The Backyard Bouquet Podcast: Cut Flower Farming Podcast for Flower Farmers & Backyard Gardeners

Some stories start with a grand plan. Erin Clark's started with five dahlias and a need to get outside. In 2020, home with a new baby and a world gone quiet, Erin went looking for an outlet. She found it in a 60-square-foot patch of dirt. A neighbor walked by, saw her planting, and the next day her husband gifted Erin a whole tray of tubers. That neighbor turned out to be a dahlia hybridizer who l...

Jocelyn Bentley-Prestwich plants peonies, daffodils, and alliums underneath her grape vines, and she has quadrupled the value of every linear foot of her vineyard by doing it. She runs Cluster Flock Farms and Vineyard on twenty-five acres in Husum, Washington, where she grows wine grapes for some of the best winemakers in the Columbia Gorge, raises chickens and ducks and geese, runs flower subscri...

Today's guest is the woman I call when I have a real soil question. Jen Aron is a regenerative farmer and soil agronomist at Blue Raven Farm in Corbett, Oregon, and she has spent the last decade quietly proving that soil is its own ecosystem with its own voice. In this episode we walk through what is actually happening beneath our feet, why compost may not be the answer you have been told it is, a...

What does it actually look like to leave one career behind and walk into the one that's been waiting for you? In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Graeme Corbett, the grower and storyteller behind Bloom & Burn, just weeks after the release of his brand new book Life in Bloom . Graeme spent years working in television in London, casting contestants for shows like The Voice and Celebrity Big...

I've been using AI on my flower farm for over a year, and up until recently, I've only told a handful of people. Today I'm opening a conversation I haven't heard many in our industry having. It's a conversation every farmer deserves to be part of, whether you end up using AI or not. In this solo episode, I share what I actually use AI for in my business, what I refuse to touch, and the ethical que...

There are some places on earth that flower people put on a bucket list and never quite cross off. Holland's flower bulb region is one of them. The fields outside Keukenhof, where tulips bloom in waves of color every spring and tourists from around the world stop their cars on the side of the road just to take a picture. For Linda and Marlies of FAM Flower Farm, that landscape is daily life. Linda...

There are people who grow dahlias, and then there are people who spend two decades quietly shaping what dahlias can become. Kristine Albrecht is one of those people. From a weed-choked quarter acre in Santa Cruz, California, Kristine has built an extraordinary breeding program, growing 1,500 seedlings a year and selecting only about 50 to carry forward. Her cultivars (all marked with the K.A. pref...

She left medicine to grow flowers at her kitchen table. Thirty years later, Sarah Raven has written fourteen books, built a garden empire at Perch Hill, and changed how a generation thinks about cut flowers. In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Sarah to talk about her journey from wildflower-obsessed child to one of the most respected voices in the gardening world. They dig into the science of...

She started with zero qualifications, a personal trainer husband, and six dahlia tubers from the hardware store. Now Katie and her husband Rob run Little Lyndoch Flower Farm in Australia's Barossa Valley, growing just three crops on under an acre, and building a business that actually brings them joy. In this episode, Katie shares how they sold everything during COVID to fund the farm, why growing...

Chelsea Willis is the kind of farmer who notices the frogs in the dahlias. She's the owner of Sweet Delilah Farm on Sauvie Island, just 15 minutes outside Portland, Oregon. But her path to farming wasn't traditional. With a background in psychology and youth counseling, Chelsea originally wanted to find a way to get young people out on the land, because she saw how much easier it was for them to o...

Some of the best flower farming stories start with a moment that changes everything. For Jenny Rae Swan, it was losing her mother at a young age and realizing that the only place she felt truly at peace was in a garden. That grief, paired with a wild amount of courage, led her to quit a stable career in higher education, rent a small plot on a local blueberry farm, and start growing flowers with n...

If you've ever looked at a dahlia and wondered "what if I could create my own variety?" Kamille is the person you need to learn from.   Her session is unlike anything else at the summit. She's taking us on the journey of a seedling from its first bloom to its official debut and showing how the art of hybridizing is so much more than science.  It's about mentorship, community, and opening...

