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Ep. 90: Sarah Raven, The Woman Who Changed How We Grow Flowers
224 Plays41 minutes ago
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 cutting (and why your garden actually gets better when you harvest from it), the magic of dahlia hybridizing, lessons learned from contaminated compost, and the heart behind Sarah's newest book, A Year of Cut Flowers.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- Why "liveheading" is Sarah's secret to a more productive garden
- The pinching rule that changed everything: "If in doubt, pinch out"
- How the local flower movement is reshaping the industry on both sides of the Atlantic
- What Sarah's new book offers gardeners at every level (and why her own daughter finally picked it up)
If this episode inspires you, share it with a friend who loves flowers. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a conversation.
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Sarah Raven's Website: sarahraven.com
- Sarah's Book: A Year of Cut Flowers https://amzn.to/4vhXc41
- Sarah's Podcast: Grow Cook Eat Arrange
- Sarah's Instagram: @sarahravenperchhill | @sarahravensgarden
Guest Bio
Sarah Raven is a gardener, teacher, author of fourteen books, and the founder of a gardening brand rooted at Perch Hill in East Sussex, England. Trained as a doctor, she transitioned to full-time growing after the birth of her second child. For more than thirty years, she has championed seasonal, locally grown cut flowers through her writing, teaching, and her weekly podcast, Grow Cook Eat Arrange. Her latest book, A Year of Cut Flowers, is a month-by-month guide drawing on three decades of growing, trialing, and arranging at Perch Hill.
Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter
Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2026/04/08/ep-90-sarah-raven-a-year-of-cut-flowers/
https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/the-backyard-bouquet-podcast/
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Sarah Raven
00:00:54
Jennifer Gulizia
Today I'm joined by Sarah Raven, one of the most influential voices in modern cut flower gardening. For more than three decades, Sarah has helped redefine how gardeners grow, harvest, and live with flowers, blending beauty, productivity, and practicality in a way that has shaped cutting gardeners around the world. Raised in a family deeply connected to plants, Sarah developed an early love of gardening through time spent exploring landscapes in Scotland and the mountains of Italy.
00:01:26
Jennifer Gulizia
After initially training as a doctor and starting a family, she followed a different calling, turning her passion for growing into what began as a small seed venture at her kitchen table and has since grown into a widely respected gardening brand rooted at her garden in Perch Hill,
00:01:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
Sarah's Gardening Journey
00:01:45
Jennifer Gulizia
sarah is the author of fourteen books and the host of the weekly podcast grow cook eat arrange where she shares practical wisdom and creative inspiration with gardeners across generations this spring she's releasing her latest book A Year of Cut Flowers, a month-by-month guide to growing, harvesting, and arranging cut flowers, and to filling your home with color, scent, and abundance straight from the garden. Sarah has long championed a generous seasonal approach to gardening, one that shows how cutting flowers not only brings beauty indoors, but creates healthier, more productive gardens outdoors.
00:02:26
Jennifer Gulizia
Today, I'm really looking forward to talking with her about what a life with cut flowers looks like. How growing, harvesting, and living with flowers has shaped her work, her home, and her seasons.
00:02:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Sarah, welcome to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast.
00:02:42
Sarah Raven
Thank you very much. It's nice to be here.
00:02:45
Jennifer Gulizia
It's such an honor to have you here with us, and you are joining us from UK, and I know so many of my listeners have admired your work for so long and are going to be so excited for this conversation. So you being here means so much to us. So to get started, i don't think any of our listeners need an an an introduction to who you are, but I would love to go back to the beginnings and your early influences. Can you talk to us about how your childhood being surrounded by plants and gardening has shaped the way you view the garden and the natural world?
00:03:22
Sarah Raven
Yes, um absolutely. So my father was an academic at Cambridge University um and he was actually 50 when I was born. I'm a twin. but um And he, from when I began to walk really, um I already showed signs from a very, very early age of loving nature and flowers, and he loved them too. So um from, I don't know, when I was then six or seven, um he would take me off around the yeah UK looking at the best wildflower sites that that were available. Things like the Parsc flower, Pulsatilla vulgaris, and the um the snake's head fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris. I don't know if you know those. but um
00:04:12
Sarah Raven
And so he kind of rather cleverly got me addicted to wildflowers from a very early age. But also I was brought up in a beautiful garden that was full of collectors sort of plants because he was a botanist as well as an academic.
00:04:28
Sarah Raven
And so my parents had a beautiful garden full of lovely things and they were fine about me picking them. So, um yeah, I mean, that's really from when I was very tiny.
00:04:40
Sarah Raven
er It was it was my kind of playground, I suppose. And so then as soon as I but i was an adult, And um in my mid 20s, I got my own garden. ah Not only did I love gardening, but also I particularly love picking flowers.
00:04:59
Sarah Raven
And so when I left London and had more space, um it meant that ah the first thing I wanted to do was to make a cut flower patch. And that's exactly what I did. um Almost in a kind of allotment style, ah but it was very not fashionable at the time. um the Gardening 35 years ago was very much about being low maintenance.
00:05:20
Sarah Raven
And, um you know, the whole sort of wellness thing of gardening hadn't occurred at all. And so it was thought to be sort of a burden, really.
00:05:27
Jennifer Gulizia
Sure.
00:05:29
Sarah Raven
And it was like hoovering in the house, you know, it's just do a quick tidy. um and But anyway, that's changed, luckily. but um So that that's how it started, but definitely inspired by my father, yeah.
00:05:44
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that it started with looking at wildflowers. I live in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, and we have so many wildflowers.
00:05:51
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:05:53
Jennifer Gulizia
a few years ago, my daughter's school took the third graders um to one of the wildlife preserves when the wildflowers were coming up. And we had a wildflower expert showing the kids all of the little wildflowers.
00:06:03
Sarah Raven
Yes.
00:06:05
Jennifer Gulizia
And your story just made me think back of like, wow, what an impression this is setting on these kids that
00:06:10
Sarah Raven
yes
00:06:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Some of them may follow your footsteps someday. um And those seeds that are being instilled at such an early age can really shape how our lives grow.
00:06:22
Sarah Raven
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, funnily enough, I've just, um I have a ah ah my first granddaughter, and post um she's just over a year now, but I was just talking to my daughter about how, in a way, I regret not being a bit pushier with my own daughters or children, um and and sort of showing them what I learned.
00:06:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, congratulations.
00:06:44
Sarah Raven
And so i said to my daughter, would she mind if I, with my granddaughter, I started doing this thing, which is when I was from, when I was sort of seven or eight with my dad, I had this thing called a wildflower diary that that went from A to Z.
00:06:58
Sarah Raven
And when I saw a plant, I would write it in what date it was, where I'd seen it, um had I seen it before. And so it was kind of long, thin rectangular diary. and um And the thing is, it really got me to learn the Latin names from a very early age. So I'm sort of bilingual in Latin names, just because like learning a language, if you do it when you're young, it's really easy. um But also i instinctively know plants in a way that um that sort of who has gone in in a different side of the brain kind of thing.
00:07:35
Sarah Raven
And so anyway, I've agreed with my daughter that with my granddaughter, I'm going to do the same as soon as, i mean, I've got to see that she's a little bit interested, but if she is, I'm going to do exactly that. Yeah.
00:07:46
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. That'll be such a special thing for you to do with her too. And I almost think, because I have an 11-year-old daughter, and it's funny, and i I feel encouraged hearing your wildflower story because my daughter wants nothing to do with our cut flower garden right now.
00:07:50
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:07:53
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:08:01
Sarah Raven
yeah
00:08:02
Jennifer Gulizia
but she loves discovering the wildflowers and we have a new 20 acre farm and it backs up to the forest.
