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Ep.55: Cut Flower Farming with Dave Dowling: Real-World Advice for Growing and Selling Flowers
2k Plays10 days ago
In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, we’re joined by one of the most respected voices in the cut flower industry—Dave Dowling. With over 20 years of experience as a flower farmer and now a trusted mentor to growers across North America, Dave shares insights you won’t want to miss.
We talk about how he got started growing flowers (before Google existed!), what helped him turn a few backyard beds into a thriving year-round business, and the advice he gives most often to new flower farmers. From choosing the right flowers to grow, to selling at markets, working with florists, and applying for grants—this episode is packed with practical tips and hard-won wisdom.
Whether you're dreaming of starting a flower farm or already deep in the growing season, Dave’s insights will help you build a more sustainable and profitable business—while remembering to enjoy the flowers along the way.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Dave got started in flower farming (and the book that sparked it)
- Tips for selling at farmers markets and to florists
- What makes a flower profitable—and what to grow more of
- The biggest mistakes new growers make
- Dave’s favorite flowers for market (and why lisianthus shines)
- How to apply for NRCS high tunnel grants
- The growing strength of the local flower movement
- Why collaboration beats competition in our industry
- What Dave hopes his legacy will be
🌼 Want to connect with Dave?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davemdowling/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaveDowlingBallHort
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Transcript
Introduction to Backyard Bouquet Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galizia of The Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon.
00:00:17
Speaker
Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The Backyard Bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right, flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
Dave Dowling's Journey in Flower Farming
00:00:55
Speaker
Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. Today, I'm honored to be joined by one of the most respected voices in the cut flower industry, Dave Dowling. With over 20 years of experience as a flower farmer, Dave built a thriving business growing and selling cut flowers year-round before transitioning to a role where he helped growers across North America succeed.
00:01:18
Speaker
For years, he's been a trusted advisor through Ball Seed and Ball Color Link. guiding flower farmers on everything from choosing the best bulbs and perennials to marketing and profitability.
00:01:29
Speaker
Now, as of early 2025, Dave has sort of retired, but not really. While stepping back from his full-time role, he's still deeply involved in the cut flower world, continuing to share his experience and expertise through speaking engagements, consulting, and his well-known cut flower emails.
00:01:49
Speaker
Whether you're just getting started or looking to take your farm to the next level, Dave's insights are invaluable. I'm so excited for this conversation. Dave, thanks so much for joining me today and welcome to the podcast.
00:02:02
Speaker
Thank you. it's It's always good to be a guest on somebody's podcast, and I'm happy to be here. Well, I think it's job for you, Bob. I would say you make me feel really important there, but that was great. Thanks for the intro. Well, you are really important. You have saved my own seeds and flowers many times, and you have been there as a listening ear several times for me throughout my growing career. So I'm really excited that you can join us today.
00:02:26
Speaker
Good, good. You have had such an influential career in the flower industry, but let's go back to the beginning if we can. How did you first get into flowers? Oh, I grew up in the country. We had a farm, but we didn't farm it anymore. So we had a vegetable garden, which I hated, hated going and weeding early in the morning. We work out hot.
00:02:47
Speaker
yeah I just hated it. Didn't want to plant it. Didn't want weed Didn't want to do anything with it. Um, but as I grew older, i always had flowers in the garden. um My mother never had much of a flower garden. She had too many kids to have time to do it, but both of my grandmothers were gardeners and had flowers.
00:03:04
Speaker
um So I always had some flowers in the yard somewhere, always growing up. And when I was in my I to say mid early thirties. Um, I started working at a garden center and was have had flowers at the end of my driveway and around the house and stuff.
00:03:20
Speaker
And I went on a bike ride and saw somebody selling flowers at a farmer's market. And I thought I have the same things at the end of my driveway. People giving money for those. Why, why don't I do that someday? know, it wasn't, wasn't a plan to say I'm going to go grow cut flowers.
00:03:34
Speaker
I just saw that and thought, Oh, that's kind of neat. People are making money selling cut flowers. So I, About a year later, um a friend of mine who was an aerobics teacher um had a couple students that were cut flower farmers.
00:03:49
Speaker
Leon and Carol Carrier from Plantmasters. And so we went over to visit them. She wanted to show me their garden. And it was a big garden. you know It was ah is an urban farm. They're a two-acre lot. But had the entire backyard was all flowers. The neighbor's yards were flowers that they were growing.
00:04:04
Speaker
Growing in a ah lot next door. um And so, you know, people can really do this and make a business or a career out of it. So the following year, I got signed up for a small weekday farmer's market.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I remember the first time I went, I sold $36 worth of stuff. And I thought, wow, this is pretty cool. I was still working full time at a garden center, so it wasn't really an income. It was more of a ah hobby that kind of paid for gardening.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. But then a year later, I got into the Saturday market and you know sales were so much better. And sales after that first week weren't $36 anymore. They went to several hundred every week, which was fine for a part-time gig.
00:04:39
Speaker
So then I did the Saturday market and realized we're going to do it more. So I talked to the garden center and I basically scheduled my work schedule at the garden center around farmer's market days and times. So it could do farmer's markets for a couple of years.
00:04:54
Speaker
And then I got into a really good market in DC, the DuPont Circle Market. And that's when I told the garden center I'm going quit and they wouldn't let me quit. So i still worked part-time for about another year. um And then they sold it to somebody else. And I said, okay, I'm out. I'm done. I'm going to work part-time, full-time on my farm now.
00:05:09
Speaker
So it's basically, I was i never really planned on it getting as big or doing as much as I did. it just happened. You know, you grow a little more next year because you need more. And every year got more and more and, you build another tunnel or build another greenhouse. And so just kind of, almost want to say it got out of hand, but it was good out of hand.
00:05:27
Speaker
yeah I think that happens to most of us. We're all guilty of adding a few more here and there before you know it, you have a lot. Yeah. Put a few more beds in, a few more plants and yeah, it just grows.
00:05:39
Speaker
Very quickly. Yeah. So you have always worked in the plant industry then, is that correct? Not really. um For like three or four years, I worked at this and kind of ran a woodworking company for somebody else, ran the office and did payroll and all that kind of stuff.
00:05:54
Speaker
And also ended up working in installations. It was a but custom furniture company like for office buildings and law law firms and stuff like that in DC. um And then I had, because I was doing that kind of construction stuff, I started ah ah home improvement business that I ran for 10 years.
00:06:09
Speaker
And that's when I ended that, when I went to work for the garden center. Gotcha. Gotcha. So growing up, you probably didn't imagine. No, had no, I did take um horticulture in high school for three years with the horticulture, um but didn't do anything after that. I didn't go to college. It's all self-taught and self, you know, learn as you go kind of stuff.
00:06:30
Speaker
um So yeah, I had that 10 or 12 years that didn't work in the flower business or agriculture. I was doing construction, but flower farming was much better. Yeah.
Challenges of Year-Round Flower Farming
00:06:43
Speaker
So when you started growing flowers for the farmer's market, did you already have a large piece of land to grow or did you have to move to establish your flower farm?
00:06:54
Speaker
No, I was living in, basically it was the farmhouse, me the farm that we sort of grew up on, but most of us had grown up in a house down the street because my parents built another house. It was a big old farmhouse. That's how my business name was Farmhouse Flowers and Plants. So I already had land and just started out literally the first year it was a garden that was you know probably 100 feet by 100 feet. wasn't much.
00:07:16
Speaker
had no idea how much I should have grown and never had enough the first year. i remember you Years later, found in the notebook where I said, you know grow more zinnias and plant more sunflowers and that kind of stuff, because I didn't never had enough. you know, we would sell out all the time.
00:07:29
Speaker
um But then I was had the land to be able to spread and expand to have, you know like three acres of flowers. And at one point, i had seven greenhouses and two tunnels. so Wow, that's amazing.
00:07:41
Speaker
So how many years did you have? It was farmhouse flowers? Farmhouse Flowers and Plants, for a whole 20 years from when I started to I ended. And that was Farmhouse Flowers and Plants because I also sold plants, you know, bedding plants, perennials, and herbs, which was...
