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Ep.9: Growing Specialty Cut Flowers For Florists With Heather Cain From Petal Pink Flowers
2.5k Plays1 year ago
Do you want to sell your flowers to florists but don't know where to start? In this episode of the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, hear from local flower farmer, Heather Cain of Petal Pink Flowers about her experience selling specialty cut flowers to local florists. Heather shares her journey of building relationships with florists and the importance of communication in the flower farming business. She also gives valuable insights into the process of growing and selling specific flowers, such as lisianthus, stock, and phlox. Join us as we dive into the challenges and joys of selling to florists and learn from Heather's expertise in the field.
As a flower farmer, Heather understands the unpredictable nature of the business and the need for flexibility and problem-solving. She shares her experiences with weather-related challenges, such as a heatwave and an ice storm, and how she has adapted her farming practices to overcome these obstacles. Heather also highlights the joy of involving her children in the farm work and the valuable life lessons they have learned through their involvement. Listen now to this episode to gain valuable insights into the world of selling specialty cut flowers to florists and the rewards and challenges that come with it.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- 00:01:26 - Heather Kane's introduction and background
- 00:05:31 - Growing flowers in Eugene, Oregon
- 00:08:46 - Building relationships with local florists
- 00:12:08 - Weekly availability sheet for florists
- 00:14:36 - Choosing which flowers to grow
- 00:19:05 - Seed starting process in a water heater closet
- 00:20:19 - Challenges faced during extreme weather conditions
- 00:25:02 - Growing snapdragons and dealing with rust
- 00:26:24 - Spring flower subscription model
- 00:32:14 - The joy of growing daffodils and tulips
- 00:35:56 - Challenges and lessons learned in flower farming
- 00:40:13 - Moments of joy in flower farming
- 00:49:38 - Involving children in flower farming
- 00:54:03 - Advice for parents on involving kids in farm work
Learn more about Heather Cain and Petal Pink Flowers
- Petalpinkflowers.com
- Follow Petal Pink Flowers on Instagram: @petalpinkflowers
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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 Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse.
Jennifer's Journey from Gardener to Flower Farmer
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. 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.
Introducing Heather Kane from Petal Pink Flowers
00:00:56
Speaker
Today on the Backyard Bouquet podcast, we are joined by Heather Kane of Petal Pink Flowers. Heather is a local flower farmer from Eugene, Oregon, who grows specialty cut flowers on an acre of her farm. I can't wait to learn more about Heather and her cut flowers on today's episode. Without further delay, please join me in welcoming Heather to the podcast. Hi, Heather. Thanks so much for joining us today.
00:01:21
Speaker
Hi, thanks for having me. I'm so excited for your podcast. Thank you. It's been so fun getting it launched and off the ground. And I'm loving getting to visit with farmers like yourself and backyard gardeners who are just a wealth of knowledge. And I'm learning so much myself through each episode. So I can't wait to learn from you today. And I know our listeners will feel the same.
Heather's Farm Operations and Sales Strategy
00:01:44
Speaker
So to get started, can you start by providing us with just an overview of your flower farm, please?
00:01:52
Speaker
Sure. So you already mentioned I'm in Eugene, which is like a university town, but we're outside of town in the grass seed farming. They actually are proud to call themselves the grass seed capital of the world.
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't know if that's true, but there's a lot of grass fields. And so we own a 10 acre farm just in the middle of all the grass. And I grow flowers on one acre of that. And we sell mostly to florists. I don't ship any flowers. So we sell mostly to local florists and then do one bouquet subscription, like CSA model, just for spring flowers every year and do some workshops here and there. But mainly it's the focus is selling to florists.
00:02:37
Speaker
So you said that you are from the grass seed capital of the world. I actually grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and I know that all too well. I remember being in high school. I was actually in Corvallis for high school, which is about an hour away. And springtime, I had to sit in my classroom with a box of Kleenex on my desk because my allergies were so bad from the grass seeds.
00:03:00
Speaker
Kudos to you for being able to farm in that area because it's gorgeous. It's beautiful. We didn't know about this grass seed thing when we moved here. My husband has a horrible grass pollen allergies. I don't know. About one week out of every year, we look at each other like, why do we live here? Most of the time, it's dreamy, like you said. It's so beautiful.
00:03:29
Speaker
Thankfully, it's short-lived the allergy season down there and a little bit of rainfall and it seems like it improves. I actually don't have as bad of allergies anymore thanks to some acupuncture. Noted. Yes.
Building Relationships with Florists
00:03:45
Speaker
So you mentioned that you primarily sell to florists. Is it day-to-day florists, wedding florists, all kinds of florists? Who is your ideal clientele?
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, I have a mix and I would say it's like 70 30 mix of I had to put numbers to it. 70% of our flowers go to stock people's shops. So, um, I have like the most wonderful, wonderful, amazing group of florists who buy from us every week. When we're, you know, not every week of the year, cause I don't grow year round, but when flowers are in season,
00:04:22
Speaker
So we do a delivery truck goes out on Monday and by truck, that sounds more official than it actually is. We have a humble process here, but we deliver on Monday to shops and then restock most of those shops on Thursday. Then on Thursday, we also have the florist who are doing weddings.
00:04:43
Speaker
you know, local florists who I use who come and pick up stuff. And then some every once in a while we get someone from a little farther away. Maybe they couldn't find something at the Portland flower market or whatever, and they'll make the drive down. But we're in we're far enough away from Portland, which is the closest official big flower market that florists really appreciate not having to make that two hour drive.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I'm not the, I mean, I'm not definitely not the only flower farmer in this area. So florists actually around here have a really great assortment of growers to buy from really hyper locally.
Leveraging Instagram for Business Growth
00:05:17
Speaker
That's really great that you have a very strong local market and that your florists really support it. I would love to know how did you initially build those relationships with your florists?
00:05:31
Speaker
That's such a good question. I went, so I did not grow up here and you're from here. So you kind of know what that means because I feel like everyone that I have ever met went to middle school with everyone else, whoever.