00:08:07
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:08:09
Jennifer Gulizia
And we have all of these wildflowers that are coming up. And at the very edge of our property, we have one area that we have restored as a native perennial garden area. And this last spring was our first spring.
00:08:23
Jennifer Gulizia
And we have over an acre of wild camas. coming up and it's just everywhere these little purple flowers all of a sudden started popping up and my daughter was fascinated with those but like if grandma suggests doing something it's funny there's that different relationship
00:08:34
Sarah Raven
yeah
00:08:37
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Yes, I think there is. Yeah. Yeah, I think there is.
00:08:42
Jennifer Gulizia
and i
00:08:43
Sarah Raven
You're not in the day-to-day so much, are you, as a grandparent? And so, yeah although with me, it was my dad, but my dad was old. You know, he was, by this stage, he was sort of late fifty s I guess.
00:08:56
Sarah Raven
um And so maybe I was sort of more indulgent of him than if he'd been a young dad. I don't know. But anyway, it certainly is a great gift for me. And it is, I mean, I i studied medicine and was ah was a doctor for 10 years of my um young adult life. And then when I had my first child, um I stopped for a bit and then I went back to medicine after my first mat leave. And then when I was pregnant with my second child, I had that thing called hyperemesis gravidarum where you're very sick and, um ah you know, where you just can't eat really. end
00:09:31
Sarah Raven
And so I then got signed off and I never went back to medicine because it then became my work, um my life growing the cut flowers. Yeah.
00:09:40
Jennifer Gulizia
It was when your second child was born that you started your garden.
00:09:44
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Well, I'd sort of done a little bit before, but it was when it became my work rather than my hobby.
00:09:51
Jennifer Gulizia
Gotcha.
00:09:51
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:09:52
Jennifer Gulizia
How did you know, was there like a defining moment that you said, i can't go back to medicine, the garden is calling me?
From Medicine to Gardening
00:09:59
Sarah Raven
I think it was more gradual than that in that i so for two or three years I thought I'm just having a break and I just want to be with the children and then I'll go back but as it went on and i then set up a seed business and then I set up a tuba business and a bulb business and um it then sort of filled every single bit of my life and I realised it was sort of id had I'd got beyond the point where I could go back to medicine and not miss what I was doing so much.
00:10:27
Sarah Raven
um So one took over from the other, yeah.
00:10:32
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I love that you went from the garden to a medical journey back to the flowers.
00:10:38
Sarah Raven
Yes.
00:10:41
Jennifer Gulizia
Was it was there something about the flowers that you felt drawn to?
00:10:41
Sarah Raven
Yes.
00:10:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Was it cutting the flowers? Was it the experience of being in nature? Was there something that stood out to you?
00:10:53
Sarah Raven
I think I'm... I love harvesting. So I i naturally have a very um odd time clock in that I go to bed very early, but I wake up at 5 in the morning, even in the winter, or 5.15. My dad did the same. It's a genetic thing. My brother does the same. And as soon as it's light, obviously not yet, but soon, i get out. I just put a coat on over my nightdress, and I go out into the garden, and I just have a very peaceful time. And I think...
00:11:21
Sarah Raven
um I did that before the babies woke up. um And so it was my time sort of. um and And then I just loved the harvest side of it. um And so bringing things in. So I would just have lots of abundance in the house. And because it was just outside the door.
00:11:39
Sarah Raven
um it was it was free you know so just every room in the house I always had flowers and now still even though the children have gone and everything on a Saturday morning I tend to spend two or three hours just pottering around picking this and that and then just putting it all around the house um it's certainly one of my great life enhancers um even though it's now my profession and what I do every day it's still my hobby
00:12:04
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. I love that you can have your hobby be also what sustains you and your family.
00:12:10
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:12:10
Jennifer Gulizia
i think there's a lot of people who listen to this podcast.
00:12:10
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:12:13
Jennifer Gulizia
We have a lot of flower farmers, but we also have a lot of gardeners who do have a full-time job and do this as a hobby. And some of them are at the point where they're thinking, is this something that could sustain my family or provide income?
00:12:21
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:12:27
Sarah Raven
yeah
00:12:29
Jennifer Gulizia
How did you realize, because you got into this at a time where it wasn't popular to grow cut flowers, how did you realize that you could make a living doing this?
00:12:35
Sarah Raven
yeah yeah
00:12:39
Sarah Raven
um So what happened is I was very lucky in that my husband is a writer and a journalist, and I was very lucky that he sat next to a publisher at a wedding. And um they started talking about the fact that we'd moved to the country and I'd started growing cut flowers, even though I was a hospital medic.
00:12:57
Sarah Raven
And she said that's such coincidence because um on Friday, as she said, I've been asked by a German publishing house to produce a book on growing cut flowers because they think it's on the up.
00:13:08
Sarah Raven
And he said, oh, my wife will do that. And he came out of this wedding and said, I've had i've had a book commissioned for you on growing cut flowers. And I said, I have a full time job and two babies. I don't think I'm going to write a book.
00:13:20
Sarah Raven
But basically what happened is I did write that book. um And then on the back of the book, I then had a weekly column in one of our newspapers. And on the back of that, people started writing to me saying, could I teach them how to grow? And also then when they came and because I taught them, um they would then say, well, I want that particular anterhynum or that particular zinnia. And I was importing quite a lot from the States and quite a lot from the Mediterranean of seeds for here that because I was a botanist as well, if you sort of mean. And so then I had a list of like 40 people who I would um say, OK, well, I'm going order.
00:14:03
Sarah Raven
Six different zinnias from America and seven different antirhinums from Morocco, whatever. you want seed? And that then grew into me doing a sort of printed seed list with about 50 or 60 things on it.
00:14:17
Sarah Raven
And that is and I hand painted every single one of those the list. um and it just gra I mean it really was a sort of kitchen table business and then on the back of that again I carried on teaching but on the back of that um I went I went to Monet's garden in France Giverny and um I saw dahlias almost for the first time in sophisticated colors rather than being kind of many many many colors in one flower which aren't perhaps what I wanted i found these amazing sort of
00:14:21
Jennifer Gulizia
wow
00:14:48
Sarah Raven
plain chocolate-colored, crimson-brown-colored varieties of dahlia, one called Rip City. And I brought them back and started um experimenting with them and found that, like the annuals that I'd been experimenting with, they were the dahlias were cut and come again. And so I basically became a kind of cut and come again nerd. You know, I just, anything that you can cut and it forms auxiliary buds. um and grows back again. i i just spent 10 years sort of trialing every single one I could get my hands on. And again, because I had the science background, I measured how much production I was getting from each plant, or not each each block of plants. So I i planted them in meter square blocks, and then I would measure how much I would get. And so I then had a very good way of comparing
00:15:39
Sarah Raven
and one crop, let's say from a phlox, a perennial phlox, with adelia and a and cosmos, let's say, or an anterhynum. And I would know from exactly the surface area and the amount of hours that had been put in what I was getting out.
00:15:54
Sarah Raven
And of course, it turned out very, very quickly that perennials are low maintenance, but they're very, very low production compared to annuals and dahlias. And so I really have devoted my life to kind of annuals, biennials and dahlias pretty much because they just you don't need to have you can literally have a window box or a pot on your doorstep and you're going to get, ah you know, repeating cut flowers.
00:16:18
Sarah Raven
So that's my passion, really.
00:16:21
Jennifer Gulizia
I love it. And I love how your story all ties together. a few years ago, I read the book, The Gap and the Gain. It's a mindset book and it talks about how life only looks makes sense when you look backwards.
