The Floral Hustle

Growing flowers has been such an inspiring addition to my floral business in recent years. About 4 years ago I went to Flowerstock on Holly Chapple's farm and was so inspired by growing flowers and using them in your designs. This changed the direction of my business and made me start focusing on locally grown flowers. With that, I started my own growing journey and have learned so much along the way. 

If you want to start your growing journey the first thing I would start with is education. Learning all about growing flowers and the different steps was so helpful foundationally to help me have an amazing amount of blooms my first year. I started my education process by signing up for the Floret Farms workshop and which was an intensive course that gave me so much knowledge and ways to shorten the learning curve. Then I went and signed up for team flower membership and took the gardening portion of their course as well. That was great educational content because it focused on a smaller-scale grower that does most of the gardening herself.

I then started deciding what I wanted to grow and picked blooms like Zinnias, scabiosa, strawflowers, rudbeckia, dahlias, silene lanterns, celosia, and lisianthus. 

I then sorted my seeds by the time it listed on each packet to plant. 8 weeks, 6-8 weeks, 4-6 weeks, and direct seed. At each time frame, I purchased a bunch of 4-tier greenhouses off of Amazon, grow lights, and seed starting mats. I then went and took my seed cells and filled them with Promix soil which I have found to be a great seed-starting soil. Then either covered the tray with a plastic tray it came with or saran wrap with a rubber band around it. I placed the tray on the seed mat in the greenhouse with a grow light directly overhead. The grow light is positioned above the actual tray but not very far above it that the plants are reaching for the light source. From there I watched and waited till the plant emerges then removed it from the seed mat and uncovered the plants. Then I watered and waited for them to grow and monitored the distance of the light so the plants would not become leggy from reaching for the light. When it is getting close to planting time I would harden off the plant by it having bits of exposure to the outdoors.

When it was close to planting time I prepared my beds and prepared weed block fabric if I was using it which is plant-dependent. I prepared the beds with compost, garden soil, and peat moss, tilling all the soils into the existing ground. Then planted according to the plant spacing suggestions on the seed packet.

For the dahlias I now wake up the dahlia tubers by removing them from the cold storage area and letting them wake up with their sprouts in the container/medium they were stored in. I then plant based on the tuber sprouting. I have found about 20% of purchased and reused do not sprout due to not having an eye or damage on the tuber.

I hope you love this minisode- growing your own flowers can help elevate your designs, keep you creatively inspired and create a new love with being a florist.

Greenhouses I used:
https://www.amazon.com/Worth-Mini-Greenhouse-Collapsible-Propagation/dp/B06XBGC61D/ref=sr_1_5?crid=363XJJFE1LURV&keywords=mini+greenhouse&qid=1676356067&sprefix=mini+green%2Caps%2C665&sr=8-5

My favorite seeds:
https://shop.floretflowers.com/collections/seeds