00:05:47
Speaker
lived here. So when you move here, I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area. We moved 10 years ago. I didn't know anybody and nobody knew me, which is kind of hard when you're starting a business. So I started my Instagram account when I started flower farming way back in the day. Remember when we would just like put a picture and like some good old days.
00:06:09
Speaker
It's totally, I think it was 2017 maybe when I first started growing flowers and had to teach myself social media and all of this. And so that was kind of, and I would do like the hashtags like Eugene Florist so that, or the hashtags I thought that the local florist would be looking for. And it kind of, the Instagram page became like a resume of sorts, I guess, you know, it's like a, yeah, it was like a resume. And so I started feeling confident enough to
00:06:38
Speaker
kind of direct local florists to my page. Hey, you know, I don't know if you're looking for local flowers, but here's my Instagram page if you want to see what we're growing kind of a thing.
00:06:49
Speaker
And it just was very slow from there. I think I started with just like one or two florists who started buying from me regularly. And it just grew really slowly. When I first started, I was not selling primarily to florists because I just didn't have enough customers. So I did like a year round bouquet subscription and little flower popups here and there, but the florist sales was always my goal.
00:07:15
Speaker
It takes a while to establish a relationship with the florist because you have to build trust. They need to be able to rely on the flowers and know the quality is going to hold up and that you're going to be able to provide the quantities they need. So yeah, it's so true. How many florists do you work with now? That's a good question. I've been asked that and I keep thinking I need to go look, you know, I have like five
00:07:39
Speaker
people who I deliver to twice a week all through the growing season. So that's like the bulk. And then there's probably 10 more on top of that who order pretty much weekly smaller quantities. And then there's maybe another 10 on top of that who are pretty sporadic, like just for weddings or, you know, so what does that make 25? I mean, I definitely have way more than that on my availability email that we send out every week. But in terms of customers who I know who they are and they, you know,
00:08:08
Speaker
order somewhat regularly. That's honestly those five main florists
00:08:14
Speaker
They're a really big deal for my business. They buy a lot of flowers from our farm and it's just wonderful. That's fantastic. I'm a smaller community than you and I have three florists that I work with on a weekly basis and they are so vital to my business and it's so important to have such a great relationship with your local florists. You mentioned you send out a weekly availability sheet.
00:08:40
Speaker
Not everyone listening may be aware of what that is. Can you explain what your weekly availability sheet is, please?
Weekly Communication with Florists
00:08:47
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. And I know that different farmers do it differently, but what I do is every Friday I have an email that goes out and my email includes pictures because florists are very visual. And it's just everything that we have available that's going to be for sale for delivery for the following week.
00:09:05
Speaker
And so we have pictures, I have stem length, and I usually give a description like, this is an event flower, you're not going to get a long vase life or whatever. Try to just give them the most accurate, helpful information they can without making it, you know, like a novel. And so that goes out on Friday. Oh, along with quantities, because I think it's just good for florist to know like, Oh, she only has this much I can't order.
00:09:30
Speaker
6,000 burgundy dahlias from Heather. I mean, as much as I wish I could fill an order like that, it's just not possible. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah. Wouldn't that be nice? So that's what it is and we do it every Friday and then people just respond to my email and just tell me what they want and when they want it to live. They know, you know, we have our delivery policies are in there and the whole shebang. Once someone has ordered from us a few times, they kind of know how it works. I try to keep it pretty simple.
00:09:57
Speaker
Thank you for clarifying that. So when you started growing flowers for florists, how did you know what flowers to grow? That is such a good question. I
00:10:12
Speaker
A large part of how I decide what to grow is that if I just, if I love it, I feel like other people will love it. I don't know. Is that like self centered? Um, I've tried growing things that I don't love that I know florists buy. I will use sunflowers and lilies as an example, but I hate them. I hate growing them. I don't like them. And I just can't sell them. Like I just don't have the love. So that's like my first criteria.
00:10:40
Speaker
And then I do try to pay attention to colors, trends, things like that. At this point, and maybe you have the same, with the florists who I work with and our relationships, like if Julianne tells me she wants floss flower, which I despise, I will plant floss flower and grow it because I know that she's gonna buy that from me every week for the year.
00:11:04
Speaker
And what an honor for her to trust me to grow that for her. So I do have flowers that I grow that I wouldn't normally grow because a really important customer is like, I want hot pink dahlias. And I'm like, all right, I'll stick them in the ground. And she buys hot pink dahlias as long as I have them. So there's that too.
00:11:26
Speaker
I think that's great advice. So you mentioned that if a florist wants a particular flower, you can usually grow it. If a florist happens to be listening or another flower farmer is listening today and thinking, well, I want to grow something specific for a florist or for an event. What kind of timeline do you need to be able to grow that flower? You can't just all of a sudden in June say, sure, I'm going to start growing XYZ.
00:11:56
Speaker
and have it that same season. Right. No. And I should probably clarify that I have definitely gotten away from saying, Oh, you need a peach flocks on May 13th. Sure. Like there's, there's no flocks. I meant stock that happened to me.
00:12:13
Speaker
I actually thought I would have it. And then the aphids destroyed the crop. There's so many things. So I try not to commit to very specific flowers on very specific dates, but in this case of the floss flower. And she wanted it basically for the season. She's like, the people I used to buy it from don't offer it anymore. I wish I had it. I want to know that last year.
00:12:36
Speaker
you know like when I bought my seeds um like if you are a florist and you're interested in buying or you have a relationship with a local farmer just even as the thought occurs to you put it in your farmer's head because
00:12:52
Speaker
we have to have time to buy, like you said, we have to buy the seed, we have to plant it XYZ. I love to touch base with my florist customers right about now, like late January, early February. I kind of give them an idea. Here's what we're growing, but if there's something you don't see that you're interested in, let me know. Maybe y'all, maybe I can make it happen. After, you know, after February, it's almost like you missed the boat.
00:13:20
Speaker
Exactly. Well, and some seeds you just can't get. Yeah, you can't get them. And even like we're already like for dahlias, you think, oh, well, dahlias, you know, you don't really have those until August, September. Well, we've already missed out on how many dahlia tubers trying to buy them at sale. So that time that ship has sailed already for this year. That's a great point.