00:16:33
Jennifer Gulizia
And if you listen to like how you have this science background, like had you not had that science background, I wonder, would you be as passionate about the productivity and the science and the way the flowers work
00:16:33
Sarah Raven
yes yeah
00:16:42
Sarah Raven
yes yes yeah no i think it's definitely true and do you know i think it really helps with my teaching i mean i still i started teaching 30 years ago and I do less now. mean, I used to teach three days a week, but I do less now, but I still do teach quite a bit. And I, because I love it. So I've tried to give up a few times because I do find it really tiring. I mean, I'm 63 now. And, you know, as well as running a business and quite a big garden and a lot of staff, teaching on top of that is quite a commitment and my family and stuff. So I've tried to give it up a few times, but I really miss it because I really miss that sort of
00:17:25
Sarah Raven
I've learned something and I want to pass that on. And I love the fact that you see a spark of excitement in someone's eyes that you know, in fact, like me, 40 years ago,
00:17:39
Sarah Raven
that that is like the most positive spark of an of excitement that you can possibly have because it is so life enhancing and it doesn't need to be expensive and it doesn't need to be time consuming. It just is the thing that you can just have so easily.
00:17:54
Sarah Raven
um that, that just makes everyday life between the middle of spring and the end of, of autumn, just so much richer and lovelier and, and, and more wonderful.
00:18:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I love that. Now, I'm curious, because you did get your start so much earlier than really the boom of cut flowers, and you I love how all of this grew so organically.
00:18:17
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Yeah.
Techniques in Flower Gardening
00:18:21
Sarah Raven
yeah
00:18:21
Jennifer Gulizia
Did you have naysayers when you were starting out or when you were approached to write this book where people like, you're crazy, these are supposed to be just enjoyed in the garden, why would you cut them? Yeah.
00:18:31
Sarah Raven
Yes, so so much so I mean including my family to be honest because um In a way picking flowers was stealing the view So if you're looking out of the window and you've got a dolphin anymore a peony why on earth would you want to pick it because it's nicer outside and Sure, it'll last better outside in the cool than it will inside well again ah Again, being a bit sciencey, I experimented with that. And so I would pick a vase of peonies and I would leave the equivalent of a vase of peonies in the garden and I would measure how long they would last. And I found it actually made only two or three days difference. So if I conditioned the peonies inside right,
00:19:09
Sarah Raven
which is floating them in a bath of cold water overnight before you put them into a vase and then searing the stem end. I was getting almost exactly the same amount of time outside inside as outside.
00:19:21
Sarah Raven
and um And then moving away from peonies, but to annuals, like an antirhinum or a zinnia or whatever, if I picked in the right place, which was above a pair of leaves, as you know, it it grew back again within about a week.
00:19:21
Jennifer Gulizia
wow
00:19:37
Sarah Raven
And so what I found, in fact, was that the garden, i.e. the view, looked better for me harvesting because I was liveheading, not deadheading. And actually, I was replenishing the garden by taking from it, by harvesting from it, if I picked in the right way. And so I found with the right plants, it is like an ever-filling cup.
00:19:58
Sarah Raven
And that, for me, was when I just thought, OK, this is how I want to spend my life. And it is how I've spent my life.
00:20:06
Jennifer Gulizia
That's an amazing observation. i really like what you said. I've never heard it said that way before. I've obviously heard of deadheading, but did you just use the word liveheading?
00:20:17
Sarah Raven
Yes. So, I mean, you're doing so when you when you did had a rose or when you did had a a sunflower or a zinnia or whatever. So you you might want to you only cut off the top section of stem and um and what you're doing, you're then putting it on the compost heap. But if you do exactly the same, but it's a bud showing color,
00:20:38
Sarah Raven
you're having exactly the same physiological effect, which is that the growth hormone in all the cells push up to make the plant grow, but they hit a stump where you've cut off and it forms a scar. And that growth hormone then pushes out in two ways. One, it pushes out the auxiliary buds to make next week's flower. And two, it pushes out the root to make a stronger plant.
00:21:01
Sarah Raven
So in fact, by by deadheading or liveheading, you're actually encouraging the plant to do better. But also um if you cut lower in the plant, because obviously you don't want necessarily just a little short stem that you get with deadheading, but you can cut lower in the plant with almost all the plants that we grow, as long as you don't cut it to the ground and that wipes it out because there's no auxiliary bud potential. But as long as I mean, we tend to pick sort of leaving three pairs of leaves below where we cut because we know that will be six auxiliary buds almost certainly that will form and the lower you cut in the plant of course the longer the delay is before the next flower so if you only so i'm quite bossy and strict about if you're only going to pick for a little table center or a posy then only pick that stem length because otherwise when when you're making your arrangement you're cutting off
00:21:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:21:58
Sarah Raven
several auxiliary bud potential and putting that on the compost heap. So only cut really kind of to the vase that you're thinking of using um because otherwise it's just quite wasteful. But it doesn't matter because everything is cut and come again. So it will come back. It just will delay how quickly it comes back.
00:22:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's great advice. Now I'm curious, have you noticed when you, if you are just doing like a bud vase and you cut a short stem, does the new growth, will it still grow a long stem or will it condition the plant to grow a short stem again?
00:22:25
Sarah Raven
Mm-hmm.
00:22:33
Sarah Raven
No, no, no, it should. um Staking is really important in cut flower gardening. I think it's one of the things that people don't realize how key it is. um and And as long as something is growing vertically, what you'll find is, again, just the growth hormone will push that flower, the um lateral flower shoot out.
00:22:55
Sarah Raven
um And it will grow to the same height or similar height as the what's called the king flower. I mean, those are Prince flowers, but because you've removed the king flower with annuals, the king, the Prince flowers are almost equate to the king flower with a biennial.
00:23:10
Sarah Raven
Like a foxglove, if you remove the kingflower, you do get shorter side stems. But it really depends on the variety. And actually with a sunflower, if you remove the kingflower, you do get slightly shorter side stems. But with most things um like a zinnia or a cosmos or an antirhinum, it doesn't affect the stem length. If it's from an auxiliary bud or a kingflower, it doesn't affect the stem length.
00:23:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Interesting. That's such great information. Along those similar lines, I'm curious, do you pinch your plants or do you cut that king one?
00:23:44
Sarah Raven
Absolutely. Yeah, one of my complete sort of rhymes in my head and when I'm teaching is if in doubt, pinch out. And so at the three leaf stage of a seedling, and obviously, again, it this is an approximation because some things are better at four and some things are fine at two. But we've found if you want to across the board rule, then at the three leaf stage, so It's not the seed leaves. It's not the next one. It's the next one. And then you can pinch the the growth tip.
00:24:15
Sarah Raven
And at that stage, you've got a complex enough root structure that it it will survive the um growth tip going. So the photosynthesis will be stopped from that. It will be less from removing that. But the root structure is strong enough by that point, by that stage in in the plant's life cycle that it will grow away happily. Whereas if you pick it pinch it earlier, it won't. And if you pinch it much later, um unfortunately, it's kind of set more on on shooting to the skies. And so it doesn't then form auxiliary buds so readily. And so if in doubt, pinch out because that will help you promote auxiliary bud formation. and then at the three-leaf stage and then pick, pick, pick, you know, as as much as you can. So we tend to pinch out at three-leaf stage, pinch out again as we plant out and then harvest about 10 days later and continue to harvest.
00:25:09
Jennifer Gulizia
That's such great advice. I love that. If in doubt, pinch it out. That's a great saying for people to put in their minds.
00:25:12
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:16
Jennifer Gulizia
um Because you have been gardening for, is it what, 40 years or 30 years, did you say?
00:25:23
Sarah Raven
yeah yeah
00:25:25
Jennifer Gulizia
How have you seen the cut flower industry really evolve?