00:07:56
Speaker
quite profitable. you know Some of the other growers might know now that are so growing and selling things like the mum or the dahlia liners are doing really well with the plants that they sell. And there's also quite a few flower growers that also sell plants at the farmer's market or they have plant sales at the farm, which can be a really good ah cash flow earlier in the spring when you're not, you know your flowers aren't blooming yet, but you're selling plants in April, um April and May. So it helps with the cash flow throughout the year.
00:08:22
Speaker
Definitely. And people are hungry for plants, anything green. Yeah, there was that big COVID bump for plant sales, and it it went way up and went down a little bit, but it's still better than it was pre-COVID. So people who were introduced to gardening and plants during COVID, a lot of them stuck with it and are still doing it.
00:08:40
Speaker
Well, it's easy to see why, especially for us gardeners and farmers. So you really got your start before the local flower movement even took hold.
00:08:51
Speaker
I got my start before there was Google or internet. my I remember I was at Rehoboth Beach and there's little teeny bookstore there and there was a book, I can't remember it was like a series of books on like how to raise chickens and how to do this one was how to grow on salt-cut flowers and it's literally this little four by five foot four by five inch book that was maybe 80 pages.
00:09:16
Speaker
And I bought that and and read it cover to cover. And it was talking, you know, what to grow and how to grow it. There were no pictures and it was just black and white, maybe if few line drawings, just explaining how to grow cut flowers and make it into a business and sell them.
00:09:27
Speaker
you know, and then after that, I got Lynn Bazinski's book, The Flower Farmer, which was a great book, even though it's probably 20 years old and it was a second edition came out maybe 15 years ago. It's a great book to have.
00:09:39
Speaker
It is a great book. It's interesting when you got your start because nowadays it's so much easier to start out as a flower farmer. There's so many resources. We can take courses through you, through Lisa Mason Ziegler's.
00:09:51
Speaker
You can take Erin at Floret's courses. There's so many tools to get you started. Yeah. yeah I remember i when I got into the DuPont Circle Farmers Market, I met Bob Wollum, who's a grower in Virginia.
00:10:04
Speaker
And he told me about the ASCFG, which back then their internet was just infancy. I think maybe he email, but didn't really have Google or yeah there wasn't much on the internet left to do. um I don't think he even had a computer yet when I, I didn't have a comp computer in it yet when I met him and he told me about um ASCFG.
00:10:19
Speaker
But joining that was a huge influence on my success and career because it let me go to conferences and meet other growers and see other farms. That's of the biggest learning experiences is to go to another farm, either as a part of a meeting or a conference, or if you just have somebody can go visit.
00:10:36
Speaker
You know, if you know somebody, else I don't want to recommend you you know call up Florette and want go visit because she's not let you, you know, but if you can go and and find a farm that's in your area, whether it's a small meeting or an ASCFG meeting or a university meeting,
00:10:49
Speaker
to go to another farm and visit um as part of a meeting if possible, because you're going to learn from seeing what that farmer does, what they grow and how they grow it, but also just walking through the farm with another farmer next to you talking about how they grow, or what they grow. It's just a huge learning experience.
00:11:05
Speaker
um So I joined the ASCFG and then I got elected to the regional director of the Mid-Atlantic and then... um ended being president for two two-year terms and then was an industry liaison for a while when I started working for Edney Flower Bulbs and then I was still came back and was president again for three more years so was on the board for a total of 12 years um wow which was great because you get to go to conferences and farm tours and stuff like that and visit other farms so that really helped um see how things are done and you know learn new things and new varieties and how to grow new things
00:11:39
Speaker
Even though we have the internet and all of these resources at our disposal today, I still think that I have learned more from visiting other farms and talking to other growers than sitting on an online course.
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, I'd like to think of like a doctor. They can watch online all they want, but until you get your hand in there and do the work, or an airplane fly, you know, simulator's not the same as flying a real plane.
00:12:02
Speaker
Get out there and see the plane, see the the other farms, and see how they do it. Absolutely. You, when you had your farm, were known for producing flowers year-round. Is that correct?
00:12:13
Speaker
Yes. how didn't start that until probably five years after I started. Because the one market at DuPont Circle decided to go year-round. And it's like, sure, I'll sell flowers all year because it was...
00:12:25
Speaker
You know, when you're selling from like May to October and November, know, there's no money coming in and the rest of those three or four months. So I was really happy to have that option of selling year round. And by then I had already built a greenhouse it was heated. So I had the ability to grow year round.
00:12:39
Speaker
Gotcha. So the greenhouse was your key to being successful year round. For year round. You have to have a greenhouse for year round, unless you're like in Southern Florida or Southern California where there's no frost and you can grow year round. Absolutely.
00:12:51
Speaker
Did you have year round water access as well? Yeah, i had um underground water pipes and water faucets in the greenhouse. So yes. Gotcha. One of my challenges right now is that we have a farmer's irrigation water that runs from April 15th until October 1st.
00:13:09
Speaker
And so the only way to water things in a field is to connect a lot of hoses and run them out there. So it's not as feasible for me to currently grow year round. I did have it set up where there were three greenhouses in a row, kind on a slight incline.
00:13:23
Speaker
And the bottom greenhouse had the water faucet. The other two were run from a hose. So did have to, in the wintertime, drain that hose so it wouldn't freeze. you know Drain it, and then the next day you'd turn it on in water and then drain it again. Gotcha.
00:13:33
Speaker
Because it was outside exposed. But made it work. Looking back um over the years as a flower farmer, what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned when you were starting out?
00:13:46
Speaker
The biggest lessons? Well... Don't be afraid to try something new, something different, whether it's a variety something like that. um Make sure you're always um learning.
00:13:58
Speaker
yeah you have It's fine to do a trial and error, but if somebody's already made that mistake, you can learn from their mistakes, which is what you do when you go to a farm or you take a course. you You learn the right way to do things. um Don't let weeds take over.
00:14:10
Speaker
Weeds can be the most expensive thing you your most expensive thing on the farm. know If you're battling weeds constantly, it's best to prevent them rather than eradicate them. you know Don't let them happen in the first place.
00:14:21
Speaker
And the other thing I always like to say, and you might have heard me say this before, you don't make any money growing cut flowers. You make all the money selling cut flowers. Ooh, that's a good one. Sometimes you have to work just as hard selling those flowers as you did to grow them.
00:14:35
Speaker
What made you successful at selling your flowers then? Yeah. It really helps get into a good farmer's market or be selling to good florists that want local flowers and appreciate the stuff that you're growing.
00:14:47
Speaker
um But to be in a good farmer's market, because over the years, I tried some other markets other farmer's markets. Sometimes they just weren't good. We'd do them for a year a year and a half, and it's just the customer base wasn't there. like We did one that was in Annapolis, Maryland, run by the same people that did the DuPont market. So it's a really well-run market.
00:15:04
Speaker
We do fine there in the spring with plant sales and some flowers early on. But then by the time it came to mid-June on the rest of the year, just the customer base wasn't there because then it was more tourist and not, um they weren't regulars. you Or the people with money went away for a month you know because they had a house at the beach or they had a villa in France, who knows where they went, but the people with money buying flowers just disappeared, which that happens often with um almost any farmer's market is slower in July and August.
00:15:32
Speaker
um you Your sales can pick up again in September. so But having that the right place to sell really helps. Then also your attitude. always like to say if you're not having fun at the farmer's market or not comfortable going to florist, have somebody else do it for you.
00:15:48
Speaker
um Because so especially the farmer's market, your customers to get to think of you view as a friend. And if you're not friendly to them, they're not going to want to come and buy flowers from you. So you want to make sure it's fun for them to shop from you.
00:16:00
Speaker
um You know, talk with them, kid with them, know their kids' names. If it's a market that has dogs, make sure you know the dog's name. All that kind of stuff really makes a difference to ensure it to get the customer comfortable with coming to see you every week and basically throwing money at yeah know and you. know some Some will come and throw a a lot of money at you, $30, $40, $50 a week, and that adds up.