00:13:41
Speaker
So I've heard two really great points from you that you just mentioned. One, you said, grow what brings you joy. And that is something that I'm really leaning into this year is, well, especially as I'm having to downsize our farm right now, I'm really focusing on the flowers that bring me joy because when you enjoy what you're growing, I have found that the quality that I can produce is so much better too because I pay attention to them and I tend to them better than something that I don't really care about growing.
00:14:12
Speaker
And then you've talked a lot about your communication with your florist. And I think that's such a key piece is we get really busy, but we need to be able to keep that open line of communication with the florist. Do you have any tips or what has worked well for you for keeping that open line of communication with your florist?
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, I am always thinking about how to streamline communication, because at the end of the day, I spend so much time in the season. And it's not time that I don't enjoy, but time is just so, you know, we're spread so thin. I spend so much time communicating with florists, so much time. And especially if someone is trying to match a color palette, I usually have florists order by color, not necessary. Like if they have a big event,
00:15:07
Speaker
And they're like, well, it's peach and purple. And I'm like, well, here's what I have in those colors. Kind of a thing. I don't know if I've really figured that out. I think for me, streamlining really like I have my five quote unquote big customers and they get more of my time, you know? So like if they call and this is maybe people don't love to hear this, but.
00:15:31
Speaker
I don't know if you're a really consistent buyer and you're supportive of someone's business, not necessarily you're spending the most money, but you're supportive and you're consistent, then you just, you know, it's like if Julianne calls, I drop everything and I do answer her question, you know?
00:15:52
Speaker
In fact, it was almost just as a small farm. I don't know if you've ever encountered this, but there's plenty of times that I just have to tell people we're sold out for the week. You know, everyone, everything is purchased for this week, which is a really good problem to have. I hate having to do it. If someone, you know, comes in on September 15th and it's a big wedding weekend and I don't know them and they haven't established an account with me, it's going to be harder for them to get in on this small batch of dahlias that I have for that weekend.
00:16:22
Speaker
Absolutely. I love that you have those great lines of communication with your key florists and you know that that's the main part of your business that you focus on. So since we are already kind of coming to the end of that planning period for this year, what flowers are you focusing on growing for your florist this year?
Flower Cultivation and Seed Starting
00:16:44
Speaker
Let's see. Spring is huge. Huge for everybody. I think we're all just so tired of looking at mud. We're so excited to have flowers. We've got tulips and daffodils. Ranunculus is probably behind dahlias, one of my biggest crops. Anemones.
00:17:07
Speaker
And then behind that follows the peonies, which is really exciting this year because I planted those because of how many florists ask for peonies, but you have to wait so many years before you can really harvest. So this is our first year we can really harvest those.
00:17:23
Speaker
How many years into it are you on the PNEs? Yeah, so I have a big field that's divided in half, and so each half, it's like staggered by one year. So the one half is on its third year, and the second half, it's second year. So that's so exciting. And then we move into the summer flowers. I mean, top crops in my head as I think about it are
00:17:45
Speaker
Lizzianthus, that's a really big one. There's the zinnias, the dahlias. I'm forgetting a bajillion things. We grow a lot. I grow a lot of different flowers, but I try to have some crops that are just like big. And if you want Lizzianthus, you know I'll have it. You know, because I have rows, multiple rows of it.
00:18:05
Speaker
Do you start your lysianthus from seed? No, and I have. So when I first started growing, I challenged myself to master, I don't know, not master to get it, to be able to do it. And I did, but because it takes so long, I don't have the space. I'm very limited on seed starting space. And so I just can't have like trays and trays sitting around for six months.
00:18:29
Speaker
I don't have space for it. So I just order plugs from Farmer Bailey. I do the same. I wish I had more space, but constraints. You sometimes have to make decisions of what's best for your farm and spending six months babying a seed is sometimes not the best investment of your time. I agree.
00:18:48
Speaker
So you said you have limited space. Can you tell us what does your seed starting space look like? What's the process? Sure. Uh, it's, it is, like I said, we're humble here. It is my water heater closet. So I, it's the perfect little space and I have a, you know, like a metal rack.
00:19:09
Speaker
that is pretty tall with lights grow lights and inside of there because of the water heater it's already like fairly warm and then you add the lights and it's warm and I switched to soil blocks because in the same space of a 72 cell tray even a 128 cell tray you can grow
00:19:29
Speaker
more like 300 for, I mean you can grow so many in the little soil blocks. So I switched to soil blocks and I just germinate them in my water heater closet and timing is everything because after a few weeks once they're germinated I have to be able to move them out of that space so that I can start more seeds. So there are things that if I had a different setup I might start earlier but
00:19:52
Speaker
I just move them out from my water heater closet into this small, not even close to as cute as your greenhouse. If you imagine what your greenhouse will look like in a hundred years, if nobody takes care of it, that's what I move mine out to, but also drafty. That's where I grow them on out there. So like right now, what's out there is bachelor buttons, agri-stemma, sweet peas, things that can freeze really and still be okay. So you have an unheated greenhouse.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yes, I have two unheated tunnels where the renunculus are, and then I have a very small unheated greenhouse that Brett, my husband, built out of old windows for me. It's super cute. Oh, I love it. It's so cute, but it's so not functional. It's just like, eh. In a pinch, sometimes I bring in a little heat lamp that you would use if you had baby chicks. You put that little heat lamp, and I'll hang that in there to just add a couple degrees overnight. But we're so mild here.
00:20:49
Speaker
normally we only have one or two weekends or weeks a year where it's like down into the teens or low 20s and other than that we're just in the 30s. We normally don't drop below the low teens and we dropped to zero degrees in January.
00:21:04
Speaker
That was during that horrible time.
Overcoming Challenges During a Cold Snap
00:21:07
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And I have a heater in my greenhouse and I have it going because I have all my cented geraniums in there and the ones that were on the edge of the greenhouse. So for those that don't know my greenhouse, I have an eight by 12.
