Week 3: Jan. 12-18, 2025

It’s January 18th. The lisianthus and eucalytpus seeds have all been sown, and around this time every year I haul out the boxes and totes of seeds and get to work on fine-tuning the crop plan for the season ahead.

Now in year six, that process looks a lot different than it did that first year. At the time, with no experience growing in our new environment, no records or notes to look back on, I relied heavily on the growing information supplied by the seed companies. If the package instructions advised sowing a particular flower six to eight weeks before last frost, I’d count back eight weeks from around May 10th and that’s when I’d start that particular flower. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing it that way, since days to maturity differs with each plant, however, after a couple of years of growing I realized doing it this way wasn’t helping in the way of bouquet design. When delivery days came around I’d simply harvest whatever was blooming at the time and hope that it would all come together. Looking back, the proof was in the pudding. Some bouquets simply didn’t work together, and while I was able to follow a strict delivery schedule, I was sometimes disappointed that my bouquets didn’t look more polished. Turns out that growing flowers isn’t the hard part. Getting the timing right? That’s a different story, but one that’s possible to wade through with time, patience and really good note taking.

After a lot of trial and error, crop planning is now a task I really look forward to. It allows opportunity to look back on previous seasons, see what worked and what didn’t, and respond accordingly. If something bloomed earlier, or later, than I needed, I simply shift the seed sowing dates for the current year. Through pretty detailed record keeping and photo logs, I can now look back and correlate dates and bloom time to replicate bouquet recipes. If I want my Oklahoma zinnia series to bloom by the first week of August, or September snapdragons (which, on another note, are far better quality than spring-planted snapdragons!) I now know when to sow seeds and transplant.

Every grower utilizes a system that works best for them. Some growers like Excel, or planning tools specifically designed for crops, but I’m more of a paper and pencil kind of girl. (And any reason to avoid using a phone or computer for one more thing is fine by me!) So, I prefer to print out blank monthly calendars and tape them all to a large piece of bristol board, so that I can see everything laid out in front of me. Looking back on photos from previous seasons and notes, I get to work on what I want to create or re-create for customers. (In a process that is very formulaic in nature, this is where our individual creativity gets to shine!)

Our 2025 growing season is going to look a little differently this year, mainly because I’ve decided to avoid growing in the most challenging parts of the season, and focus on the months that produce our best flowers. That means spring flowers (tulips, ranunculus, anemone and narcissus), and then taking a break between late June and late July and starting up again for the months of August and September. Why, you might be wondering? Simply put, August and September flowers are of better quality, and are typically the flowers that are considered “cut and come again.” July-harvested flowers first have to fight through unseasonably warm spring temperatures as seedlings, only to then face heavy bug pressure and often drought-like conditions. To top it off, these are the flowers that last only a week or two and fizzle out (orlaya, agrostemma, early snapdragons, stock, nigella, etc.). They are mostly filler flowers that sometimes I use but most often don’t, and are just not worth the time, effort and expense.

This shift has already made crop planning for the season ahead so much simpler, and with hundreds of established perennials to rely on I’m really looking forward to focusing on the flowers that perform best here, over in a shorter growing period. It’s a shift from previous years, but I’m confident it’s one that will benefit both the business and me, the grower!

Until next week.

Liisa