00:16:21
Speaker
That relationship piece is so important. that kind of reminds me, I don't do farmer's markets because we're a very tourist destination. So when I tried them, I had the problem of people saying, oh, well, I'm just passing through for the day. I don't have a way to keep the flowers alive or transport them.
00:16:37
Speaker
And you would never get regular customer because they're gone next week. and Exactly. It's the regular customers that pay your bills. Just like Starbucks lives on the people that buy that coffee every day, not that people get it because it's their birthday or they buy it once or twice a year.
00:16:49
Speaker
So it's the regular customers that keep you in business. So treat them really well because you want to make sure they keep coming back. That's great advice. Did you just sell bouquets at the
Selling Strategies and Customer Relationships
00:16:59
Speaker
farmer's markets? I know you said you sold plants, but... yeah No, we did our flowers really different. when we first When I first started, I went by myself for that first year, the weekday market.
00:17:07
Speaker
um and i just I made little pre-made bouquets. i I didn't use mason jars. I put them actual little vases, um but they were pre-made at home and then... um I didn't even think to take anything to wrap them with. I just had the flowers and then I feel it's always supposed to wrap these. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. I just going on a wing and a prayer, I guess.
00:17:27
Speaker
um But then when I got to the Saturday market, my sister would come and help me cause it was busier and we were, She was a worked at florist shops before, and she made a really beautiful arrangements. So we'd take orders. People either bring their vase in, and she'd make it or they'd say, ah you know, I want a $20 arrangement, you know purple and pink.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then they'd get in line for the strawberries whatever else they were buying and come back and pick up the flowers. And it to the point where couldn't keep up with that. And somebody said, can i just pick up my own flowers? And it never occurred to me that people would pick up by the stem and buy it. I just thought they wanted to prearrange bouquets.
00:17:58
Speaker
So after that week, it was probably... four or five weeks into that season, we just brought the flowers and let people pick up their own stems. So we got to be known as the people where you just pick, we sold the flowers by the stem and you could come and buy three sunflowers. You could buy a hundred dollars for the flowers, whatever you wanted to pick up and buy, you could buy.
00:18:16
Speaker
So it was, I like that better for several reasons. We didn't spend all the time making bouquets. I know farmers who, you know, they pick all week and then Friday afternoon at three o'clock they start making bouquets till 10 o'clock at night, you know, because they're making 200 bouquets for their market.
00:18:30
Speaker
Or you get people that, um spent all the time but the market making the bouquets or they just spent a lot of time doing it. But what we ended up doing is we would pick flowers in the field and make sure it always looked pretty in the bucket.
00:18:41
Speaker
So all the zinnies were the same height and color coordinated or whatever. So it went in the cooler like that, although the zinnies didn't go in the cooler. All the other ones had in the cooler. Zinnies had a warmer cooler. But so that then we went to the market on the weekend, Saturday or Sunday, we put that entire bucket in the truck.
00:18:56
Speaker
took the market, put on the table. We might separate it into two buckets because the bucket was really full when we put it in the cooler. Then we never touched it again and until we wrapped it up and gave us money. So it really cut down on the labor getting ready for the market because we could show up at ah a busy market like a DuPont Circle in D.C.
00:19:12
Speaker
Literally... 45 minutes before the market opened and we were ready for the market open. And that's, we're setting up either anywhere from four to six easy up tents. We would have six or eight tables, you know, flowers, plants, everything. We could set up with three or four people in literally 45 minutes and be ready for the market.
00:19:30
Speaker
Because we weren't making the bouquets and let's like we just you know all the zinnias on this table, the sunflowers here, the lilies here, and just put the flowers out and people would come and buy by the stem. It did mean that we had to always have prices out.
00:19:43
Speaker
We had little signs that's tucked under every bucket that had the price on it. So nobody had to ask the price, which to me, if somebody has to ask the price, they're just going to walking probably and never buy from you.
00:19:54
Speaker
um Same thing if you went to the grocery store. I hate it when they have the little display in the aisle, whether it's something special, but they never got the price foot on it. I won't ask. I'm not going to to cashier and try and buy it and find, oh, that's too much. I don't want it.
00:20:05
Speaker
Because then you you get that situation where you have to decline that purchase because it's more than you want or it's not worth what it's priced at. And then you have to say to the cashier, I don't want that. and it's kind of like, oh, then I can't afford it or I don't want it. And it's just that bad interaction I want to be able to make that decision when I see that product, whether it's a bucket of flowers, a bouquet, or you know the cookies in the middle of the aisle the grocery store, the price needs to be on it so the customer can look right at right away and say, yes, it's worth that price. I want to buy it.
00:20:34
Speaker
Or it's too high. I don't want buy it. And then move on to the next item. But if they have to ask, that'll just sit there and never sell. That's great advice. And I love that people could choose their own budget. So if they had a $5 budget, they could still enjoy flowers. Or like you said, they could spend a hundred. Right. would have people that come and buy three little stems for the bud phase every week. And I'd be happy to take their three or $4 every week because after, know, 25, 30 weeks, you know, that's 150, $200 out of them.
00:21:02
Speaker
Or we would have people, there's one woman who come and fill her arms with flowers and whatever she could carry. She'd come up and put it down and she'd buy it. It could be 60, 80, hundred dollars. And she never batted an eyelash. You just bought the handful of flowers that she needed every week.
00:21:16
Speaker
That's awesome. And some people just... I would say, whereas if you're only selling 20 or 25 dollar bouquets, you might limit people that going buy one bouquet. Or they might buy two, but they're not going to get just to go overboard because it might be their favorite flower. Like when the peonies are ready, there's one customer that every year come and buy over $100 with peonies every week for those three or four weeks because it was their favorite flower.
00:21:36
Speaker
Wow. So did you still make bouquets as well or you just... Well, what we would do is on the Saturday markets, toward at the end of the market, any leftover flowers that hadn't sold, we would make those into mixed bouquets.
00:21:49
Speaker
And every bouquet was different because it's whatever's left over. There were still good flowers, things that have a long vase like zinnias. We would never use the zinnias because they're shorter vases like lisianthus, celosia, things like that that last really long.
00:22:00
Speaker
So we'd have kind of a couple of buckets pre-made bouquets when we get to a market. And then we would If we had time, just throw together gently, don't want say throw, but put together some mixed bouquets just really quick.
00:22:13
Speaker
We never really counted stems. We just knew that needed to be you know that big around and feel like something in your hand and and fill the sleeve. um So sometimes it was a better deal to get the bouquet. Sometimes they were paying more for the bouquet, more per stem.
00:22:26
Speaker
um But it also allowed us to say if we had whole bunch of blue adgeratum ready that week, then every mixed bouquet got blue adgeratum. Or when we did the gooseneck loosestrife, when that was in bloom, every bouquet got gooseneck loosestrife because it comes in with you know thousands of stems over the three or four week period.
00:22:44
Speaker
Did you have any favorite flowers for bringing to market that sold better than others? Well, we got to be known as the lily people because we were planting six to 800 lilies a week, selling for the forest, sold to Whole Foods for a while and at the farmer's markets. And so there were people who come every week and just get new lilies.
00:23:03
Speaker
um There were times we would take 500 lilies to a market on Sunday and and sell them all. um So lilies were really big. And then also lisianthus, just because it lasts so long. And it was a flower that people would ask for.
00:23:14
Speaker
They started asking for it in the middle of June. When's the lisianthus coming? Then once it's there, literally people would buy armloads of it. It was so good. Wow, that's awesome. I will say that we grew all over lisianthus inside of high tunnels because they just do much better than out in the field.
00:23:28
Speaker
They're okay in the field. But if you have a high tunnel, it's definitely the place to put lisianthus. What do you notice the differences um We actually did a ah research project with the University of Maryland.
00:23:41
Speaker
And growing in the tunnel, they're taller. You have more flowers per stem and usually more stems per plant. We planted the same exact number of plants inside and outside. And inside, it was about 20 to 25% more stems, flowers, and more so um production.