00:21:22
Speaker
small greenhouse, but it's big enough for my growing operations. And all of the geraniums that were on the edge, the outer edges of them all are completely toast. And I did lose some of them and I lost all of my Dahlia starts that were out there because we dipped. The heater just couldn't keep it above freezing. But that's very rare around here.
00:21:46
Speaker
Rare enough that we're never ready for it. That's what I feel because we went down 15 degrees during that same time, which is not even close to what you dealt with, but still way colder than I had. I don't have the supplies to deal with that type of temperature drop, but we made it. Well, and you lost power.
00:22:07
Speaker
Oh gosh. Yeah. We had like, I think it was like a total of 10 days. And in that 10 day period, it came back on for like 15 hours and I ran a bunch of laundry and like did a bunch of stuff because I knew it was going to go back out. But yeah, we're fine. It was, wasn't fun, but I was thinking about you guys during that time period and wondering, that is a true challenge for a farmer is when you lose electricity and it's cold in the middle of winter.
00:22:36
Speaker
Do you have farm animals that you also had to protect during that time? That's the biggest problem. And I shouldn't complain because my husband, like the farm animals are kind of like his babies, you know, he does all of that. But so out we have we have two wells. The house well can be powered by a generator.
00:22:55
Speaker
in the case of a power outage. So we can still have like flush our toilets and stuff. But the big ag well that all of the animal's water is attached to is it cannot be hooked up to a generator. So when the power goes out, we don't have water out at our animals. So we have to cart water from the house.
00:23:15
Speaker
We have four cows they literally drink like a bathtub's worth of water so there's that but then the water you know is freezing constantly and like the cows have icicles on their ears they were fine you know they.
00:23:27
Speaker
They're fine. You just have to feed more to keep their metabolisms going. And it's just kind of an ongoing thing really breaking through the ice on the water. And then Brett even slipped on the ice. It was so icy. He fell. He thought he broke his wrist. He was just like trying to get water. He's fine. But it was very dramatic. It was very dramatic. But everyone is fine.
00:23:51
Speaker
Did you have seeds going at that time under grow lights or anything? I did. They were in the house in my water heater closet, which was nice because we had the generator going. You can't just have all your lights on with the generator. I would give them as much light as I could and then I would take them out and put them in a sunny-ish window, but we don't really have sunny windows up here in the Pacific Northwest.
00:24:15
Speaker
in the winter. The snapdragons don't look as good as they probably would have if they hadn't had that little blip, but they'll be all right. My snapdragons that grew last year finally became uncovered from the snow. I hadn't cut them back and they are so resilient at zero degrees. Well, it's now above freezing, but they're growing again and I thought for sure I would have lost all of them in the cold.
00:24:42
Speaker
good for me to know because I never really tried to overwinter them because I thought oh they you know they would die in a cold snap but hey that's good to know. This was my first year trying to overwinter them because I've always gotten rust on my snapdragons. Have you ever had rust on them? Every time yeah towards the end you know of every season it's gross.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it over winters. So I was talking with our Oregon Ag Inspector and she was saying, you really have to move the location and I don't use any chemicals to treat mine. So I just crop rotate and take them out and throw them away. I don't compost them to get rid of the rest, but it always comes back. But I tried
00:25:20
Speaker
I can't remember the variety I used, but I started my snapdragons super late last year because I had a huge snafu with some pests on our dahlias. I lost my first set of snapdragons and started over, but I was having snapdragons in August and September
00:25:38
Speaker
And they were big and beautiful and zero rest all the way up to the frost. That's amazing. You have to remember, you have to tell me when you remember what variety because all the different varieties are kind of like different. I don't know. Like some like are good for growing in spring. Some are good for growing in fall. Exactly. And I never realized that really until last year. I just was like, Oh, I like this snap dragon. I'll buy this one because it matches the color palette that I want to grow.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah. So I will, um, I'll have to look into that and all included in the show notes so that everyone knows the different varieties of snapdragons. Okay. So you also mentioned that you have a spring CSA. Can you tell us what your CSA program looks like? Sure. Um, like most, um, people have been able to purchase it since, I don't know, I think I launched it around Thanksgiving time. So basically,
00:26:35
Speaker
the flowers are underground and people are kind of like reserving them for themselves ahead of time. And the reason that's great for our farm is because January and February, we don't have any cut flowers to sell. There's no money coming in, but there's plenty of money going out, buying seeds and, you know, whatever, compost, new drip lines, all kinds of stuff. So yeah, I may or may not need or have space for,
00:27:04
Speaker
All kinds of stuff. So that's kind of how the model works. And then our spring subscription usually starts in April. That's just what the weather allows. So if you're buying a subscription, you always already have to be kind of flexible. Usually no one knows exactly when their spring flowers are going to start. And I run mine for three weeks.
00:27:27
Speaker
Different farmers do it for different lengths of time. Three weeks is about all I can handle because of the bulk of our wholesale sales going out. So we do three weeks and people pick up their bouquets at a local
00:27:42
Speaker
I have four pickup spots and I always try to partner with like a small local business. I usually know the owner and that's also kind of a win-win because my customers get to go to like this beautiful gift shop or a really fun coffee shop every week. So it adds on to the treat. You're already picking up flowers in this really cute spot and they don't necessarily have to come out to the farm. The farm is a pickup spot, but not very many people live
00:28:10
Speaker
close enough that that feels convenient for them. And then obviously it's also a win for the business cause they'll get, you know, 20 people coming in who maybe normally wouldn't have. And so it'll start in April. It runs for three weeks and I usually try to have it end before mother's day and just kind of sandwich it in there. Yeah. We're in the middle of, you know, trying to sell the rest of our subscriptions right now.
00:28:34
Speaker
What is included in your CSA subscription? So you said it's three weeks. What kind of flowers do people receive? So they get all the best, the best stuff. So I definitely grow for florist, but when I order my spring stuff, I'm like, Ooh, this will be really good in the subscription. Like a super fancy tulip, like the parrot tulips, the really beautiful Italian renunculus.