00:25:30
Sarah Raven
Oh, yes, so much. And to be honest, um only in good ways, I would say. um So when I started, almost all the flowers that were filling the shelves um in in Europe, particularly the UK, were imported and imported quite a long way to, often you know, often from the other side of the world. And I mean, that is not very sustainable, obviously. You know, we don't need to go into that. But also what happened is that ah you ended up with quite a limited range of what was available because they need to um survive from coming from a hot country into an airplane, into a market in Holland, where almost all our cup flowers go through a market in Holland.
00:26:18
Sarah Raven
in a lorry to the UK. And so they needed to have a good vase life. And so we basically, our cut flowers were really, the world was dominated by alstroemeris, chrysanthemums, whatever the season, um tulips, ah some roses, but very limited range of roses, gypsophila.
00:26:31
Jennifer Gulizia
Uh-huh.
00:26:38
Sarah Raven
You know, there was a really, I mean, you could sort of name maybe 10, 12 plants, um that most florists in most um towns throughout the UK would have.
00:26:49
Sarah Raven
ah Whereas now that's completely changed. And, you know, most, ah so many towns now in the UK have a flower farm or someone supplying stuff from a small holding. And it's become, you know, like food was 30 years ago with farmers markets and things.
00:27:12
Sarah Raven
flower farming has has become, um and floristry, and um you know only only doing church flowers with local flowers, it's just completely changed. And that is a really wonderful story. I mean, the supermarkets still do import some flowers, but the percentage, it used to be 95%, and only 5% was grown in the UK, and it's not reversed yet. But we're we're certainly moving towards more of 50-50 situation. And that's really exciting.
00:27:45
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I think we're still about 80-20 with about 80% of our flowers in the U.S. being imported.
00:27:52
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:27:52
Jennifer Gulizia
And so we still have a long ways to go, but it is it is good to see that there's so many farms popping up. I would love your opinion on this since we're talking about flower farmers and local and imported flowers.
00:28:06
Jennifer Gulizia
There are more and more flower farmers popping up in the U.S. and I imagine the same is true in the UK.
00:28:10
Sarah Raven
yeah yeah
00:28:12
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you think there's still room for more people to become flower farmers?
Advice for Aspiring Flower Farmers
00:28:17
Sarah Raven
I really do. But what I always said, because obviously I have teach and have taught a lot of flower farmers in my time because I've taught for a long time. What always say to people who come is work out your market first. Don't start until you know where your market is. And what I found when I started was that actually by supplying hotels, bars, cafes a bunch a week,
00:28:47
Sarah Raven
distributed straight from the garden straight to them and with no middleman, made it financially viable.
00:28:54
Jennifer Gulizia
you
00:28:54
Sarah Raven
um But, you know, if you if you live in a part of the world where there isn't pubs, cafes, you know, that want a bunch of your flowers a week, then that isn't probably going to work. And so, and and after a bit, I found that the picking was so time consuming that,
00:29:14
Sarah Raven
that I was having to delegate it. So I was then paying people to harvest and then their wages weren't really, to be honest, being paid for by what, you know, where we were selling, which again became a farm shop because they needed to take their cut. I need to pay the way, you know, dah, dah, dah. So again, that failed.
00:29:33
Sarah Raven
And so that's why I ended up doing seeds, tubers and and and teaching. So I think it's incredibly, I think there is room absolutely for more, just like there's room for more wonderful homegrown plants um you know, small scale, small holding vegetables and salads and herbs. but work out your market because it is very dispiriting if you've got a field full of flowers and you haven't got anywhere for them to go and you have got wages to pay and you haven't got income coming in. So I would say always work out exactly how you're going to, you know, what you need to make it financially viable and then how you're going to generate that income before you get stuck in. So I'm not a business plan sort of person. I never, never had a business plan in my life. and certainly not when I started. um
00:30:20
Sarah Raven
but i But I do think because it has become more competitive, you probably do want to do that because you don't want to end up hating the lovely person five miles down the road who's also got a flower farm because they've taken up your market.
00:30:34
Sarah Raven
Do you see what I mean? It's better not to do It's better to work with them.
00:30:37
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Yes. I think when I started eight years ago, there was four or five of us in our area.
00:30:45
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:30:45
Jennifer Gulizia
And and I think and we have an Instagram chat group for our local growing area.
00:30:45
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:30:49
Jennifer Gulizia
And I think there's over 30 growers in the area now.
00:30:52
Sarah Raven
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:53
Jennifer Gulizia
So it's it's drastically growing. But at the same time, i love what you said about finding your market because everyone kind of has their own little niche that's just a little bit different.
00:31:01
Sarah Raven
yeah exactly Yeah. And the thing is, I do think brides have really changed and event event managers, event organizers have really changed.
00:31:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:31:13
Sarah Raven
And I think that, you know, if you happen to be near a big wedding venue, that may be enough of ah of a market, you know, if you're supplier. So it's just working out where where your stuff's going to go And you can't You can't hold a gun to the head and say, you're going to support me for two years because, you know, you can't do that. But if you do the job well and they like the stuff and you listen to what they want for their event and their event space, then both everybody's winning, you know. So i I do think I do think the um the use of the flowers is is is very important. There's no point growing it if there isn't a use.
00:31:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I think that's such a good point. Otherwise, it just becomes compost and very expensive compost.
00:31:59
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
00:32:03
Jennifer Gulizia
I appreciate that you shared that you started out with the hiring of employees and that ended up not working out. Can we talk about some of your greatest learning opportunities in the garden?
00:32:11
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:32:15
Jennifer Gulizia
Can you think of one or two experiences that you might be able to share with us?
00:32:15
Sarah Raven
Yes.
00:32:19
Sarah Raven
Yes, of course. um So bruising ones, um I'll tell you about a very bruising one, which is there's there's ah there's a compound here called aminopyralid, which is a broadleafed herbicide. And that sounds like jargon, but basically what it is, is ah is a something that kills weeds that have broadleaves, so not grasses, um but things like docks and thistles in this country. But also um we have something called ragwa, which is poisonous to animals.
00:32:53
Sarah Raven
And it actually kills horses and cattle if they eat if they eat it.
00:32:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh no. no
00:32:57
Sarah Raven
So it it became very widely used here about 10 years ago um because there was was a big sort of explosion of this plant, ragwort.
00:33:08
Sarah Raven
And so a lot of golf courses and even weirdly ah playgrounds, you know, children's playing fields and stuff started using this compound called aminopyrrolid to try and keep the grassy, sward grassy.
00:33:22
Sarah Raven
And what happened, unfortunately, is that if then animals go on and graze, it goes through their gastrointestinal tract, ah gets pooed out into the manure and takes three to four years to actually break down and not be effective against broadleaf plants.
00:33:39
Sarah Raven
And what happened with broadleaf plants, what happened with us is that we had a new dahlia trial with 60 totally unique dahlias that
00:33:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:33:47
Sarah Raven
um breeders had bred for us or we'd bred our own because we do a lot of daily breeding now. And we couldn't work out why they were looking so sick. And we just put these hedges of this wonderful, in fact, it's an American plant, chasmanthium latifolium, this wonderful golden um northern oats grass.
00:34:08
Sarah Raven
And that grew just brilliantly. it was falling these great hedges. And the dahlias were getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And so we worked out something that was going on. And what had happened is that we'd actually plowed up a a new area of ground and we'd imported for the first time, because we're organic, so we don't tend to import. We'd imported green waste from the local council.
00:34:30
Sarah Raven
and rotavated it into our soil because it needed more organic matter than we had. And it was contaminated with um with horse manure with aminopyrrolid in it.