00:23:56
Speaker
So we made 25% more money from the ones in the tunnel. Wow. Plus, even with the, maybe not now with the price of tunnels going a little bit higher, but it used to be that you could build a 20 by 80 foot tunnel or a 30 by 50 foot tunnel, fill it with lisianthus, and you would make enough money off that lisianthus to pay for that tunnel the very first year.
00:24:16
Speaker
And with the NRCS grants, not for tunnels, that's a no brainer to get a tunnel that, you know, you get grant money for it, fill it with lisianthus or fill with eucalyptus is another great for inside because it comes back every year that it pays for that tunnel the first year.
00:24:30
Speaker
That's amazing. I have a question about the high tunnel grants. If you have any advice for anyone that's applying for them, I think it's getting harder to get those grants for flower farmers.
00:24:44
Speaker
But it's also state by state. Every state looks at it different. I know when it first started, some states said, no, it's for food. You can't do it for flowers. Yeah. And i some states say it has to be virgin ground that's not already being used for something else.
00:24:57
Speaker
Some don't care. So it's all state by state. My recommendation just go to your state and apply and let them tell you no rather than thinking they're going to tell you no.
00:25:08
Speaker
At least give it a try. I know I am one of those that was unfortunately turned down. While they've deferred my application, I was told, one, I'm not growing food. So I'm now considering adding edible flowers to my mixture.
00:25:22
Speaker
um And then also, because we have a new farmland, we bought a farm this last year um that I don't have anything growing there. So until I have an actual crop growing in the exact space where it's flat, that they won't even consider an application. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
Okay. So that's, you're in Oregon, right? so Yes. Yeah. So that's their rules. But I know in Maryland, they now will give it for cut flowers. And you do need to be farming. They won't give it to brand new farmers never grown.
00:25:52
Speaker
So maybe they're looking at you as your new land as you're not, don't know what you're doing. and So make sure they know that you've been growing for a few years. You know how to grow flowers. You're expanding onto new property. You really need that tunnel.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yes. but if But I'm surprised they said no you couldn't have it because you're not growing food. Yes. Well, they said they gave priority to food desert areas. um You get ranked for food desert.
00:26:17
Speaker
And so I have to follow up and get a little bit more clarification thanks to some members in the ASCFG. They've given me some wording to go back and ask. But it's just interesting. And it's good to know that it's state by state because I've talked to people in other states that say, oh it was the easiest process ever.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, I know people got every year they get another one. um But it also, to think of this way, they might have enough to give away 50 tunnels this year. And if they have 60 food people come, your chances are low.
00:26:45
Speaker
But if they have 50 tunnels, they only have 30 food people and all the rest are cut flower, you'll probably get it because they got 50 to give away and they gave to all the food to people. Now it goes to the flower people. So I wouldn't not apply.
00:26:57
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's not that hard to apply. It didn't take very much time. So that's good advice. um
00:27:06
Speaker
So you mentioned besides the farmers markets, you also wholesaled and what other avenues did you move your flowers? sold to retail florists. um When I first did it, I would basically, I filled up the truck with flowers and drove around until I found florists to sell to.
00:27:21
Speaker
And then if they bought, I went back to them every week and on every Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever day it was, I forget. um I would fax out and or a list of what was available because back then a computer had a fax, but you'd really have much email yet.
00:27:35
Speaker
Nobody used email yet, hardly. um So it faxed out a list of availability and they sometimes order, sometimes they will order buy more when I get there. um One thing I did do, there was a really big florist in DC that was my last stop.
00:27:47
Speaker
And I would offer them 10% off if they bought everything that was left. And they almost always did. And sometimes it would be a thousand dollar order. that I didn't take back and put in the cooler and maybe hope it's good for the market later in the week or throw it away.
00:28:02
Speaker
So that offering that 10% discount at the very end was trying to be good. and Um, But I did that to to the retail florist. But then also, I sometimes would sell to florist. And the next year, i just wouldn't go back because they weren't worth it.
00:28:16
Speaker
I had one of the three designers love the flowers, but the the owner just didn't want to spend money. And they would let them buy to one bunch of flowers a week. And it's like, this is crazy. yeah Even though I was driving yeah down the street right in front of that building, it wasn't worth it for me to spend that 15, 20 minutes to sell them a $12 bunch of something.
00:28:33
Speaker
So I just stopped going. Yeah. um And there was another one that it was a florist that bought a lot of stuff and then she sold it to somebody else. And it was the husband a wife that bought it. And the husband was a penny pinching, you know, i always want to get the best deal, best deal. And he said, well, if I get lilies from you every week and give me you know a dollar off. I said, okay, yes.
00:28:50
Speaker
Well, three weeks later, said i don't need eat lilies this week. was like, well, you don't get the dollar off anymore. you know, you broke your part of the deal. So totally that's that kind of stuff you got to keep on top of. um But the selling to the forest was decent, was good.
00:29:02
Speaker
um Now I did sell to Whole Foods for about three or four years. And this was back when Whole Foods was looking for flower growers. And they contacted me the first time I didn't return their call because i didn't want to sell the Whole Foods. And then they called again and OK, I'll talk to you. um But it was also back when it was much easier.
00:29:19
Speaker
Now there's a whole application process and all kinds of stuff you have to do. All they wanted to do, know from me, is can you bring us flowers every week? um And I did. I didn't have to get a barcode, which there's ways can barcode numbers that you don't have to get the really expensive ones. There's companies that resell numbers.
00:29:35
Speaker
And as long as you're not selling it like i a Walmart, it works. um So I sold about four different ah Whole Foods. One was really good, would order $600, $700, $800 worth flowers every week without even asking them. I'd send them list and they'd call back right away. The other ones, I'd have to call them and say, do you want anything? Yeah, I'm coming by.
00:29:53
Speaker
And then they would order $150 worth stuff. They just weren't as invested in the local flowers. Sure. I did that for about, I was like four or five years. um And then I stopped doing it when I...
00:30:07
Speaker
ah just I couldn't keep up with the other florists and the um farmer's markets. you know I didn't need to sell the access to Whole Foods. And I never grew anything specifically for Whole Foods, except I did grow a lily called Royal Sunset for Thanksgiving, because it's a really good one for Thanksgiving.
00:30:22
Speaker
But other than that Whole Foods, never nothing was ever saved for them. it was They got the extras and the leftovers or surplus. Did you have a favorite flower to grow? um Well, as I said before, I like the lilies and the lisianthus. Easy to grow. Sunflowers are one of the favorite to grow because it's quick and easy.
00:30:39
Speaker
um Although peonies also, because you know once you get your peony field in, it's there forever. Just keep the weeds out. Absolutely. um Do you still grow any of those flowers now that you are no longer flower farming?
00:30:54
Speaker
I grow a few sunflowers every once in while. And i do i did plant some of the... um Oh, what's it called? The Alstomeria, the red one, um Summer Heat, called which did amazingly well. Have you grown any of those yet? It's the summer series of Alstomeria.
00:31:11
Speaker
Not the real tall ones like the cut flowers from South America. So the plants aren't don't have the royalty you have to pay every year forever. um But they just keep blooming. as you keep them picked, they just keep on blooming. They're great. And they I'm in zone 7B and they've come back now for their third year. And they've just gotten really...
00:31:29
Speaker
good. yeah They expanded. They're non-invasive, but they creep and get a little bit bigger and just bloom all summer. They're great. I had some at our last farm on the land we were leasing, and unfortunately, I had to move in the middle of winter.
00:31:41
Speaker
And sitting in buckets, they died, but I'm looking forward to replacing them because they were yeah wonderful producers. Yeah, even though yeah the Alstom area from South America imports at the grocery store, dirt cheap at the grocery store, and especially like Trader Joe's, um just the ones you grow locally just totally different.
00:31:59
Speaker
you know, the stems are stronger, the flowers, the colors are brighter. um They're just really good. And I even know some growers that the florists will buy them, even though they cost more than the imports, just because the quality is there. Awesome. I have not tried selling those to florists yet. I've used them for my CSA bouquets and they last for so long. So yeah, people love them.