00:28:58
Speaker
maybe the new, like I have a couple new varieties of daffodil that have never even been like in the United States before. This is like the first year that is offered them. So the really fun stuff that you definitely are not going to see in Safeway or wherever, you know, you normally see flowers. So, and it's, it's three weeks of bouquet. So each week we make, when we shortened from four weeks to three weeks, we didn't change our price. We just made our bouquets more fabulous basically. So there's
00:29:26
Speaker
It's a big, fabulous spring bouquet. It's fragrant. And they're fun because tulips, over time, they color up. You actually have posted some beautiful time lapses of tulips opening up. It's such a treat. So I try to include them a little bit closed up so people can watch them color up and then open and unfurl. So I think it's a pretty amazing thing.
00:29:54
Speaker
I never liked tulips until I became a flower farmer and realized that there was more than just the single tulips that you buy in the grocery store. The parrot ones that you mentioned are the ones that I've done time lapses of, the salmon one. They're just amazing. And it reminds me of an early Renaissance painting of those gorgeous tulips that you see in so many paintings from back in the day.
00:30:21
Speaker
I'm very intrigued though you just mentioned that you have some brand new daffodils you know so okay i order from awnings um little plug for awnings if you're a farmer i love them and i don't even remember what variety i ordered but hank called he didn't call he emailed and he's like we do not have that but i'm going to send
00:30:41
Speaker
Angel fire. I'm like googling it. I'm like, I can't find it. There's no pictures of this. And he said, well, that's because this is the first time it's coming to the United States. So basically our amazing flower bulb brokers, they go overseas to like Holland to these bulb farms and they buy the rights to varieties, new varieties. And so like Awnings is the only company that I know that carries like Yosemite Valley
00:31:10
Speaker
Angel Fire, which is a new one. As an end user, as a retail customer who loves flowers, you can really only get those particular flowers from a flower farmer who has purchased those bulbs from these very specific, in the case of awnings, it's like a family run bulb supplier.
00:31:30
Speaker
So flower nerds really love this stuff. I think you and I are both flower nerds. So it's really fun to get your hands on these flowers that maybe no one else has grown before or a florist haven't even seen before. That's kind of like the thrill of the hunt. It's really fun. I love that stuff.
00:31:48
Speaker
Absolutely. I do too. I also didn't really like daffodils before I started flower farming because I knew the yellow ones. That was all I knew. And yellow is not my color. I'm learning to love some of the paler yellows and things, but I didn't want the yellow daffodils. And then all of a sudden I discovered that there were the fragrant ones and there were the unique
00:32:10
Speaker
like Replete and Del Shana and I'm going, oh my goodness, I've been missing out all these years. Yeah. They're peach colored daffodils. Who knew? Because yeah, same. I didn't like the trumpet shape. I just thought it looked like it was in a, like it belonged in a Dr. Seuss book.
00:32:27
Speaker
I don't know. But yeah, these the frilly ones that almost look like a peony. They have all the extra petals. They're actually they have become one of my favorite flowers because they are so easy to grow. They're so forgiving. They multiply underground. Animals don't really eat them. They're fragrant. They bloom early. I like what's not to love. I love them. I do too. So OK, this is a controversial question. Are you team Tulip or are you team Daffodil?
00:32:57
Speaker
I am team daffodil. And I think it also comes down to the work involved. Maybe if I was buying them for my house, like you, I did not use to really love tulips either because I thought, you know, when you would be in like kindergarten and draw the tulip, it's like a cup at the bottom and then the zigzag on top. And that's just kind of how I featured them until I learned about parrot tulips and the double tulips that are like fluffy.
00:33:24
Speaker
But there's so much work when you're harvesting and they all come on at once and you're storing them. It is a labor of love and I love being able to bring that to my customers, but it creates a little bit of an ambivalent relationship.
00:33:41
Speaker
Whereas my daffodils, you plan them once, they come back every year, you can rely on them, they're easy. And they multiply. Yeah. And I actually really love the fragrance of daffodils. Like to me, that like reminds me of my childhood. So I just love, love that. So I have a mission this year and I am sharing this in case anyone listening knows how to do it and wants to reach out and tell me and help me, I would love to figure out how to bottle up the scent of some of the daffodils.
00:34:11
Speaker
and be able to just have that scent year-round. I mean, there's essential oil bottles of like jasmine and plumeria. Why can't there be like a Sir Winston Churchill? Yeah, that is so interesting.
00:34:24
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Well tell me who calls you because let's get on that. That would be amazing. That's my mission for this year is to figure out how to bottle up the scent and it worked. This is February. So I have a couple months to figure it out before they start to bloom. Wouldn't that be amazing? If you had like an essential oil of daffodil fragrance, that would just be, that would be so wonderful. Yes. And then, um, I think I shared this with you on the side. I've discovered I'm allergic to tulips, the bulbs.
00:34:55
Speaker
Not the flowers. No, the bowl. And you're, I think you're the one who were like, um, you should wear gloves while you're packing your bulb orders because I never thought about we wear bulbs when we're planting, but then we, you know, we sell extra bulbs, um, retail. And I didn't even think about I'm touching. Eventually I probably will develop an allergy just touching them so much. Oh man. Yeah. That's, that's nasty stuff.
00:35:20
Speaker
I have to wear latex gloves now, so I don't know if I'll even grow tulips next year. I have 7,000 planted this year. And I might have to cut them if I develop a rash again this spring, because half my face was this red rash, and I had a rash on my hands and my fingertips. And there's some studies that say that it's either coming from the chemicals that are being used to import the bulbs, or some people are actually allergic to the tulip themselves.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm not trying to deter people from tulips though, because I do love the doubles and the parrots. The parrots have my heart. Yeah. It's a good behind the scenes thing for people to know. People are so interested in the process of growing and harvesting tulips, but then that adds another layer of life.
00:36:06
Speaker
Then there's the tulip allergy that can rear its ugly head. It's just really interesting behind the scenes stuff. Well, terrible actually when you had that rash on your face. Ugh. Yes. And also hyacinths do it too. Oh, they do. Yes. You can Google hyacinth fingers and they develop a terrible rash. And so I planted tulips and hyacinths at the same time. So we'll see how I do harvesting them this year.
