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Best Practices for Flower Farming in New England

Flower farming in New England is not for the faint of heart. Blazing heat and humidity in the summer, frigid cold temperatures in the winter, wind, rain, snow—then throw in the occasional hail storm, hurricane or Nor’easter, and you know you need a resilient and determined personality (read: stubborn) to grow flowers professionally in New England. With a relatively short season in which to grow, season extension and succession planting are the keys to success, but learning to accept your zone and work within its natural cycles is also important. In this article, I will attempt to summarize some of the best practices for growing flowers in New England.

The Why and How of No-Till Flower Farming

There’s been a lot of buzz in the farming community about no-till farming. It’s a practice of preserving the soil ecology, sequestering carbon, and building soil organic matter. It is not necessarily new, but it is quite the shift from the way agriculture has been traditionally practiced over the last century.

Fun Floral Design Containers You Need to Try

The right vessel for a floral design can completely change the tone of an arrangement. Daffodils can look quaint in a jam jar, modern in a cube, and classy in a footed bowl. Even a daisy can take the spotlight at a regal affair in the right floral design container. Vessels are an important tool for every floral designer—and they can support or distract from the message we are working to communicate visually.

2019 Team Flower Conference Recap

The 2019 Team Flower Conference reminded us all that floral work is not only beautiful, but it is also amazingly impactful to our communities. When you gather 250 kind, open-hearted floral professionals in a room for three days, magic is bound to happen! Here’s the recap.

Brilliant Tips for Transporting Flowers from Your Farm

Flower farming takes a lot of time and energy. Sometimes after putting so much thought into your seed and plug orders, planting, maintaining, and harvesting your flowers, making sure to properly transport and deliver them may be something of an afterthought. But delivering the flowers without experiencing any wear and tear on the way to your destination is a crucial step in maintaining your reputation for quality. Dive into this article for comprehensive tips for transporting flowers from your farm.

Are You Ready to Start a Local Flower Market?

As floral design styles shift more toward natural, loose arrangements, the demand for locally grown flowers has followed. This increased demand and awareness of local flowers from florists has created an excellent opportunity for flower farmers to fill a void in the traditional market. However, the challenge is how to supply the volume needed and the convenience offered by conventional wholesalers.

Giving Yourself Grace in Business and Parenthood

Give yourself the gift of grace when running your flower business and raising a family. I hope these words will encourage you in the midst of all the not-so-perfect days, whether you are nurturing your own baby flower business or your sweet baby. That gift might just give you what you need to keep moving forward with hope for your future.

In-Depth Techniques You Need for Growing Delphinium

Growing delphinium as a cut flower crop can have its challenges, but if you follow an orderly process, it can be a very rewarding flower to grow. Delphinium has several advantages such as its striking, dramatic quality and large stature which can be useful in larger arrangements. It also blooms during that early June window when your spring flowers may be finished, but your summer annuals aren’t flowering yet, helping you fill in that gap. It also provides that hard-to-find true blue color in both light and dark shades.

Team Flower's Next Chapter

Small businesses grow one step at a time, and most often, the really important things unfold slowly right under our own noses. You probably remember those early moments of your floral business, too, where you were crunching the numbers and fitting in floral work where you could on top of others jobs…

The Benefits of Flower Remedies with Amy Cohen

Amy Cohen reached out to me several months ago and introduced me to an area of flowers I was not familiar with: flower remedies. It’s also called plant medicine or botanical healing. At the time, I was familiar with essential oils and could speak to the life-giving effect incorporating plants into my life, so this was intriguing. Flower remedies are different than oils though, so I thought it could be fun to invite Amy to teach us a little more about this topic.

How to Speak with Floral Design Clients

Whether someone has been in floral design for a year or more than 20 years, the stories shared when designers get together range from heartwarming to hair-raising. We’ve all experienced difficult situations, and it’s my hope that the tips below will help avoid, clear up, or settle any tough stuff with our clients.

Connecting with Wedding Vendors as a New Florist

One of the biggest things to consider is marketing your business and how to get your name out there! When you’re a new floral pro, it can be challenging to jump into marketing via social media and publishing, but something simple you can do to introduce yourself to the wedding industry is to network with other vendors in your community. Vendors can include event venues, photographers, planners, caterers, DJs, and even other florists. Again, this may seem like a daunting task, but hopefully these few tips will help make this step a bit easier to accomplish.

How to Design Jewelry Using Fresh Flowers

We’ve all seen the trend of flower crowns, flower jewelry, and flower accessories bloom into the market. And for good reason, too. How cool is it to accessorize your look with fresh floral creations? Floral accessories are great for bridesmaids to accessorize or perhaps for that untraditional bride looking for a little wow-factor. Mothers love a bracelet cuff adorned with floral rather than a traditional wrist corsage! But how do we design jewelry using fresh flowers?