00:32:16
Speaker
Absolutely. So after 20 years of farming, what made you shift to helping other
Career Transition and Industry Advisory Role
00:32:25
Speaker
growers? What inspired you to take on a new role?
00:32:28
Speaker
A long story, I'll just make it real quick. um On the farm, I had a nephew that came and was running a landscape business from there. And I was thinking toward retirement, this was 10, 12 years ago.
00:32:39
Speaker
So I basically sold him the farm and I was gonna keep farming. But then he didn't manage his money well and lost his business, lost the farm that I sold him. So I was forced to close, which in ah in hindsight,
00:32:54
Speaker
It changed my career where I went to work for a first Edney and then Glockner and now Ball. um I never would have done this otherwise. I would still be farming and working seven days a week. And so my workload and income, workload went down, the physical workload, and the income actually went up because yeah know we all know that farmers don't always make a lot of money. You've got to work really hard.
00:33:14
Speaker
So in in the long run, it was okay. I bounced back and I've done pretty well. Well, we're all sure grateful that you took on the role with Ball and Edney and Glockner. It's funny, though, how sometimes in life things don't really make sense at the time. When you look back, things lead you to the right path.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, it worked out in the end. So did you start out as, ah what was your first role with Ball? or I guess it wasn't, I'm going to backtrack. It was Edney. Your first role was with Edney. Right. So actually with Edney, when I was still farming, I was actually doing a little bit of sales for them because they needed help selling to some of the smaller growers. And I was selling to some of the ASCFG members I know.
00:33:56
Speaker
um just selling them, you know, taking the orders for lilies and tulips, things like that. um So then when I closed the farm, I sent an email to Jeff and Eddie saying, I'm close the farm. And literally, I sent that like at midnight or one in the morning.
00:34:11
Speaker
And by six the next morning or 7am, he'd sent me an email, text and phone call, all three saying, Hey, you know, give me a call. I want to, I want to talk about working for us.
00:34:21
Speaker
Cause I had no idea what I was going do. I was just going said figure out what I was going to do in the future. um So they called, you know, so I went up to visit with, meet them like ah two weeks later and they said, okay, I'll come up work for you for six months and see how I like it.
00:34:34
Speaker
So I started up there about the middle of April and i was there for, well, 10 years, nine years altogether, not seven years altogether, I guess, four years, three years at Edney and then Glockner bought Edney and then Ball bought Glockner.
00:34:48
Speaker
um But when first went up to Edney, I was basically working in the warehouse and still doing a little bit of sales, but it didn't take long. It was like within six months, I was in the office almost all the time on the phone, on the computer doing sales and other people in the warehouse. Although I always still did to go back and help in the warehouse, sometimes more than I should have. So I didn't get the other stuff done I should have been doing.
00:35:07
Speaker
um So I was just selling the bulbs and peonies were the only thing that Edney sold basically. And then Glockner bought Edney like three years later. i don't remember what year it was, maybe 2017. So I worked for Glockner. I could sell you know plugs and seeds and all that other great stuff.
00:35:25
Speaker
So it did that for three years, almost four years. And then Ball bought Glockner when the owner Glockner wanted to retire. And then it was totally different because then i worked remote. um Didn't have to go into the office at Edney.
00:35:36
Speaker
um So I worked remote and... Totally different business structure. Ball is a great company to work for. don't know if you noticed, it's a family owned company owned by a a woman, third generation, getting ready to pass it on to her daughter.
00:35:51
Speaker
um Wow. And it's been been around for 100 years, 100 and a few years. I should know how many years, but it's 100 and something. um But it's just, it's run like ah it's an amazing family business. They treat you like family, treat you really well, um give you all the assistance and help you needed to get your job done. So if anybody's ever looking for a job in the horticulture business, think of All Seed. It's a great place to work.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so you were with Ball for how many years before you semi-retired? It was already four years in December. So four years and a month before I semi-retired, yeah. And so you're still working with them on a limited capacity. Is that correct? Yeah.
00:36:29
Speaker
What I do is I'm still going to be sending out my emails. And like today, we just had our monthly cut flower meeting, which is they have a... um Cutflower business manager, her name is Joan, who she has a meeting the first Monday of the month on Cutflower. So still attend that every month and stuff and still emails and talk with her back and forth. And like Ball Seed has two different big events at the headquarters in West Chicago. They've had Darwin Perennial Days, which is June 17th or 18th. This is a one-day event all about perennials.
00:36:58
Speaker
Nobody had gone up there that day to stand in front of the perennial cut flower bed and talk cut flowers. And then the last Thursday and Friday of July, they have the Ball Customer Days, which customers are invited to go, where the entire, i don't know how many acres it is, six, seven, ten acres of landscape gardens and trial beds are all open, and there's a cut flower bed, which I was just last week finishing up with Joan, the final plan, you know crop plan for the cut flower and um and I'll be up there for those two days to give presentations and just talk about the flowers that were growing there for that.
00:37:28
Speaker
I went to um Niagara Falls, Canada two weeks ago, a week and a half ago to give a presentation to a cut flower presentation at a fruit and vegetable convention, and it's the first time they had a cut flower afternoon or cut flower sessions, and they had 70 people come for the cut flowers, which I thought was great.
00:37:45
Speaker
I'll still be doing that kind of stuff, and you know behind the scenes with fall cut flowers, and any of the Sales reps or customer service people in the office that have cutflower customers Cutflower questions of their own or from customers, they can contact me by email or phone and I'll help them with it. Get them the answer. you You definitely have provided lots of answers to many questions over the years. So that's encouraging to know that you will still be um helping in that capacity.
00:38:13
Speaker
ah um Over the years, you've helped countless flower farmers improve their businesses, including my own. You probably don't remember, but you helped me save my snapdragons.
00:38:24
Speaker
think it was probably four or five years ago. um What are some of the most common mistakes or challenges that you see growers currently facing? Hmm. I was like, well, like I said, don't let the weeds take over.
00:38:37
Speaker
that's That's the biggest thing. Weed management. But then watering, irrigation. So many people will send me pictures or call me up or send me an email with pictures of their dahlias that are stunted. Or there's, you know, sunflowers only three feet tall. i' like, have you watered them?
00:38:51
Speaker
Help me water them. You know, people say that I live in Georgia. I can't grow dahlias. It's too hot. No, it's not too hot. It's too dry. Water or more. Just irrigation, know, it's like you can't live without food and water.
00:39:03
Speaker
The plants can't live without food and water. And so many people try and rely on nature and mother nature to water, and that just doesn't do it. You've got to, if you have to hook up the irrigation. You have to plan on using it.
00:39:15
Speaker
um You know, an inch of rain a week is really not enough. You need even more than that. And if it rains on Sunday doesn't rain for the next two weeks, those plants aren't going to grow. um and Another really big thing is fertilization.
00:39:26
Speaker
always like to say, if you expect more than one flower from a plant, you're going to need fertilize it sometime while it's growing. You know, sunflower is going to grow and bloom in six weeks. You're fine. But if you plant a dahlia in early May and expect to get flowers out of it the first week of October, you better feed it sometime throughout the summer. or It's grown its roots in that 12-inch diameter and eaten every bit of food, every little morsel of fertilizer that's there, and there's no more left.
00:39:51
Speaker
So you've got to fertilize them again. Don't care what you use, whether you use organic something, compost, Chemical fertilizer, commercial fertilizer, just use something. You can't just hope that it's going keep growing them for you for six months and still produce flowers.
00:40:05
Speaker
Another great one is ad geratum. It looks great in June and July, but then by August, is the leaves are pale. that They need fertilizer. And then, the you know, the fertilizer and water is a huge component of a successful crop.
00:40:18
Speaker
Without it, you're not going to do real well. That's great advice. What about for those that are listening to this podcast, because we have a mix of flower farmers and backyard gardeners who just love flowers.
00:40:31
Speaker
yeah What advice would you give to someone who's looking to turn their love of flowers into a profitable flower business?