00:36:33
Speaker
So if you're listening and you are someone that has allergies, my suggestion is to wear gloves when you are harvesting and don't touch your face. If you have a bug land on your face or something, I think that's what happened to me is I was wiping some dirt or something off my face and touched my face.
00:36:49
Speaker
So I think what I'm trying to get to here is that flower farming isn't just the pretty pictures we see online. It has its fair share of challenges.
Embracing Farming's Unpredictability
00:37:02
Speaker
Can you think of a time that you have been challenged as a flower farmer
00:37:08
Speaker
It is very hard and there are so many challenges, but some of the challenges feel like exciting. You know, like you kind of rise to the occasion. Like if something is really hard to grow, it just makes me more determined. Like, Oh, I'm going to figure this out. There have been years. I mean, I'll just, here's a, here's an example. Last spring we had this weird heat wave in April where it went over 80 degrees. It was like mid eighties.
00:37:38
Speaker
And so I have two high tunnels, which are full of cool, loving crops that were very expensive to purchase, very time consuming to grow. And that's my ranunculus. It's like I mentioned before, one of my top crops. And they've been stagger planted to like provide beautiful flowers for all the way through June while it hit 80.
00:37:59
Speaker
it was like 85 degrees outside. We got up to almost 100. Yeah, it was unbelievable. And so everything bloomed the week before Mother's Day. Mother's Day is the biggest flood. So everything bloomed, like hit its peak bloom. Even the stuff that wasn't ready to bloom bloomed on these little short stems. So we harvested thousands and thousands of stems of vernunculus, sold as much as we could.
00:38:23
Speaker
And then by Mother's Day, those plants were shutting down. So I'm getting these teeny, itty-bitty, you know, the last ranunculus blooms are really small. And the aphids, no matter what I did, just kind of were like having a field day in there. And it was a huge loss, not only, I mean, just from a money perspective, but all of these commitments, because ranunculus is one of the flowers I can commit to because of how much I grow.
00:38:48
Speaker
And it just felt so and that heat wave, if you remember, it didn't just I mean, it took out every it threw off the whole year. I don't feel like we were back in business as usual, probably until September. And that's just farming. I mean, you just have to either quit and be like, this is stupid. I'm burying money in the ground. And sometimes it doesn't grow. Or you just have to just be like, well, OK, hopefully next year will be better.
00:39:16
Speaker
Because there's so few things that you can control. I mean, that's maybe a specific instance, but just in general, I think the hard part is that you are partnering with nature, which is completely out of your control, in many ways unpredictable. Not just the weather, but the pests. I mean, we talked about the, I always pronounce it wrong, but symphilines, little insects in the ground. So many weird things that can happen that we have no control over.
00:39:46
Speaker
And that can really affect things negatively. So the challenge is like your head space, you know, your problem solving and your resilience. You mentioned that word earlier, patience and just how you're going to handle it, you know, and move forward. That's just, I think an ongoing, ongoing challenge. I feel like I'm constantly learning and constantly having to stay hopeful.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah. I know they say that like doing crossword puzzles can help fend off dementia. And I'm like, well, where I'm not getting dementia because I know problem solving mode is just a constant thing. I feel like some of the problems keep getting harder too, as the summers are getting warmer and we're getting these more extreme temperature changes.
00:40:36
Speaker
And it sounds like you've had some of those too with your ice storm and the heat wave last spring. I'm praying that maybe this El Nino gives us a little bit of grace, but my husband was telling me this morning that March is supposed to be warmer than normal already. So I'm wondering if we're going to have flowers earlier this year.
00:40:56
Speaker
I was just thinking the same thing when I was out looking at my tulips and kind of comparing to pictures from previous years thinking, I think that we're going to be a little early on flowers, which is a quote unquote good. It's good for sales, you know, the earlier the better, but it just makes it really hard to plan things because as flower farmers, we're working on like at least a six month lag lead time, more like eight months to a year. If you get the timing wrong.
00:41:24
Speaker
then it can really mess things up. So yeah, it is hard. It's getting more unpredictable weather-wise for sure. You mentioned that there are some flowers that you have struggled to initially grow that you've been determined to grow. Can you share any of those with us? I think it's helpful for others to know that they're not alone and getting some flowers to grow. Yeah. I mean, I feel like
00:41:49
Speaker
Well, I'll use annual flocks as an example, which I love. I accidentally grew it the first time I tried. I don't even remember how I did it. Seven years ago, I grew this amazing stand of flocks and thought, oh, that was easy, and then was unable to grow it ever again until last year.
00:42:08
Speaker
and just had to learn, you know, that doesn't like to grow in soil blocks that wants to be in a tray. And it's actually a cool, loving flower. And then another one that I have struggled with. Well, Lizzianthus was really hard. I think I tried for three years before I got from seed to a tall, beautiful flower. I was able to kind of get these like little sad plants for a while. And then honestly, poppies, I've never I just buy plugs for poppies now because I gave up like
00:42:37
Speaker
After seven years, I was like, this is, oh, this is too hard. Um, and then, you know, like, I feel like I buy Lizzie and this plugs and I'm still looking at my crop. Like this could be better. I know that this could be better. I'm still trying to figure out what I, what tweaks I need to do to make it perfect. And stock was another one that was really hard for me, which is funny because it's such like a, it's everywhere. Stock is everywhere.
00:43:04
Speaker
but it is tricky to get the timing of that flower just right. And so I tried that for many years before I feel like I better knock on wood, but I feel like I've kind of figured that one out timing wise. So there's so many, every single crop is its own learning curve. Some are easier than others, but yeah, I think that you can literally always be learning and never reach like expert status, you know, on everything. There's too many things to learn.
00:43:34
Speaker
Absolutely. When I started, I thought, oh, after a few years, I'll really know a lot. And I feel like each year I feel like I know a little bit less than the year before. You know a lot, but it's true because your eyes are open to how much there is to know. The more you learn, it's just like the hole gets deeper.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yes, you want to know more. You want to know more about a specific crop or a certain pest. There's always something new. Just when you think you've got something figured out, I feel like some little wrench gets thrown your way and you're like, well, I wasn't prepared for that. My first year, I was super successful with Lizianthus.