00:34:40
Sarah Raven
And so we lost our entire trial for three years because it was so contaminated, this ground.
00:34:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh my gosh. gosh
00:34:47
Sarah Raven
And so, i mean, that is that sounds like it would only affect somebody on a big scale. But in then I started writing about it and it turned out that an awful lot of our customers were just buying bags of compost that were again being having a little bit of this manure that was coming from a source that was becoming so widespread, the use of this chemical, that wherever you were in the country, There seemed to be a re a little bit of of residue of aminopyrrolid. And so, um you know, less now, but until three or four years ago, people were really, really struggling with bad compost and they would be growing their tomatoes and then they would die and they they would think it was them, but it wasn't. Anyway, so that that was terrible. um And unfortunately, it's such a big problem.
00:35:35
Sarah Raven
pharma industry that i mean pha a rma drug um that chemical that um it's very difficult to control so that that was a sort of bad thing but i think in terms of good things that i've learned um mulching i would say but ideally obviously healthy mulch so we now create all our own compost.
00:35:58
Sarah Raven
um
00:35:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wow. wow
00:35:59
Sarah Raven
And it is quite ah it's quite an operation, but we're lucky that we have an organic um cow, ah ah a beef herd just nearby. And so we get an an awful lot from there that we know is not going to be contaminated with anything. And we do half-half our garden waste with that, and we layer it in with tons and tons of straw. So we now are able to create our own mulch um But if not, green waste is a really good thing. And just mulch, mulch, mulch. It improves your soil. It suppresses weed germination. And if you're worried about amino pyrolytic contamination, you can get a batch and sow a packet of broad bean seed or or just a few broad bean seeds. And if it comes up contorted, you'll know immediately to to chuck that or to take it back.
00:36:48
Sarah Raven
and to try again but that if you're worried about having contamination that's what to do but mulch mulch mulch I mean that is the thing that we do here more than anything I guess
00:36:58
Jennifer Gulizia
That's such great advice. I, gosh, I'm trying to think this was probably four or five years ago now, brought in some compost for some new land that we had opened up and it must've had herbicide in it.
00:37:09
Jennifer Gulizia
And I planted my Lisianthus into it and I lost all of them.
00:37:09
Sarah Raven
yeah
00:37:13
Jennifer Gulizia
They all, Lisianthus and China aster, and they all were stunted from it. And even the following year i couldn't plant, i ended up cover cropping that space before I could use it again.
00:37:20
Sarah Raven
Yes. Yes. Yes.
00:37:24
Jennifer Gulizia
um
00:37:24
Sarah Raven
Yes, exactly. That's exactly what happened with us. um So we researched and we found that roses were the least sensitive broadleaf to this particular chemical.
00:37:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:37:34
Sarah Raven
So we actually just put in a mass of roses and they they they they weren't fantastic, but at least they grew a little bit. um I mean, we could have put it down to grass, but the whole point was that we were trying to pull it back into production from grass.
00:37:48
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:37:49
Jennifer Gulizia
Right. Oh my. Okay. While we were talking about this lesson, you mentioned that you're hybridizing dahlias.
Hybridizing Dahlias
00:37:55
Sarah Raven
Yes, yeah, we are. We are. it's um So I work ah with the the head gardener here, Josie Lewis, who's been here for 15 years. And um we're both similar sort of age. And it is our absolute passion, both of us. And we've both traveled um in Europe every year for 20 years to look at Dahlia hybrids and to visit breeders who we've worked with now for long enough that they know what we tend to like.
00:38:24
Sarah Raven
But then we sort of came back one year about five or six years ago and we sort of said, well, what why don't we have a go So we do now.
00:38:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:38:34
Sarah Raven
And it's just the most wonderful thing. um We've just produced one called Nancy, who's my granddaughter. um And they don't always work at all, but we had a particularly good variety called heroin, which has got very, very big flowers and is quite compact, but not dumpy. So they're these beautiful single flowers like butterflies, because, you know, some container dahlias can be a bit dumpy. So they look like these huge sort of butterflies um on on a pot and probably about two foot high.
00:39:07
Sarah Raven
And um it was it was nice, but it was a sort of quite standard pink. And we love the variety called Waltz and Matilda, which is this beautiful sort of burnt orangey colour with quite a lot of other colours going through it. Again, um it's a single. And so we cross-bred those two. And out of those, we've had three unbelievable products. And um one we're calling Nancy, which is just the most wonderful, wonderful, rich product. sort of pinky orange, again, with these huge flowers um and perfect for a pot, very healthy. And another, amazingly, scented. And we have no idea why, because dailies are not scented. And it's not powerful, but you put your nose in it and it's sort of, it's almost got a slightly sort of primrose-y, very gentle scent, but it is definitely scented. So if you have it by your bed or by the bath or something,
00:40:01
Sarah Raven
you you're you're suddenly like, oh, where's that where's that smell coming from? And it's coming from this daily. And that is just a total chance, total freak of nature. But that sort of thing is very exciting. and but But it happens not that often. I mean, so we probably have a bed here of about 120 hybrids, each one totally unique, you see, because each cross is...
00:40:23
Sarah Raven
And they will not be like their sibling in that in that same crossing. So each one is totally unique. And we we plant them out and then we walk through with hedging shears.
00:40:35
Sarah Raven
um Four of us do it because it needs not to be totally subjective, you know, down to one person. So um four of us walk through and we we do three walks through the first walk through with the hedging shears.
00:40:47
Sarah Raven
We just get rid of the rubbish that we know is boring. There's something like it already or it's ugly.
00:40:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Aha.
00:40:52
Sarah Raven
um The second walkthrough, we're sort of like, okay, we've got to be more picky here. Out of this 150, we've got to reduce down to, let's say, 20. And then we do a third walkthrough and we select our five or six. and um And then they, it's very, we actually had a meeting today where we were looking through at the pictures from the ones from last year and deciding which ones we are now going to grow out. And we selected eight, actually.
00:41:20
Sarah Raven
But, um yeah, it's really fun and it's really exciting. And you can then name them, of course, because they're completely unique. And that's fun too. Yeah.
00:41:30
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I love that. I've been hybridizing dahlias for, this will be my fifth year.
00:41:34
Sarah Raven
Oh, have you?
00:41:35
Jennifer Gulizia
We grew 1,200 from seedling last year, which amazing.
00:41:36
Sarah Raven
Really?
00:41:39
Sarah Raven
Wow.
00:41:39
Jennifer Gulizia
a huge chore to try and analyze them and narrow them down.
00:41:43
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:41:44
Jennifer Gulizia
And it is it is true that you only keep so many of them. I think of the 1,200, I think we maybe be kept 80 or less ah because otherwise there's just too many.
00:41:47
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:41:51
Sarah Raven
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:54
Jennifer Gulizia
And it's at first it's hard because they're all beauty beautiful in their own way.
00:41:55
Sarah Raven
Thank you everyone.
00:41:59
Sarah Raven
Right, yeah, absolutely.
00:42:00
Jennifer Gulizia
But when you have certain goals, so is your goal to breed the open centered singles?
00:42:06
Sarah Raven
um Well, they are the easiest, so but um no, there there there are three or four things we're looking at. One is, yes, they're good for pollinators. um And as I say, they are the easiest because a lot do become single.
00:42:20
Sarah Raven
Two, we're looking for a good vase life. So we're... always, always picking them. And we've just found a few freaks. We've got one at the moment, um which is we've called Sussinghurst, where my husband was brought up.
00:42:31
Sarah Raven
And it has a vast life of 10 days, which is, yeah, is really incredible.
