This year, my husband and I decided to plant lots of dahlias and many more filler flowers. We had planted some dahlias the year before, and because they did so well, I enjoyed making bouquets, and neighbors enjoyed them. We thought this could be a thing. So we planned, purchased, and, I would say, conquered—while learning new things.

We ripped out all our raised beds, tilled the dirt, brought more dirt in, and raked more. Then we were ready for water. We installed our watering system, put our weed fabric over that, burned holes in the weed fabric for the plants, planted, and, lastly, put up fence poles to have wire netting stretched over all the plants so they wouldn’t topple in the wind or rain.

What I Learned About Flower Supplies:

• Weed Fabric is a must. With all my summer cuttings, I didn’t have to spend much time pulling weeds. Because of all the weed fabric, we didn’t have many weeds. If we had weeds, they were easy enough to pull out while cutting rounds.
• Good Dirt goes a LONG ways.
• Plastic Netting is a lifesaver and flower saver. We get some high wind gusts and random rain storms during the summer. The nets held all the plants up and gave them the extra strength they needed.
• Giving the plants some fertilizer doesn’t hurt them.
• An automatic watering system is great because it makes it easier for us, but deep waterings ensure the plants get all the water they need, allowing the roots to grow deeper.

What I Learned About the Flowers we Planted:

• Globe Amaranth grew well. It’s a cut-and-come-again flower, but I didn’t love it in my bouquets and thought it worked better with the shorter-stemmed bouquets at the beginning of the season. For our small-scale flower farm, I want to try different filler flowers.
• Dahlias are great flowers, but the Dinner Plate Dahlias are too big for bouquets. Customers love them because they are striking, but they take up too much space when building the bouquet. I love the ball dahlias, though.
• I loved the Snapdragons and will be planting way more next year.
• I will be planting sunflowers next year and will have them later in the season by succession planting. Sunflowers add so much to a bouquet, but they need to be cut when the petals are at a 90-degree angle from the center of the flower.
• Strawflowers are cool, but they are really hard to start from seed. I love the texture they provide in a bouquet, though. Plus, they dry really well because they keep their color, so we will be trying these again.
• I will plant fewer Zinnias because out of all the flowers, they take over. I love all the colors, especially the ones with dark middles and lighter petals. Read all about how Zinnias are the easiest flowers to plant.
• We planted a lot of basil this year, so I plan to grow less for the bouquets next year. I love the basil in our bouquets. It adds a yummy scent and is excellent foliage.

What I Learned About the Business Side of Small Scale Flower Farming:

• Starting our subscriptions later will give the customers fuller, more colorful bouquets.
• Keeping subscriptions for 6-8 weeks instead of an option to do a full 12-week subscription will reduce my stress about the weather changing too soon and flowers dying.
• Customers love getting their bouquets every week or every other week, and I love giving them them. A colorful bouquet is sure to bring up anybody’s mood.
• I don’t want to increase the number of flowers we planted. It was easy for me to keep up with the flowers, and I didn’t want it to become overwhelming. Pulling any stray weeds that came up through the flower holes was easy.
• I want my bouquets to be known as “flower-heavy.” So often, I see bouquets with a lot of filler and foliage. I love a packed bouquet of dahlias with sprigs of greenery peeking out, some filler flower filling in the holes, and spikes of Snapdragons coming from the middle.

What I Learned About Myself in Becoming a Flower Farmer:

• Listening to a podcast or music while cutting was terrific, but sometimes, I would cut in silence, and I also loved that. To do something creative and simultaneously enjoy something by my Creator was a special place to be in.
• Cutting flowers is therapeutic.
• I got to revel in seeing beauty all around me, including butterflies, giant bumblebees, honey bees working hard, and hummingbirds.
• As a human being, I am made to move, be productive, and be creative, among many other things. But I got to do all those things in my cut flower garden.
• Getting outside early or enjoying the golden hour lifted my mood every time – even if I didn’t need a mood lift.
• Finding Bumblebees and Honeybees sleeping in the flowers was a treat. I loved seeing them start to rouse from their slumber.
• I love creating bouquets and finding what flowers look best in each one. Because I do bouquets that aren’t color-coordinated, it’s a fun surprise when all the colors actually match and work together.

We had great success and no losses for our first year of small-scale flower farming. We learned a lot about which flowers we planted and what flowers we want to try to grow next year. Creating and using my gifts to bring joy to people’s homes was so fun.