Becoming a Cut Flower Grower

It's a sunny lunchtime on Tuesday 22 April 2025 and I'm basking in the warmth of the greenhouse. I'm busy sowing more seeds and today I'm discussing the pros and cons of two different sowing styles: scattergun approach or straight lines. Which one do you use? I prefer the straight lines method as I can count how many plants I have and each plant can stay in its tray for longer...

Happy Easter! It's 8pm on Good Friday, 18 April 2025 and I'm on the plot. It has definitely not been my week! After the water debacle on Tuesday I managed to get a tummy bug which has been unpleasant and this afternoon I wasn't even able to leave the house because of it. And whilst I've had tummy trouble all week I've had to do some regular gardening to get some cash in th...

It's Tuesday 15 April 2025 and this week has started really badly: I left a tap running last night and managed to drain my two full water bowsers. Overnight I've lost over a thousand litres of water. The timing is awful and I'm very disappointed in myself. I also managed to forget to close the greenhouse door last night, which is not like me. Luckily we didn't have a frost so e...

It's Friday 11 April 2025 and another incredibly sunny day. Still no rain but hopefully it's coming next week. I'll be updating you on what I've been sowing this week and the new sowing chart that I've made to help me remember when to sow the next batch (it's all about successional sowing this year). I discuss my morning feeling routine and how I work out which seedli...

It's another glorious week of sunshine and dry weather and the shed doors are finally on!  Today it's Tuesday 8 April 2025 and I'm pleased to update you on what's been going on since my last episode. I've been busy planting out foxgloves, peonies and raspberries, plus I made a new access path for the plot (and hung a new gate that I made myself, which I'm very proud o...

It's Friday 4 April 2025 and if you're a dahlia-fan then this is the episode for you. Join me as I share everything I learnt this beautifully sunny morning from my dahlia mentor, Richard Bailey, including tips and tricks for success with these beautiful plants.  Richard is a prize-winning dahlia exhibitor and a Vice President of the National Dahlia Society in the UK. He's been exhib...

There's a lot going on at the moment! Join me on the plot in the fabulous sunshine today, Tuesday 1 April (how is it April already???) as I update you on what I've been upto, including seed sowing, monitoring production costs, ordering more seeds, selecting new dahlias, making new beds, rearranging fence panels, moving the contents of the compost heap into an empty bay plus a whole lot m...

I've had an epiphany! I've been listening to a new podcast and it's made me think really hard about the "business" side of what I'm doing so I have paused with the seed sowing for a moment to give this some thought. I've been learning about production costs, overheads, profit margins, and calculating profitability per square metre. I'm a data nerd so I'...

It's a beautiful week and I've been busy. It's a bit overwhelming at times: I feel like I have so many things to do all at the same time and sometimes it's hard to work out what I should be doing first. Normally I'm pretty good at prioritising but at this time of year it's challenging... In this episode I take a breather from digging up nettles and do a brief review o...

What a gorgeous week: it's been very warm and sunny in the last couple of days, which has made me feel very excited about spring. And also slightly overwhelmed. I look at my seed trays and simultaneously think "Oh there are SO MANY!" and also "Oh I don't have enough!". But it's all fine: it's just what happens at this time of year. Lots of updates for you in...

It's been a really busy few days: some of the new seeds that were sown last week have germinated, the new beds have been marked out with string, a whole new planting area has been created, I finally found my missing broad bean seeds (yipeeeeee!), more seeds have been sown, the sun has been shining and it's warming up nicely. I've been thinking a lot over the weekend about a backup p...

I went to the garden centre just to buy a ball of string to finish marking out the new cut flower beds and came home with some lovely new flowers seeds! In this first part of this episode I'm back in the greenhouse on a warm and bright afternoon sowing more of my cut flower seeds as well as the new ones that I picked up in the garden centre. As I'm sowing (you can hear me rummaging in th...

It's Tuesday 10 March 2025 and I'm in the greenhouse this afternoon, sowing more cut flower seeds. Come and join me as I'm sowing Achillea, Cephalaria, Centaurea, Crespedia, Zinnia and Orlaya. It's much cooler this week: the weekend was positively balmy and it was wonderful to have so much sunshine. It really felt like Spring had arrived. And then it cooled rapidly! As I'm...