00:44:15
Speaker
I grew some from seed and some from plugs and they were huge. They were like three feet tall, gorgeous. I had so many. I bought them again this last year and I planted them in a different field and they got fusarium. I didn't get a single one that was even two feet tall in length and stem length.
00:44:39
Speaker
And so it was, I lost pretty much all of them. I didn't, I maybe sold 10 bundles. So there's some years that it just, it's that learning curve and I'm going to grow them again this year because they're beautiful. I love that you shared that you struggled with the flocks and the stock because those are ones that I've had troubles with in the past. Do you have any tips for anyone listening because those are both really popular flowers to grow?
00:45:06
Speaker
I think for me, learning that they need cool, especially stock needs as much time in the cold weather as possible. And for me, I found it to be frost tolerant, but only to a certain extent. If I had stock outside at 16, you know, when we got 16 degrees, it would have died. And that's why the timing has been hard. I can overwinter it in a tunnel. I found that.
00:45:32
Speaker
but I can't overwinter it outside in the field. I learned everything I'm about, every sentence is a year of a mistake. So there was the year that, you know, like it just every year I learned, oh, I can't grow this outside. Oh, this does find in the tunnel, but you know, the aphids really like it.
00:45:50
Speaker
So I think for stock, that timing is so essential. When I grow stock in my field, I try to put it out the last week of February. And I know that I'm going to have to cover it with frost cloth a few times when we get down below 30 degrees. And that's a pain because it's this big long row outside with the wind and the rain.
00:46:13
Speaker
but it's worth it, um, any later than February it, and it blooms on super short stems cause it just didn't have enough time in the cold. So for me, that's, that was kind of like the epiphany on that and the flocks similarly, because I think you're, you know, you're harvesting flocks in the summer. It feels like a Zinnia kind of feels like it's a heat lover, but it wants to start in the cool and it would love to be direct zone. And if not pop it into a,
00:46:42
Speaker
into a plastic tray and cover it. It needs complete darkness. If you have a year old packet of seeds, it's probably not going to germinate. That's the one for sure seed that I buy new every year.
00:46:59
Speaker
It makes a huge difference, fresh seed. So that was kind of the game changer for me was I kept trying to grow it in soil blocks, you know, and it just was, I don't even know. I just, I would cover the soil blocks and it was like, no, thank you. I do not like to be a soil block. So.
00:47:15
Speaker
Those are my, my tips. Thank you. Those are good tips. I think as I was listening, I started my flocks late and I usually also plant my stock in March and I always get really short stems. So I start, yeah, usually a little more time. Yeah. I, I start my stock.
00:47:36
Speaker
I started my stock. Oh, I would have started it earlier, but we had no power. So it would have been like the second or third, like the third week of January. But then I waited until like, I think just the very end of January to get it started. Cause you know, it grows so fast. I mean, those seeds germinate in like a few days. It grows really fast and is ready to plant out really fast. Yeah. Start him late January, early February. We'll give you that extra month of cold.
00:48:02
Speaker
So do you stop sewing them after February or you don't succession? Okay. Yeah. So when I have room in my tunnel, which this year I chose to do more ranunculus because it just makes more money, you know? Um, but if I'm doing a succession, what I will do is I'll do a December 1st sewing that gets planted into the tunnel.
00:48:24
Speaker
And if you, I guess if you use caterpillar tunnels, you know, you could do something like that. I hate caterpillar tunnels and it cannot be trusted to open and close them every day. So I stopped using them. Um, cause around here you have to open and close them every day. So I would do like a December sewing, put that in the tunnel and then do my late January sewing and put that in the field. So those would be my successions, but this year we'll just have one.
00:48:46
Speaker
I, one of the things I'm trying to still figure out is how to have stock in the fall, kind of like your fall snap dragons that you ended up with. Um, I'm always trying to figure that out, but it's so far, no luck, seven years of trying, but well, I'll get it someday. Start them in your walking cooler, maybe. I don't know.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's the trouble because when you're starting the seeds for fall, it's just so hot. I don't know. We'll see. I'm always tweaking it. I like that. Always tweaking is a great word because you always just have to be staying flexible and adapting throughout it. We've talked a lot about challenges and resilience and hope.
Rewards of Mentorship and Growth
00:49:34
Speaker
Can you share with us one of your favorite flower farming moments? I think that
00:49:42
Speaker
rather than a very specific moment, the moments that I love, I have a lot. So my boys work for me, they're teenagers. And then I have their, you know, in the summer I'll have, I call it the teenage work crew. These are like the guys on the football team and the wrestling team, they come out and it's a great part-time job for them. And then I have this other gal, Natalie, who's worked for me for a couple of years. And the moments I love are when I can see them have this like kind of
00:50:13
Speaker
Amazing connection with the flowers and it's usually something that they planted That they're harvesting and though they're they kind of can't believe it. They're like wait a minute Is this isn't this the road that you know, we put those weird looking seeds in or whatever and Or when we're even digging up dahlia tubers and they're like wait, we just put one in and look at this It's like crazy. I just love those moments of of watching young people and
00:50:41
Speaker
kind of have that excitement that comes with gardening and growing stuff and that rewarding feeling that has nothing to do with a paycheck. It's like I put this little dried up ball in dirt and now I have harvested a bucket of beautiful rubeckia. And I'm telling you, like 18 year old boys have the same response as like 20 year old college girls. It's just kind of like a universal
00:51:08
Speaker
thing inside of us that just is rewarded by that process of the growing and the harvesting. So that I think is like my favorite, but that stands out to me. I love that. So your boys help on the farm. They're in high school now. How old were they when you first started involving them?