00:42:34
Jennifer Gulizia
how
00:42:36
Sarah Raven
And that was just pure chance, really, that that that wasn't from here. a friend of mine who hybridizes in Holland had bred that and showed it to me. And I put it in the back of my car and then drove back from Holland.
00:42:49
Sarah Raven
um And it was still look fine on the kitchen table, you know, even been in the car for three days. And then and so that one. So we're looking for vase life. um We're looking for pot compatible because more and more people in this country have less and less space. And um pots is the thing. But a lot of pot dahlias are really dumpy and the proportions all wrong. And they're too sort of like a Shetland pony with rosettes. You know, then, you know, it's just all wrong.
00:43:18
Sarah Raven
and So we're looking for graceful ones that that that do well in a pot. And then we're looking for just wow. You know, the fourth thing is just plain wow.
00:43:28
Sarah Raven
And we just selected three today that, to be honest, don't have any of those three sort of rather worthy attributes in a way, but they just are incredible. And so that's the fourth thing is is wow factor.
00:43:42
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:43:43
Jennifer Gulizia
I love it. Now I'm curious, going back to the one that you're calling Nancy, that's the one that has the scent.
00:43:47
Sarah Raven
Yeah. No, that's the sister of the one that has the scent.
00:43:49
Jennifer Gulizia
okay. Oh. okay
00:43:52
Sarah Raven
ah The one that has the scent is currently called Strawberry Sarah, but it's a horrible name. We won't end up calling that, but it is it's the colour of sort of strawberry mousse. ah And so we need to think of a better name because Strawberry Sarah isn't quite right. It may stick just because that's what we refer to it as. But no, Nancy is the sister. So um yeah, they're siblings.
00:44:14
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. So the one that has the scent, will you try breeding down that line to see if you can bring the scent out?
00:44:18
Sarah Raven
Yes.
00:44:19
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:44:20
Sarah Raven
Yes. Yeah, we will. We will. And um yeah, I mean, we are we we already have started that. But yes, absolutely. But also, as you know, ah from your own breeding,
00:44:32
Sarah Raven
it it may not end up being a vigorous variety. It may end up getting Fusarium or something.
00:44:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:44:38
Sarah Raven
or you know And that's the thing we're excited about Nancy is she's really vigorous. She seems to be really healthy and vigorous. Whereas Strawberry Sarah definitely wasn't quite as vigorous.
00:44:49
Sarah Raven
So we're a little bit worried about that is that she may not make the grade in three or four years time. So that's what once we've bred, we do hold onto them for for sort of two, three, four years just to make sure before we really release them big time that they're, because I don't know about you, but we find this one that's particularly fashionable at the moment called Night Silence.
00:45:11
Sarah Raven
I don't know if it's in the in the US.
00:45:11
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:45:13
Sarah Raven
um And we were in love with it to start with. but it's not very healthy. And so, you know, I really feel that the breeder should have spent more time working it out before releasing it. So I sort of feel, um in ah in a sense, as a breeder, to be responsible. Ideally, you find that they've got a good vigour.
00:45:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I had one that I thought was going to be released this year. it would have been my first release. But we started over on this new land this last year. And so I wasn't sure if it was, it just wasn't as vigorous as the previous year.
00:45:45
Jennifer Gulizia
It's this little blush about two to three inches.
00:45:45
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:45:48
Jennifer Gulizia
almost ball decorative dahlia. and But it didn't produce a ton and it was only it was much shorter than the previous year. But it was also on the edge of our field, of this new field that had been fallow for 20 years.
00:46:00
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:46:01
Jennifer Gulizia
So I actually talked with Christine Albrecht.
00:46:01
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:46:04
Jennifer Gulizia
She came and saw and she goes, don't give up on it yet. Plant it again, amend the soil a little bit more, see how it does in the fifth year, and then decide. Because it had been beautiful, But it may not make the cut.
00:46:14
Sarah Raven
yeah yeah
00:46:16
Jennifer Gulizia
And that's the hard part about breeding is you
00:46:17
Sarah Raven
yeah Yeah, is it is. I mean, there is then cleaning up in the lab. So we bred one with a friend of mine in Holland, and which is called Skipper's Bronze, which is the most unusual and extraordinary colour that's like it's a rusty tin, but going to kind of ochre. It's extraordinary on one plant. It's got these different colored flowers.
00:46:38
Sarah Raven
And a great friend of mine who's a dahlia, an absolute obsessive called Dickie Skipper, um she spotted it and bred it. And we found that wasn't very strong, but we loved it so much we invested in it and we had it cleaned up in a lab. I don't quite know how that happens and it it sounds not very organic, but um it now has completely changed it and it is now really healthy, really vigorous.
00:47:02
Sarah Raven
So, I mean, whether or not it will gradually weaken, I'm not sure. um i'm i'm I'm really wanting to start work on ah on ah on a real tome on dahlias. And so then I'll be able to have the time to know everything. um But yeah, they're just, they are the lowest maintenance, highest production plant that I know. so yeah, I'm obsessed with them.
00:47:24
Jennifer Gulizia
I love them. We grow about 4,000 of them at our farm and it never feels like enough.
00:47:28
Sarah Raven
There you go. Yeah, that's amazing. Amazing.
00:47:33
Jennifer Gulizia
You mentioned time. so I want to be respectful of your time today. We have a very important thing to talk about today before we say
New Book: 'A Year of Cut Flowers'
00:47:40
Jennifer Gulizia
goodbye. And that is your new book that is coming out into the world.
00:47:43
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:47:44
Jennifer Gulizia
And for those that are watching on YouTube, I'm holding an advanced copy in my hand here, and it's your book, A Year of Cut Flowers. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for this book?
00:47:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:47:57
Sarah Raven
Yes. Well, um so 31 years ago, um just ah between Rosie and Molly being born, my children, um I worked on a book called The Cutting Garden, which was all the results of my first trials. um that with it was the book that i mentioned at the beginning that was commissioned by this german publisher anyway um and the thing is i'm really proud of that book it's really it's still everything in it is correct um but it it crosses everything from shrubs um perennials climbers
00:48:31
Sarah Raven
annuals, you know, less and dahlias hardly at all because no one in this country were growing dahlias. And so things have changed so much and I've learned so much and the garden here has developed so much that I really wanted to do another book. And so it's quite autobiographical, not in a sort of memoir, my heart was broken sort of way, but but why I love the flowers I love and you know what what I've learned over the 30 years of growing them.
00:49:00
Sarah Raven
on a sort of daily basis so i i think it has profound um sort of roots really and so it was a book that i've probably enjoyed writing more than almost any other because it felt like um it'll be the last book that i do on cut flowers i can't imagine i i'll do another one um But also it's from everything that I've learned from the growing to the conditioning to make them last in the vase and then also very simple home arrangements. So not big event stuff, um but very, very much just how to have flowers in your life as life enhancement on a daily basis.
00:49:38
Sarah Raven
And so it really is sort of from plot to plate, but, you know, um and it's just everything I've learned. I mean, it was is an outpouring of of of all the tips um that I have learned in 30 years.
00:49:51
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:49:52
Jennifer Gulizia
It feels like your love letter to cut flowers or like a Bible.
00:49:54
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:49:56
Jennifer Gulizia
of It's like the Bible for cut flower growers as I'm looking through it going, wow, it has everything in it. And you organized a lot of this by month too or by seasons.
00:50:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Is that correct? Yeah.
00:50:09
Sarah Raven
Yeah, exactly. I mean, i know in a way um for the States that makes it a little bit less relevant in that I have great gardening friends in the States and you tend to go from winter into summer like. yeah um But um I mean, I guess because my experience has been gleaned in East Sussex and this farm here, i I wanted to write about what I have learned. And so i think that there's huge amounts of relevant science and trialing and testing and varieties that ah And so it's only, I mean, I know sweet peas are really difficult in your, heart can you grow sweet peas where you are?