I was SO looking forward to getting started on my seed sowing this week! And then I was thwarted by a really nasty cold so I ended up sleeping a lot, watching Netflix and endlessly re-reading the latest David Austin rose catalogue. So the first half of this episode is me with a rather croaky voice and a bunged-up nose talking about that.  Luckily the second half improves when I was well enough to...

This week got off to an absolutely freezing (but beautiful) start. Unfortunately it was far too cold for me to be sowing seeds in the greenhouse so I have recorded a longer podcast instead. In this episode I answer a question from a listener about exactly how I chose the seeds I'm growing for cut flowers and I explain my thought process. I clarify what I meant in episode 15 about 'filler...

It's the last day of February today which means two things: one, I'll be moving home tomorrow and two, it's time to start sowing seeds! Yipee! Once I've unpacked and got settled, I'll be getting busy in the greenhouse... Before all that fun, today's episode is me talking you through the 15 new varieties of flowers I'm going to grow this year from seed. Purchased...

I'm excited to tell you that I've spent today dismantling my newly acquired (third-hand) greenhouse and transporting it to my plot. It was hard work and very tiring but only three panes of glass got broken (not bad) and no injuries at all (even better!). This is my second greenhouse and in this episode I talk about the differences between this one and my original one, together with why g...

It's time to put our cards on the table and answer this question: what's stopping you from becoming a cut flower grower?  It's been a rainy old week yet on the sunniest two days I wasn't around to get on the plot but as the ground is still so wet, it's not a huge problem. So I'm talking to you in this episode from the warmth and dryness of indoors, where I'm real...

Join me on my frosty plot this morning as I let the hens out and find out if my young hen Kylie is still broody! In today's episode I'm answering a really great question from a listener about weeds : love them or hate them, you're going to get some! It's never too early to start thinking about weeds and it's how you deal with them that matters: spend your time wisely! Whet...

Have you thought about exactly who you're going to sell your flowers to? Before you sow any seeds or buy any plants, start thinking about this crucial part of the process right now. Are you dreaming of turning your cut flowers into bouquets and selling directly to customers at a local market? Or would you prefer to sell to florists? What sort of florists do you have in your area and would the...

It's February so let's talk about seeds! Collecting, drying, storing and saving, plus some seeds to avoid and the best seed compost.  Everyone is talking about seeds right now and I'm certainly thinking about mine. In this episode I explain why seeds are saved from one year to the next and I cover the basics of how to store your seeds. Plus I talk about tricky seeds that need specia...

Are you wondering which cut flowers you should grow? Are you confused by all the choices and not sure which will suit your needs or your budget? Are you thinking about the impact of vase life, stem length or scent?  In this episode, I’m diving into how to select the best cut flowers to grow .  What You’ll Learn in This Episode: ✅ What makes a flower ideal for cutting ✅ Easy-to-grow varieties for...

This week got off to a rather chilly, murky, and drizzly start. However there's nothing like the thought of hundreds of gloriously coloured and heavily scented sweetpeas to cheer me up. My sweetpea story starts with a holiday outing to buy raw milk on a farm in Dorset which led to the discovery of a fantastic supplier of sweetpeas. I share the types of sweetpeas I ordered in 2024 for the 2025...

Dahlias are the queens of the cut flower world. They are achingly beautiful and come in a vast array of varieties, colours and shapes. Join me behind the scenes while I plan my 2025 dahlia beds.  Today I talk about the nursery I visited in September 2024 to look at some selections (with obligatory notepad and pen), a brief bit about apprenticing with Richard Bailey (a top prize-winning dahlia exhi...

Hello and welcome to a rainy episode. Join me today as we let the chickens out first thing this morning for a warm scrambled egg breakfast (them, not me) and I talk about the perennials I grew on the plot in 2024. I'll share with you why perennials can form the low-maintenance backbone of your cut flower plot, and how to do this according to your own budget. Hear about where I sourced my pere...