From Hobbyist to Business: Key Advice
00:40:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:40:41
Speaker
If you already know how to grow flowers, that's the first hurdle. Because there's people who get into the flower farming business who don't have a green thumb. you know they've They've lived in an apartment, they've lived in a townhouse, and they don't really have the they um experience of growing plants, whether it's just flower beds, you know petunias, or whatever. They've just never really gotten in the dirt and played and worked.
00:41:00
Speaker
um So if you haven't done that, take some courses. um You know, there's a gazillion YouTube videos, um almost too many out there now. You know, I say find one or two that you trust and you believe and you like their style of videos and the style of teaching and follow them.
00:41:16
Speaker
You mentioned before Lisa Ziegler with the Gardener's Workshop. You know she's the real deal. You know, she's grown flowers for 30 years, you know, when she tells you this is the way you do it, it's probably the way you should do it.
00:41:27
Speaker
But sometimes on YouTube, you might see somebody telling you just, no, that's not right. you know, I'm sure you've seen that too. It's like, why would they do that? You know, that's not the best way to do it. Um, But if you want to switch from a hobby to making it ah an income producing thing, just do your homework, you know make it a business, you know keep the finances separate from your personal stuff so you know if you're making money. Because you don't want to do this for two or three years thinking you're making money and all you're doing is sucking away your savings and you know not spending money on your food and groceries and vacation because you just put it all the farm, but the farm's not making any money.
00:41:59
Speaker
You know, a cut flower farm is going to have investments with you, planting peonies or perennials or a high tunnel. Sometimes i have to put out big amounts of money, but you should get a return on that. But if you're not getting a return, it's just a really expensive hobby.
00:42:13
Speaker
But make your business legal. you know Do the LLC or however you're going to set it up as a business. um Once you start having employees, you get to that point, there's all the workers' comp and all that stuff.
00:42:23
Speaker
Make sure you do all that because if you don't, it could it could close your business if you have ah either a workers' comp claim or if your people come to your farm and somebody falls and breaks their leg and you don't have insurance, it's going to cost you a whole lot of money.
00:42:35
Speaker
So make sure you cover yourself. That's great advice. Let's talk about your involvement with the ASCFG a little bit, if we can.
00:42:48
Speaker
How do you see Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, their role in shaping the flower industry for what it is today?
00:42:59
Speaker
Well, like I said, it really, i wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them, if I hadn't joined them and learned from going to conferences and meetings that kind of stuff. Um, But I will say when I first joined them, can remember going to a board meeting and the big discussion was, do we try and get color pictures on our magazine? Because it was literally black and white or it's actually a cream colored paper and green ink was the Cut Flower Quarterly.
00:43:22
Speaker
No way. Line drawings, sometimes the black and white photo actually printed in green ink, you know, green. um But then we added color to the covers in one page inside. So, that you know, open up the back two pages and the front two pages were color.
00:43:35
Speaker
And it was that way for a couple of years and then did the whole thing color. um So that's just the kind of changes that happened in the association over the years. And back then when I first joined, there were, I think, 300 members. And now there's almost 3,000. Wow.
00:43:47
Speaker
Or covers around 3,000. But the ASCFG is really big on education um It doesn't get into the um government regulation, and that kind of stuff. That's the American Grown does that and some other organizations, SAF, Society of American Florists.
00:44:04
Speaker
But ASCFG is to help growers, both new and established, you know, if it can be the brand new green one that's just starting out or when it's been a business for 20 years, they're all members and, you know, provide stuff for all of them, but to help them navigate the cut flower business and,
00:44:21
Speaker
um both the growing it, the selling, educational stuff, to be as successful as possible. um Every year they have the seed trials where they send out seeds to growers who you have to apply or request to be part of that group. And it's like 30 different people around the country or Canada also that get packs of seeds in the spring and grow them and report back on how they did. and um And that can kind of influence...
00:44:47
Speaker
the way what the seed producer, whether they're going to start to carry that plant or you know continue the breeding of it. Because if they send it out to 30 growers and they all said, it sucked, it was terrible, then that seed breeder is thinking, okay, we're we're not doing something right.
00:45:01
Speaker
But if they send out to 30 and 25 say, it's an amazing plant, I can't wait to get the seeds again next year, then that's going to definitely be a ah new product coming on the market. And in a few years, i' have new colors because you the way this flower breeding works, so they might breed and get two colors, it may take them five years to get one more color.
00:45:18
Speaker
You the uproar rose zinni has been around forever. They just recently finally had it in the red and a yellow. It's taken 15 years. But if it wasn't for the success of the uproar rose, they wouldn't have bothered and trying to do more colors.
00:45:31
Speaker
Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. What aspects of the flower industry bring you the most joy today? oh Well, of course, the pretty flowers always nice.
00:45:42
Speaker
But I just think, to me, seeing somebody succeed, to see a grower that I know started out two, three, five, eight years ago as either not knowing much or just getting started, um and then see where they're at now.
00:45:56
Speaker
um I can name some like... um Daniel with Petal Pickers down in Georgia or South Carolina, not Georgia, South Carolina. You know, he started, i think eight years ago, maybe seven and went from a hardly anything to an amazing business. a Huge business now. Huge business, shipping flowers and and liners all across the country.
00:46:15
Speaker
Um, trying to some other ones, like Stephen Gretel with Sunny Meadows Farm. um you know They've been growing now, I think 12 or 13 years. I want to say they're getting older now. you know they' They're not kids anymore, but I still think of them as kids.
00:46:29
Speaker
um But they they've taken their business. Same thing. or they They bought another farm nearby because they they needed more space and they're doing so well. To see people succeed like that, but they don't succeed like that without putting in a lot of hard work. you know A lot of hours, a lot of sweat equity, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, basically, to make it happen.
00:46:47
Speaker
um But when I see people that are do a good job and really succeed, it makes me happy. I love that. Are there any projects or events that you are particularly excited about for this coming year with Local Flowers?
00:47:05
Speaker
Oh, well, the ASCFG has their farm tours, which is always good to, like I said, you get to see somebody's farm, spend six, eight hours, sometimes it's a two-day event um on somebody's farm to just learn from that farm, that farmer, and other farmers that attend.
00:47:19
Speaker
um Other things this year, it's just,
00:47:24
Speaker
Anything, you know, if if you can go to a farm and visit or if like even I just this week went to or last week to a ah Delaware cut flower group. There's only like eight people that attend because Delaware is a pretty small state.
00:47:35
Speaker
There's not that many cut flower growers here. It's all chickens, chickens, soybeans. But there are some cut flower farms here. um No really big ones, but there's potential for them to get bigger. um But if you have a group like that in your area, um definitely attend it.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's just a great way to network with other growers. um Even if it's a small group, you may be able to split plug trays with them, the other growers.
00:48:01
Speaker
um If you want to get something that you need don't need, 210 of something. ah So it's just a great way to learn from other growers. is Sometimes that small state or even county or regional meeting can be great.
00:48:14
Speaker
That's great advice. One thing that I have really found is that I'm going into my seventh year of growing cut flowers as a business. And when I started out, I was thinking that, oh, I've got all this competition around me. And I've learned over the years that it's really a community that's surrounding me. And I think we're over 20 growers in the Columbia Gorge region where I grow. And we get together not as often as it would be fun to, but we get together probably at least twice a year.
00:48:43
Speaker
And we can share ideas. And they don't feel like my competition. They feel like this group of people that we can support one another because our real competition is the imported market.
00:48:54
Speaker
So I'm curious, you have been in this industry for quite a while. Do you feel like the local flower movement is growing and moving the needle?
Local Flower Movement and Market Dynamics
00:49:04
Speaker
It's growing. um i don't think it's ever going to move the needle that much as far as like reducing the imports because we need the imports. We're never going to grow everything.
00:49:14
Speaker
We're never going to grow that volume. We're never going to grow year-round the volume that's needed. um But it's definitely the local growers are growing. i mean Like I said, ASCG, if you get their quarterly magazine, there's like three pages of new members all around the the continent of the world.
00:49:29
Speaker
um And like even at Ball Seed, they get new customers constantly and their 99.9% are cut flower farms. um They might be little ones starting out, but there's potential then at being a bigger farm.