00:50:46
Sarah Raven
They tend to be too hot too quickly, don't they? Yeah.
00:50:49
Jennifer Gulizia
I struggle where I am because we're in the gorge.
00:50:49
Sarah Raven
Okay. you
00:50:52
Jennifer Gulizia
We're an hour east of Portland, Oregon, and we get ah just a little bit hotter faster. And we have wind.
00:50:57
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:50:58
Jennifer Gulizia
We're known as the windsurfing capital of the US. So they don't like the wind.
00:51:01
Sarah Raven
they
00:51:02
Jennifer Gulizia
But Marin Mathis, who's the farmhouse flower farm, she's a good friend of mine up in Stanwood, Washington. She grows the most amazing sweet peas and just wrote the book Sweet Pea School.
00:51:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:51:14
Sarah Raven
Oh, yes. Yes, I must get that. I saw that on Instagram the other day. Well, that's the thing. Sweet peas are a really good example that are perfectly suited to the UK climate because it's cold and wet and horrible.
00:51:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:51:25
Sarah Raven
um They don't, they like broad beans. They don't like hot temperature and they don't like high humidity. um But, you know, there are there are, mean, a great friend of mine who lives in the Hudson Valley, she grows beautiful sweet pea, you know, there there are plenty of places that you can. But so, yeah, I mean, it's it is arranged by,
00:51:43
Sarah Raven
By month and season, I mean, Jan Feb are together and November and December are together because they're not busy times of year. But it's it's really a sort of nudge and it's divided between what to luxuriate in.
00:51:56
Sarah Raven
So what's in the garden, what you can do with it and how you condition it, and then what practical jobs you need to do that month to then ensure that you've got things in three months time or whatever.
00:52:09
Sarah Raven
So that's that's the structure. I mean, I've written, it's the fourth in these handbooks that I've written. And in a way, it's it's the last, actually, I'm not going to do any more. But I mean, I've done six sort of gardening plans for succession all the way through the year.
00:52:24
Sarah Raven
Then I did one on veg, very much the cut and come again varieties. Then I did one on pots because we have 600 pots here, containers. So
00:52:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:52:34
Sarah Raven
um ah We were quite experts. And and then I really wanted, i mean, this is my sort of, the one I've wanted to do for a very long time. So I kept it till a last. um Yeah.
00:52:46
Jennifer Gulizia
When you were writing this book, did you have a person in mind that you were writing to?
00:52:53
Sarah Raven
That's such a good question. um Yeah, quite often I have a friend who is not at all. She's a gardener, but she's not super.
00:53:04
Sarah Raven
She's she's not super practiced. I mean, she knows her plant names a bit and stuff. But, you know, she's a publisher. She lives in London. And I have two or three of my friends in my mind who are very much not flower farmers. um ah And it's definitely yes for the.
00:53:23
Sarah Raven
um I think there's enough in there because of the trialing and testing for the more experienced. But I think it's not the professional. I think it's more the average gardener. Yeah.
00:53:34
Jennifer Gulizia
So anyone who loves cut flowers can benefit from this book.
00:53:36
Sarah Raven
Yeah, yeah. I mean, my elder daughter, funnily enough, who hasn't been interested at all, sat down and started reading the other day and now is, she's like ringing me up the whole time saying she wants sweet peas, she wants dailies, she wants, and um and she really hasn't ever gardened. So yeah, I mean, it is really hand-holding, but I hope there's enough in there of interest from, as I say, from our tests and trials, that there will be stuff for the more experienced that they'll still think, oh yeah, that's interesting.
00:54:05
Sarah Raven
I hope.
00:54:06
Jennifer Gulizia
There's always something to learn. I mean, I feel like the more I get into my career, this is my eighth year growing commercially.
00:54:13
Sarah Raven
Right.
00:54:13
Jennifer Gulizia
And I feel like sometimes I know less now than I thought I did when I first started.
00:54:16
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:54:18
Jennifer Gulizia
so
00:54:18
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's true. That's a good, I mean, I think that's a good thing, don't you? I don't think we want to feel we're sitting on top of the mountain and we know it all.
00:54:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely.
00:54:28
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:54:29
Jennifer Gulizia
We're digging into the regenerative agriculture and how to heal our soil right now. And I feel like I've just gone down a rabbit hole of trying to learn.
00:54:33
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:54:37
Jennifer Gulizia
We're about to, i'm does your book cover ah composting?
00:54:41
Sarah Raven
Yes, a bit. It does a bit. What we do here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:47
Jennifer Gulizia
I'm anxious to read that section because we need to start composting. We have 20 acres and it would be unaffordable to bring in compost for that much land.
00:54:52
Sarah Raven
Gosh.
00:54:56
Jennifer Gulizia
yeah.
00:54:57
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Gosh, it sounds amazing. What do you mainly grow apart from dahlias and lisianthus?
00:55:03
Jennifer Gulizia
um Well, we don't grow very many glisianthus. The last few years, I've really had trouble with fusarium because we stay cold for a while because we are close to Mount Hood.
00:55:08
Sarah Raven
Yeah, we can't. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:14
Jennifer Gulizia
um ah So we don't warm up as fast as like the Portland area. and then But once we get hot, we just have a shorter window.
00:55:19
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:55:22
Jennifer Gulizia
it's Some people have more success with hoop houses, but we haven't established hoop houses yet. So really our main crop with that we focus on right now is dahlias. And then we're We're cover cropping most of our farm right now to just work on the soil health.
00:55:35
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:55:37
Jennifer Gulizia
We have weeds everywhere. We have thistle, we have napweed.
00:55:39
Sarah Raven
Mm. Mm. Mm.
00:55:41
Jennifer Gulizia
um But the goal is to eventually make it into a really beautiful regenerative flower farm.
00:55:41
Sarah Raven
and
00:55:45
Sarah Raven
um Amazing.
00:55:47
Jennifer Gulizia
So.
00:55:47
Sarah Raven
And um where's your market? How how do you, who do you sell to?
00:55:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, we have evolved. So we started out selling just to wholesale to wedding florists.
00:55:57
Sarah Raven
No.
00:55:58
Jennifer Gulizia
I was a wedding photographer and a gardener. um And I fell in love with ah Cafe LA Dahlias and other dahlias. um And so with our previous growing space where we leased,
00:56:09
Jennifer Gulizia
I only had room to grow a small amount. So I i wholesaled and then we sold our Dahlia tubers online. And now that we have this 20 acre field, we're we're trying to go slow, but we are focusing now we can also bring in our community where our farm is situated on the Hood River Fruit Loop, which is a national spot where people come to visit agritourism and visit the orchards. And we have several fruit stand locations that are near our property.
00:56:40
Jennifer Gulizia
So we're hoping that we can ah
00:56:40
Sarah Raven
Brilliant. Yeah.
00:56:44
Jennifer Gulizia
ah educate and provide a place where people can come learn about the growing the cut flowers and how to do it sustainably.
00:56:51
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
00:56:51
Jennifer Gulizia
So if you're ever in the area, we would love to have you.
00:56:51
Sarah Raven
Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds amazing. I'd love to. I'd love to.
00:56:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, I have a few last questions because I know it's getting late your time. And so this year I started asking a series of quick fire questions to all my guests on the podcast. And my first quick fire question is, what is your favorite flower to grow or work with and why?
Sarah's Favorite Flowers
00:57:14
Sarah Raven
Guess.
00:57:16
Jennifer Gulizia
I'm going to guess it has to do with the cover of your book here.