Charlotte is a 5th generation farmer and mindset coach and there's a reason she's one of our first speakers on Day 1 of The Profitable Dahlia Summit. Everything starts with mindset. You can learn every strategy in the world for selling dahlias, but if you don't believe you're worth charging for them, none of it matters. Charlotte is going to get your head right so you can take full advantage of ev...

In this bonus episode, I'm sharing my Instagram Live conversation with Heather Cain of Petal Pink Flower Farm. We talked all about selling dahlias to florists and she shared so much that I know you're going to want to hear her full session at the summit. Have you ever thought about selling your dahlias to florists but weren't sure where to start? What do they actually expect? How do you price for...

In this bonus episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcst, I'm sharing my Instagram Live conversation with Marryn Mathis of The Farmhouse Flower Farm. We talked about getting ready for her tuber sale season, how it feels like a total rollercoaster, and some of Marryn's favorite dahlias this year. Marryn is speaking at the Profitable Dahlia Summit on March 4th and she's teaching how to host a dahlia tub...

In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, I’m joined by Melissa Stewart of Sweet Bloom Farm , a boutique dahlia farm in Battle Ground, Washington. Melissa’s journey began the way so many of ours do, with a few mystery dahlias from a garden center and a spark she couldn’t ignore. What started as six blooming plants in her suburban backyard quickly grew into 20 varieties… then 50… then 100… a...

In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast , we’re heading south to Australia to visit Florelie , a small-scale but highly productive specialty cut flower farm near Ballarat, Victoria. Jennifer is joined by flower farmer and dahlia breeder Lorelie Merton , who shares how a gifted bunch of homegrown peonies sparked a journey that led her from speech pathology to full-time flower farming. Today...

What’s possible when you start with just a small bit of earth—and a love of flowers rooted in childhood stories? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Fawn Rueckert , founder of Sego Lily Flower Farm , a thriving suburban flower farm growing on just one-third of an acre in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. Fawn’s journey into flower farming began long before her first seed tray—from listening to The Secret Gar...

What if your garden could feed your family, support pollinators, and bring more joy into your everyday life — all at the same time? In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast , Jennifer sits down with Tasha Medve, creator of The Purposeful You and author of the bestselling book The Purposeful Gardener. Tasha shares how her journey into purposeful gardening began during early motherhood, when...

Welcome to Season 3 of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast — and to the first episode of 2026 . To kick off the new year, I’m doing something a little different. In this episode, I’m sharing the full replay of a live planning workshop I hosted this past weekend called How to Plan Your Most Profitable Dahlia Season Yet . Growers joined live from all over the world — Australia, Canada, Germany, France, New...

What if caring for land goes beyond soil tests, nutrients, and visible inputs? In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast , Jennifer is joined by Brittney Herrera , founder and creative director of Thunder Egg , to explore the concept of geotuning —a practice often described as acupuncture for the land . Through her work, Brittney helps harmonize land and spaces by identifying and correcting...

What if growing dahlias wasn’t about doing everything perfectly—but about showing up, finding joy, and learning to flourish right where you are? In today’s episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast , we are joined by Anne Long of The Dahlia House , a longtime dahlia grower, educator, and creative who has spent more than two decades growing flowers—and helping others discover that you don’t need a hu...

How do you grow flowers in a region known for long winters, short seasons, and frequent frosts? In this episode, we are joined by Annie Amrich of Janniebird Farm , a Zone 4 flower farmer thriving in the high-altitude climate of Gunnison, Colorado. Annie shares how she forces thousands of tulips each year, grows without greenhouses, and keeps flowers blooming nearly year-round in a place where fros...

Have you ever wondered how a simple backyard garden can grow into a thriving YouTube channel that inspires gardeners everywhere? In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Claudia of In The Garden with Claudia, a Zone 8b gardener in Oregon who transformed a small suburban space into a blooming cut flower haven. What began as a creative outlet during the pandemic soon became a beloved YouTube channel...

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to build a creative and meaningful life in the floral world, especially when your journey starts far from where you end up? In this episode, we are joined by Julio Freitas of The Flower Hat , a Montana-based floral designer and flower farmer whose work has influenced and inspired thousands. Julio shares how he went from hotel management to running a thri...