00:51:29
Speaker
They have been involved from the beginning. So I probably started like officially farming in 2018, growing the flowers. And you know, how old were they? That was seven years ago. So Moses would have been 11, and Titus would have been like eight. Not like super helpful yet. So it was more of like a parenting
00:51:55
Speaker
You know, when you ask an eight-year-old to help you pull weeds, they don't want to, and they're not good at it. So it's a lot of teaching. It goes slower than you would like. But it was just our lifestyle on the farm. They were helping inside too, and they're helping with the animals. And all that work of training them has definitely paid off. They're so helpful. They're super knowledgeable. They're actual employees of the farm now, and they get paychecks and the whole thing.
00:52:23
Speaker
And you know, like Moses, he's 18. I kind of treat him as a foreman. So in the summer, he's got like his, he knows what to do. He can drive the tractor. He's, I just say, we need to get this row prepped and he knows what that means. It's awesome.
00:52:39
Speaker
That's amazing. I can see the joy in your kids faces and the videos you share on social media that they truly enjoy what they're doing. What advice would you have to parents of younger kids like myself, for example, I have a nine year old and I don't want to put her to work per se and say, you're going to do this, but how do you encourage them from a young age to want to get involved and to be curious?
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, it's hard just like any other aspect of parenting is hard because yeah, you don't want to enslave your, your nine year old and be like, you know, here's your hours. So we definitely didn't do that. But I feel like I went into it knowing I certainly wasn't born with a good work ethic.
00:53:27
Speaker
I was lazy. I didn't want to be dirty. I didn't want to be hot. I didn't want my arms to be itchy. All of the things that happen when you're outside doing stuff and I had to develop that. And the only way to develop it is by
00:53:43
Speaker
doing it. And so having that mindset of we didn't bribe our kids, we didn't incentivize, we told them you need to do this. But I'm talking about one hour of their life a week when they were little. They're definitely kids who had more chores and stuff. But I guess the advice is
00:54:08
Speaker
Partly, it's not easy to involve kids in your work. It will slow you down. It will make you frustrated. They will have a bad attitude. And your life will be easier if you let them sit inside.
00:54:23
Speaker
and do whatever it is that they would rather be doing, because then you're gonna get the job done faster, no one's gonna talk back to you, you're not gonna have to think of, you know, like it's just gonna be so much easier in the short run, but in the long run for both you and your kids, it's so worth it. And I am in it, okay, with my younger kid, like who is awesome and a great worker, but he's still a kid, he's 15, he doesn't love it when I tell him, you know, you're gonna need to do this.
00:54:50
Speaker
And so I'm still in it. But then with my 18 year old, I feel like we're kind of on the other side and seeing he he he does not want to be a flower farmer when he grows up. Like he's not like, oh, this is what I want to do. But he has experienced that.
00:55:05
Speaker
feeling at the end of a hard day of work or he's created stuff and had that kind of intrinsic reward because we forced him long enough that he could experience it and be like, oh, I've had a day where I was sweaty and uncomfortable and I survived and it felt good at the end of the day and maybe I got paid for it or whatever. But you just as a parent have to power through so many years, like so many years
00:55:34
Speaker
trying to be patient and it's tough. I mean, if it's, I don't know if it's encouragement or if it's just empathy, like it's tough, but it's so worth it. It's just really worth it.
00:55:46
Speaker
There's so many great life lessons they can learn from the field. I know when I think about trying to get my daughter more involved, it's you and Marin from the Farmhouse Flower Farm that always come to my mind because both of you are so good at involving your children. And I think of your boys as teenagers and watching them be so helpful and involved. And then I think of Farmer Finn, Marin's son.
00:56:10
Speaker
and him making bouquets and cutting his own flowers. And I've been in the field and seen how proud he is to help her as well. So I think kudos to both of you for raising such wonderful young men and for
00:56:26
Speaker
setting a great example for the rest of us on how we can encourage our kids from a young age to get involved with nature and have a respect for farming and hard work and being part of something greater than just themselves. So thank you for those tips.
00:56:43
Speaker
You have shared so much great information with us today and it's been so fun chatting with you. I feel like I could probably talk to you for another couple hours, but I won't do that to you today because I know this is a busy time of year. So perhaps we could continue this conversation again another time and touch on some other topics. I'd love to have you back on the podcast again someday. I love that.
00:57:10
Speaker
Before we go today, can you tell our listeners how they can connect with you? Oh, sure. Mainly, I'm on Instagram. So it's at petalpinkflowers, all one word. And I try to post definitely in the stories. And if you're really interested in learning, I do have a subscription on there. It's $5 a month. And in the subscription, you basically get access to
00:57:37
Speaker
whatever, it's paywall protected. You don't see this if you don't subscribe. It's a lot of like more in-depth growing tips and stuff like that. It's focused on growing. It's not focused on anything else. So there are a lot of people who just want to see flowers and that's just what the regular Instagram page is for. And then if you're super local to me and you want the bouquet subscription and you're interested in that, you can buy it on our website, which is also petalpinkflowers.com. So that's where I am.
00:58:06
Speaker
Thank you. I'll link to those in the show notes so people can click from the episode notes to those as well. Before we say goodbye today, is there any piece of advice or anything you would like to leave our listeners with today? I think that there is that reward of growing something for everybody. And I tell this like to college students, even that I interact with, get a pot,
00:58:32
Speaker
put some dirt in it and stuff a tulip bulb in there. Or something, throw a tomato plant from the nursery in there. And just so that you can have that rewarding experience, you can grow stuff even if you live in an apartment on the second floor. I've watched people do it. So I just think that it brings so much joy. So that's my little advice if you can do it. Well, you can do it. You can do it. Everyone can do it. It's easy.
Closing and Call to Action
00:59:00
Speaker
And it's attainable. You don't have to have a farm to grow something. Absolutely. That's great advice. Thank you. So this is the perfect time to go out and buy that container.
00:59:11
Speaker
and start sowing those seeds or planning to sow those seeds for spring. So thank you, Heather. It's been such a treat to hear from you. And we're so excited to see all of your spring flowers blooming. You have all of those gorgeous Renunculus that I can't wait to see your big armfuls on social media soon. So thank you so much. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks so much, Jen, for having me. Thanks. Have a great day.
00:59:40
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. 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.
01:00:01
Speaker
If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, 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. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.