00:49:40
Speaker
um But literally hundreds every month or two of new customers that are cut flower growers. So I don't see there's not going to be too many cut flower growers. um Competition is good. And it's not always competition, it's more collaboration. Like were saying, your people near you are growing. But like I used to sell at the DuPont Circle Farmers Market and Bob Wollum at Wollum Gardens was there. And we both grew tons of flowers.
00:50:04
Speaker
But we both sold tons of flowers. yeah We didn't sell exact, other than maybe a sunflower, we didn't sell the same thing. you know He had tons of dahlias. I don't like dahlias. I didn't grow many dahlias.
00:50:15
Speaker
I grew other lilies. he did' We didn't grow lilies. So we had different things we grew. But we we always did really well. um And to me, if it's a ah market like that, it has enough foot traffic. You can't do that a little country market with nobody going to it.
00:50:28
Speaker
But if it's a big market with a lot of customers, having more than one cut flower farmer brings in more cut flower customers. Same reason that if you have a good farmer's market, it doesn't have only one person selling apples or one person selling tomatoes.
00:50:41
Speaker
When you have more than one seller, you bring in more customers. Same idea as, you know, you have one shoe store in a mall. People don't go to that mall to buy shoes, but you have five shoe stores. They're going more shoes because more people know I can go to that mall and buy shoes.
00:50:52
Speaker
I'll find what I need. So to me, that's, you know, it's competition, but collaboration and cooperation to have other farmers near you selling but alongside you sometimes in a market.
00:51:05
Speaker
Or if you're selling to florists, sometimes you don't want to both sell the same florists. That's where a co-op comes in really what really good. If you're a ah ah selling co-op, you might have six or eight farms that pull their flowers to sell as a group to the florists and designers.
00:51:20
Speaker
That's really helpful for that group because you'll sell a lot more flowers and the customers, whether the florist or the designer, will buy more flowers because they don't have to go to the wholesale. They can get almost everything they from that co-op.
00:51:33
Speaker
So co-ops, that's one thing I've seen a lot in the past five or six years. It seems like co-ops popping up everywhere, but theyre almost all of them are doing really well for both the grower and for the their customer.
00:51:45
Speaker
That's great information. I'm curious, you mentioned that you said we're always going to need the imported flowers because we just can't grow enough here in the States ourself. I mean, when you look at the size of some of these international companies that are bringing in flowers, I mean, we don't even have space to grow some of these football field um ah operations.
00:52:08
Speaker
Do you think that the local flowers movement in the United States is maxed out or is there still room for growth? There's still room for growth. um Until every decent farmer's market, when I say decent, one that actually has customers and you know people are sitting around twiddling the thumbs waiting for the next customer, as long as every farmer's market doesn't have two cut flower growers and every florist doesn't have a co-op with six or eight flower growers selling through that co-op, there's more room for more.
00:52:35
Speaker
And there's so many different ways to sell flowers. Just because every farmer's market in your area may be maxed out with cut flower growers doesn't mean you can't drive an hour, an hour a half away into the big city or sell a different way.
00:52:47
Speaker
you know Become a pick-your-own-destination farm. Sell bouquets at the local coffee shop. Sell CSA bouquets. Everyone doesn't have to be farmers, markets, or you don't all have to settle the same florist.
00:53:00
Speaker
um There's always room for more. And I don't mean it in a bad way, but sometimes if there's something that can't cut it and can't compete with the new ones coming in. Maybe they shouldn't have been business to begin with. you know, maybe they were either selling too cheap.
00:53:14
Speaker
The quality wasn't as good. Um, They don't have the right attitude to be selling. You know, I said that before. You got to have the right personality to sell. um You know, if if a if you have 10 new flower farmers in that county, one closes, decides to retire, that's part of business.
00:53:31
Speaker
You know, it's no different than when, know, it's not every once in while restaurant closes and some new one will open up. um So... Totally. And I think the thing that's so neat with flowers is like you just mentioned, I didn't even count how many different avenues you just talked about that we can sell our flowers. Yeah.
00:53:49
Speaker
So especially if you're zoned in an agricultural area, like for me, we were previously leasing land and I was in a residential neighborhood, kind of like I always looked up to Lisa Mason Ziegler because was like, okay, she's making it happen in an area surrounded by homes, but I could never have people to my farm because our zoning didn't allow for that.
00:54:09
Speaker
And now our new farm, we're on exclusive farm use, which we call EFU land. And I'm like, there's this whole new world of opportunity where I can do on-farm workshops. I can have a you pick field. So I just placed a huge order through ball with my rep this year of all of these Dahlia plugs and everything that I can have as part of a you pick where I can let people have free roam to cut their own flowers and create a new experience.
00:54:33
Speaker
If you're going to do you pick, I suggest getting the Sunfinity double sunflower. Ooh, okay. It's the new one. There's no seed available. It's only available as a rooted liner, you know, rooted cutting.
00:54:45
Speaker
um I know a grower in Virginia that grew it as a trial last year. I had a trial plant in a pot, so it was okay. It was small, but she showed me pictures them. They were five feet tall, dozens of flowers on them throughout the season.
00:54:56
Speaker
She says it was the best cut sunflower type plant she's ever had. It's a double sunflower. doesn't even look like a typical brown center. um The plants aren't cheap. They're like $1.50 each, but when it puts out 50 flowers throughout the season off of one plant,
00:55:10
Speaker
you're going to make money off of it, especially with making bookies. So and I saw also last summer out at Syngenta's trial gardens out in California. saw it in the field and I got to see new ones that are and in breeding that aren't even available yet, but they're amazing.
00:55:25
Speaker
Just a great plant. Can you tell me the name of that sunflower? Sunfinity Double. Sunfinity. Yeah, of course you're going to order it. I'm writing that down. And that's available through Ball?
00:55:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Quite a few different growers offer it. But it is a rooted cutting. So it's a sunflower from a cutting. Okay. but Awesome. I've never known that you can buy rooted cuttings of sunflowers. It's just this one.
00:55:50
Speaker
Well, even the other some of the branching, which you can root them, but why? The seeds are so cheap. But this is only the available. They've done the breeding. It doesn't produce seeds. um oh You're talking about now that you're on a piece of property where you can do stuff on your farm and have people out.
00:56:02
Speaker
Highly recommend if you have enough traffic flow or people know where you are, to have a little roadside stand at the end of your driveway. That way they don't have to come in your field and pick. You can still do the pick your own, but have a self-serve stand.
00:56:15
Speaker
Um, then the Larkin had that when she was in whatever state she was in Washington or California, got robbed on mother's day. But other than that, she did really well with that. Um, yeah, some people came out of the story. They came in overnight mother's day morning and went out all the flowers are gone, but she had video camera and they, I think they called them.
00:56:32
Speaker
Um, But yeah, to do that, it's amazing how many flowers you can sell at the end of your driveway. If you have the customers that come out on a regular basis, again, it's your regular customers that pay the bills, they even get them in the habit of knowing they come out every Friday, you'd be stocked full of flowers every Friday morning at nine, you'd be surprised how much you can sell that way.
00:56:50
Speaker
Absolutely. I've been talking with Lenny and I need to take her her course on, what is her course card course called? It's the flower... The one for selling on the roadside.
00:57:02
Speaker
yeah Okay. She has a different one Okay. but that would be a great one. she She has a mini course on it. Get it. Get it. Yes. Yeah. i I was talking to a few local growers that have taken the course and saying how awesome it is. But ah she's been advising us also a little bit on the setup of this farm. We're on what's called the Hood River Fruit Loop.
00:57:22
Speaker
And so it's already a tourist destination where people come to see all the orchards, which is perfect timing with our dahlias. And so- um We just unfortunately, our county has rules. You actually, even if you're on farm land, you have to have a permit to have a roadside stand.
00:57:40
Speaker
Oh, OK. but The permit is worth it. Yes, we're we're working on it right now. So I'm real hopeful that we can have a roadside stand here this summer um because, yes, that will be huge for us.