00:57:20
Sarah Raven
It has to be the dahlia, I'm afraid. So we've talked a bit too much about that. And why? Because it's cut and come again. And in in the UK now with climate change, if you mulch it, you can leave it in the ground. You don't have to lift them.
00:57:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing.
00:57:35
Sarah Raven
They are really low maintenance here. We mulch eight inches deep. So really, really deep.
00:57:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:57:41
Sarah Raven
um ah So but that's not very exciting because we've talked a lot about those. I love zinnias and ah they're very American. I first I first came across them in the States.
00:57:52
Sarah Raven
I love queenie red lime, which I'm sure you know, which is muted pinky with a green tinge through it.
00:57:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:58:00
Sarah Raven
um I love anti-rhynims. I think they're really underestimated. The Snapdragon, and there's good breeding going on with those at the moment. And funnily enough, I'm really on a big campaign at the moment for the Ulströmeria, which is so, people are very snobbish about Ulströmerias in this country because they do have a good vase life. So they're in this sort of garage forecourt wrap,
00:58:21
Sarah Raven
But there's really good breeding going on with them right now. And so there are really interesting varieties. And we've got one in a trial here called Blushing Bride that flowers from May without cease until the end of October.
00:58:34
Sarah Raven
And pull them like rhubarb rather than cut them.
00:58:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:58:38
Sarah Raven
And it's probably one of my favorite plants at the moment.
00:58:38
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:58:41
Sarah Raven
So we're doing a big austro trial here this year.
00:58:45
Jennifer Gulizia
You pull them.
00:58:46
Sarah Raven
Yeah. Anyway, I didn't give you one answer. Yeah, pull them. Yeah.
00:58:49
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:58:50
Sarah Raven
So sorry, that was trying to be quick fire, but I then said five.
00:58:54
Jennifer Gulizia
That's okay. I love it. And why do local flowers matter to you?
00:59:00
Sarah Raven
Oh, i I mean, just it's fundamentally important, um i think, that you you eat and you enjoy where you are and um so for me the the thing road miles is just such an overused term but i i just think mainly to do with life enhancement you know it's just if you have any ground at all growing your own food and your own flowers is is just an absolute joy and so local local local and if local could be in your back garden so much the better
00:59:34
Jennifer Gulizia
I love it. What is one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
00:59:42
Sarah Raven
I think the level of chemicals that ah tend to be used still in quite a lot of imported flowers. And um so, ah you know, I need to be careful because things are changing. But in Kenya, for instance, where a lot of our roses in this country come from, i mean, the the the level of chemical use would not be allowed in this country.
01:00:06
Sarah Raven
Partly because of the growers that are growing them and they shouldn't be coming into contact with those chemicals, but also partly if you actually have them in your compost heap, they take about three months to biodegrade.
01:00:18
Sarah Raven
And why is that?
01:00:18
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wow.
01:00:19
Sarah Raven
Because they're so full of things you don't want, like silver thiosulfate and stuff. So, yeah, I just think, again, it's a reason to grow your own. You know exactly what's happened.
01:00:31
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I think people think, oh, well, i'm not eating it, but you're touching them and the the chemicals are soaking into your skin.
01:00:36
Sarah Raven
Yes, yeah, completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:00:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. My last quick fire question. What are you most grateful for that flowers have given you beyond the blooms?
01:00:48
Sarah Raven
Oh, perfume, scent, definitely. So at the moment, um so it sort of end of winter, beginning of spring, there are two or three plants that I walked past to get to my back door.
01:01:03
Sarah Raven
One is called Sarkocca, which is Christmas box, which is very insignificant, but there the scent of the flowers um from about the middle of January until about the middle of March is absolute knockout.
01:01:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
01:01:17
Sarah Raven
um and then it's boring uh and the other one is a daphne um and a daphne adora oreo marginata and the third one i've got on my doorstep is a really incredibly a newly bred narcissus called polar hunter and again beautifulcent beautiful scent beautiful amazing vase life last almost two weeks in the vase
01:01:21
Jennifer Gulizia
yes
01:01:38
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
01:01:39
Sarah Raven
And um looks fantastic in a pot. So if that's what you meant, um ah as in what else has it given you? i mean, it's given me calm. It's given me enthusiasm. It's given me excitement. But I mean, growing cut flowers, but definitely flowers give me a perfume as well colour. Yeah.
01:01:57
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. Thank you. Well, Sarah, it has been such an honor and a delight to get to visit with you. And thank you for coming on my podcast and sharing so openly with our listeners. And i want to encourage everyone to go check out your new book, A Year of Cut Flowers.
01:02:14
Jennifer Gulizia
Where can people find this book?
01:02:17
Sarah Raven
Oh, I think, um I mean, you can get it from UK Amazon now, but soon it's out. I think it's out in mid-April in the States. So all your local bookstores and library will have it.
01:02:27
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
01:02:30
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
01:02:30
Jennifer Gulizia
Is it already available in the UK?
01:02:34
Sarah Raven
12th of March.
01:02:35
Jennifer Gulizia
12th of March. Okay, perfect.
01:02:36
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
01:02:36
Jennifer Gulizia
We have a pretty good global audience that listens to this podcast. Okay.
01:02:40
Sarah Raven
Oh, okay. It's on our website already. I have a website, sarahraben.com, and it's there already because we have pre-copies, but it's on general release on the 12th of March.
01:02:51
Sarah Raven
And then in the States, I think about the 12th of April.
01:02:54
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you ship to the US or do we need to buy from a bookstore here?
01:02:57
Sarah Raven
I'm afraid we don't. Yeah.
01:02:59
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
01:02:59
Sarah Raven
Not yet. We will at some point.
01:03:00
Jennifer Gulizia
it's
01:03:01
Sarah Raven
Yeah.
01:03:01
Jennifer Gulizia
It's so hard with the international customs.
01:03:03
Sarah Raven
Yeah, it is. we just We used to lose so much in the post that and it's just so difficult to do. Yeah.
01:03:09
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes. What is the best way for our listeners to connect with you?
01:03:14
Sarah Raven
um Definitely, I have a website, as I say, SarahRaven.com. um And yeah, I mean, come to the garden here. if If you're coming, if you're traveling over here, we're open two or three days a week for the last two weeks of April and first week of May. And then we shut because we do a total changeover. And then we reopen again at the end of June until the end of September, um two or three days a week on the whole. But it's all on our website and you can you'll see. And you it's all pre-book, I'm afraid.
01:03:45
Sarah Raven
Post-COVID, we just we just it's so much easier because we do all the food as well. So we need to know if we've got 40 people coming for lunch or 140. Thank you.
01:03:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow, absolutely. Okay, well, we will include show link or note links in our show notes today to your web website as well as your social media and your book.
01:04:06
Jennifer Gulizia
Before we say goodbye and your podcast, yes we will link to yes, we will link to that as well.
01:04:07
Sarah Raven
Oh, and the podcast, of course, which would take me. Yeah. Grow complete range. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:16
Jennifer Gulizia
Before we say goodbye today, is there anything I haven't asked you today that you want to leave our listeners with?
01:04:24
Sarah Raven
No, i want to know more about you and about your farm. But apart from that, I don't think I've got any more that they need to know about me. Yeah.
01:04:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for your time. I know you had a really long day before joining us on the podcast. So this means so much to myself and our listeners. And I highly encourage everyone to go grab a copy of A Year of Cut Flowers.
01:04:47
Jennifer Gulizia
So thank you so much.
01:04:48
Sarah Raven
Thank you. Okay, lovely. Nice to meet you.
01:04:51
Jennifer Gulizia
You as well. Bye-bye.
01:04:53
Sarah Raven
a