheads that start to come into their own in the autumn.

You can of course you anything that you have available in the garden, but know of course that growing the correct high-quality flowers makes your arranging and centerpieces come together more

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, floral design, cutting garden Comments
10 Time-Saving Tips for Flower Farmers
10 Time-Saving Tips for Flower Farmers

Time is money, and for flower farmers that is a particularly accurate statement. There are only so many hours in a day, and although farmers in general are known to be hard-working people with grueling schedules, saving time is important.

More importantly, time is also about effort and efficiency. The more time, effort and stress that comes from flower farming, the higher the risk of burnout, getting injured or sick, and the less sustainable it becomes in the long term.

To save you some time (and work!), I wanted to share some things we’ve learned over the years to make our flower farming business more efficient

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flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, floral, garden, cutting garden Comments
How to Grow Orlaya for the Cutting Garden (and Floral Design)
How to Grow Orlaya for the Cutting Garden (and Floral Design)

Orlaya is the funny name for a beautiful flower that we weren’t growing.

I wasn’t convinced initially that we should grow it - it was an umbellifer much like Queen Anne’s Lace (Chocolate Lace Flower) and Ammi and fennel, all of which we were growing already and had good success with.

On the other hand, there were a couple things that (after discussing it with other growers - we’re the worst at enabling each other in growing too many varieties of flowers!) had me excited about orlaya

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, floral, floral design, cutting garden, garden Comments
How to Grow Phlox 'Cherry Caramel' (for Flower Farmers and the Cutting Garden)
How to Grow Phlox 'Cherry Caramel' (for Flower Farmers and the Cutting Garden)

Phlox is a wonderful plant to grow as a cut flower. Specifically my favorite variety ‘Cherry Caramel’ that has these dreamy creamy-beige petals with bright fuchsia centers that perfectly blends with both brightly colored, saturated flowers as well as light, monotone, muted colored materials as well that just makes it a brilliantly versatile and underappreciated flower - but one that is a must-grow!

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, garden, cutting garden, floral design Comments
How to Grow Sweet Peas (Even if You Live in the Desert)
How to Grow Sweet Peas (Even if You Live in the Desert)

Sweet peas give everyone the warm fuzzies, but they’re also a great cut flower to grow because they’re extremely productive, has a beautiful flower that works into just about any sort of floral design and are surprisingly tough as nails despite their rather fluffy and delicate appearance.

They’re also easy to grow so long as you follow a few rules and understand what they need

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterfrom the garden, flower farming, garden, cutting garden
Our 2021 Spring Cutting Garden
Our 2021 Spring Cutting Garden

Hello there!

So it’s officially spring and unlike the springs of yester-year (yester-season?) I am actually on top of our spring flowers this year.

We’ll be talking about our spring cutting garden first, and then our summer/fall cutting garden next. I’m really excited for our spring garden and can’t wait to share all the awesome varieties of flowers we’re growing this year.

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, cutting garden, garden
When and How to Plant Your Dahlias (And Strategies To Get Dahlias to Bloom Earlier)
When and How to Plant Your Dahlias (And Strategies To Get Dahlias to Bloom Earlier)

The short answer? Around your last frost date just to be on the safe side. Of course this has some caveats, but for most people that’s going to be the correct date to plant out.

If you can keep your dahlias from freezing and getting flooded in early spring, you can then push the envelope a little bit as far as planting out and getting your dahlias going. We’ve had dahlias blooming as soon as mid-June with some of the strategies I’m going to share with you (whereas when planted out in the garden or the field they only just start blooming in early July at the earliest).

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterdahlias, flower farming, garden, cutting garden Comments
Book Review: The Pottery Gardener by Arthur Parkinson
Book Review: The Pottery Gardener by Arthur Parkinson

One of my favorite books has been Arthur Parkinson’s ‘The Pottery Gardener’. If you’re not aware of Arthur Parkinson, he is a young British gardener whose love of gardening, fancy chickens, use of dust bins as planters, cut flowers, adorable sketches and constant references to ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ make him quite endearing and interesting.

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Floral, Garden, Book ReviewsWriterbooks, floral, garden, cutting
How to Start a Beautiful Cut Flower Garden II: Spring Flowers: Hardy Annuals and Biennials
How to Start a Beautiful Cut Flower Garden II: Spring Flowers: Hardy Annuals and Biennials

It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks, we’ll be starting to see the first blooms of the season here. Starting off with the winter jasmine and iris reticulata, spring is probably one of our favorite times of the year with some of our all-time favorite flowers blooming (muscari, narcissus, lilacs, ranunculus and anemones to name a few!)

It’s also exciting because with the arrival of the new year it is OFFICIALLY time to start seeds for our 2020 gardens. While we did plant some things in fall and will overwinter plenty of perennials, we start a lot of seeds in the winter for planting out in early spring.

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flower farming, Floral, GardenWriterflower farming Comments
How to Start a Beautiful Cut Flower Garden
How to Start a Beautiful Cut Flower Garden

If you’ve gardened before, it’s common to let the flowers bloom on the plants - whether a bulb, annual, perennial or woody shrub or tree and enjoy them in the setting of the garden. This is certainly a great way to enjoy flowers, but when you are able to cut flowers to enjoy indoors - particularly flowers that are grown specifically for their ability to be enjoyed as cut flowers in a vase - it takes your enjoyment to a whole new level.

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming Comments
Hardy Annuals and the RHS Rating System
Hardy Annuals and the RHS Rating System

There are a lot of factors that can contribute to hardy annuals’ survival and success, including how freely the soil drains, what type of microclimate they are located in, precipitation, and even variety of the species you’re growing, but by far the most important factor is their hardiness. And although there are some resources out there regarding the hardiness of these annuals, I think the Royal Horticultural Society (hereafter referred to as the RHS) rating system has a better way of describing the overall hardiness of hardy annuals.

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterflower farming, hardy annuals Comments
Fall Planting Hardy Annuals and Biennials for Spring Blooms
Fall Planting Hardy Annuals and Biennials for Spring Blooms

The best time to plant hardy annual and biennials is when the summer heat has left, but before the season is over. It’s a very narrow window of time for most people, but with a bit of planning you can make sure that you plant at the ideal time.

But when is the best time?

Too soon, and your plants won’t do well. Cool season annual flowers like cool and moist conditions to grow in, and if temperatures are too hot you may find a lot of issues with growing them including finding it hard to establish, a higher disease rate, and other issues that come with warmer weather.

On the other hand, you don’t want to plant too late - if too late in the season, your seedlings can’t get established and may not survive the winter. Or in the best case scenario, your seedlings may not die - but they won’t have time to get their roots established either, which means that you miss out on your advantage of fall planting.

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterhardy annuals, flower farming, cutting gardenComment
Some Tips on Designing with Zinnias
Some Tips on Designing with Zinnias

The traditional way of using zinnias is similar to other compound flowers like gerbera daisies and mums - simply placed into an arrangement overlapped with foliage and filler until you have a solid mass of vegetation… I personally think zinnias are massively underrated and underutilized as far as their form and line, especially because zinnias in the garden or field get some very interesting and beautiful stem shapes. The same way that a stem of ranunculus may swoop and snake around to create some of the most interesting shapes, zinnias when used in the same way can also create the same visual interest.

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Floral, flower farming, GardenWriterzinnia, flower farming, cutting garden, floral designComment