00:57:52
Speaker
Okay, let's talk about your retirement a little bit. You're still so deeply involved in the flower world. What do you see this next chapter after your career being?
Post-Retirement Plans and Industry Influence
00:58:03
Speaker
Well, I'll still be working with Cut Flowers. night still like This summer, I'm going up to Maine to spend a week being the host at an Airbnb that's a lighthouse off the coast of Maine.
00:58:15
Speaker
Oh, my brother volunteers for the place and is a bunch of construction there. And he was looking for people to spend a week as the host to an Airbnb on this island off the coast of Cutler, Maine. No internet, no phone.
00:58:26
Speaker
You're there for a week. Might change people every couple days, but you're there. So i'm doing that for a week. That'll be very fun and different. um But on my way up there, I'm stopping to visit three farmers. Awesome.
00:58:37
Speaker
All one and Rhode Island and two in Maine because they're literally right off the interstate. And I said, I'll come visit you. Okay. um So I'll be doing that kind of stuff. I like to travel. I'm going to travel a lot. um It'll just be very difficult because yeah for the past however many years, I've been sitting at a desk all day, you know, on the phone, emails, texting.
00:58:56
Speaker
um So it just be nice to get out and do stuff. Well, you have a lot of connections. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would welcome you with open arms to their farms around the country and world. Yeah. Something else I'm doing is Ellen Frost. Do you know who she is? Yes.
00:59:09
Speaker
but colorflowers She has a thing that she started called Flower More, which is an online community of what she calls flower nerds. Oh. i'm ah I'm a member of that. And like tomorrow we're going to the Philadelphia Flower Show.
00:59:21
Speaker
um Tomorrow as in March 4th, this is getting recorded. So it's too late to go if when you hear this. But I'm going there with a small group of those people, those members. And then fine early April, going to the Biltmore to go see the the gardens at the Biltmore down in North Carolina. So doing that kind of stuff with her flower more group which is fun and when i do the boat more i'm actually stop by and see a friend of mine mandy hornick who has blue ridge blooms so she was actually employee back 25 years ago from you worked for two or three years and then went down to north carolina started her own farms go to visit her then i'm gonna stop and see daniel with pedal pickers i've never seen his farm and i want to go see him i'm gonna be 45 minutes away so i'm gonna go visit him awesome they've been doing a lot of work on their farm yeah that'll be fun to see
01:00:07
Speaker
So do you have a bucket list of places in the world that you would like to go sea farms? ah um Not really. I mean, I've seen them all around the U.S. and Canada. I've seen them. I've been to Green Park Nursery, you know, Carl with the Woodies up in Canada. I've been to his. I've been to Milano. It's a huge place out in California, hundreds of acres.
01:00:27
Speaker
I've been to the last of those. I've been to the display or the breeding got gardens or the breeding farms of Syngenta and Taki and stuff like that in California, which is amazing and fascinating to see.
01:00:38
Speaker
um And I've been to farms all across the U.S. as part of either ASCE meetings and conferences. I don't know if there's any farms I need to see other than, you know some I'd like to visit them just because they're nice people. I want to go hang out with them.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, but um but as far as travel, I've i've never been to Europe. I might just go to Europe sometime and go to like you know London and Paris and just see, to me, the old buildings, the old architecture and stuff like that, like the castles in Ireland, that kind of stuff I want to see before I kick the bucket, which is going to be a long time from now, I hope. Yeah.
01:01:07
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, I hope you can get to those places. Ireland's on my bucket list to see someday, too. Those castles look so so majestic. yeah I've got a couple more questions, if I can ask you a few more.
01:01:19
Speaker
Looking back on your career, what are you most proud of? It was after I was growing, helping people become successful. The flower farmers, like, you know, I've helped Daniel. There's another one. Yeah.
01:01:31
Speaker
Nikki Bartlett Cross Street Flower Farm in Massachusetts. Ones like that who, actually, I met with them, never met with Daniel. He took my class with a gardener's workshop, but with Nikki and then also with Jessica Hall with Harmony Harvest in Virginia.
01:01:48
Speaker
Both of them, I went and spent a day or two days with them consulting when they just started out and didn't know much about what they were doing. And both of them now got these huge, very successful businesses going. and And that's the kind of stuff that I'm just really happy to have helped them get where they are.
01:02:04
Speaker
That's awesome. I actually spoke with Jessica just recently. I'm not sure when her interview will be airing, but she definitely mentioned how you have had a huge impact on her career as a flower farmer.
01:02:16
Speaker
What do you hope your legacy in the flower industry will be? oh legacy. Well, I saw got that legacy with the ASCFG Dave Dowling Scholarship. Let that be my legacy for um future students who are interested in cut flower production and career to get that scholarship every year from us, from the ASAFG.
01:02:36
Speaker
I love that. And my last question for you, for someone that's just beginning their journey in flowers, what words of wisdom would you like to leave them with today?
01:02:48
Speaker
oh do some planning. Think of where you where you're headed. You might not always get where you wanted to go or you thought you were going to go. um Be flexible. um what you grow and where you're where and how you sell this year will be totally different in two or three years. I guarantee it's goingnna change constantly.
01:03:04
Speaker
um It's not going to be like, you know, Coke sells Coke and Diet Coke and that's all they have. You're going to change every year of how you sell, where you sell, what you grow. um Just be able to adapt and change with the times and change with the needs.
01:03:17
Speaker
You know, it could be as simple as you're at a farmer's market and all sudden they decide, well, we're going to put a building here in this parking lot so no more market. yeah know, and you got to be able to adapt and move on and do something different. um You know, i did that when I closed my farm. I said, oh, I went from grow to growing flowers to being in the ah ah seller of the stuff. You know, like I say, I went from a user to a pusher, you know, to be adaptable because change is going to happen.
01:03:41
Speaker
um And if you're doing the flower farming, just know you're going to have to work hard. It's long hours, physical labor. Um, But if you like it, it's great.
01:03:52
Speaker
It's a great bit great career to have. Absolutely. It's such a rewarding one. And you learn so much resilience. So, Dave, for those that are listening today that want to stay connected with you, is there a way to still do that?
01:04:09
Speaker
Well, have an Instagram and Facebook account that they can follow, which we'll put that in the show notes, I think. Yes, will. Technically, now that my new position at Ball, customers aren't supposed to contact me directly. They're supposed to go through the sales rep or the ColorLink office.
01:04:24
Speaker
So I don't put my phone number on my emails anymore. you know um You can still, if you have my email, you can still email me, but it might take me a while to answer because I'm not always going tonna be near the computer or even my phone.
01:04:35
Speaker
um yeah know I'm traveling a lot now that I'm semi-retired. um But so you can always send me message on Instagram if you need to or through your sales rep at Ball. So you'll still be active on social media. Yeah, I'll still be on social media. yeah I'll be um doing a live something tomorrow from the Philadelphia Flower Show. so Perfect.
01:04:54
Speaker
Well, I've got one final question for you. One more question. Okay. You keep adding one more. That's fine. I know. I'm sorry. um but It's a special opportunity to talk to you. um My last question is a simple one. Is there anything I didn't ask you today that you would like to leave our listeners with?
01:05:11
Speaker
I can't think of anything. Like I said, you don't make any money growing cut flowers. You make it all sell at home. Just remember that if you're trying to do this as a business. business If one of your listeners are the home gardener, just go out there and have fun and grow all the stuff you want.
01:05:23
Speaker
But if you're trying to do it as a business, remember you got to sell the stuff to stay in business. That is great advice. Dave, it's been such an honor to get to chat with you. just want to say thank you for all of your contributions to the floral industry. And I hope someday I can meet you in person at one of these events.
01:05:41
Speaker
Sounds good. Yeah. Happy. It was great talking to you today. Really was. Thanks so much, Dave. I really appreciate it. Enjoy your semi-retirement. and Thank you. Thanks.
01:05:52
Speaker
Thank you, flower friends, for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today.
01:06:03
Speaker
Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers,
01:06:19
Speaker
Don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends.
01:06:31
Speaker
Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.