Once I had made the decision to attempt to grow cut flowers for profit, I was immediately overwhelmed. I’ve had an average amount of exposure to plants in my lifetime, but never to this extreme. But with a wedding in the near future, I figured now was the best time to see if I could truly save/make some money off the 1/2 acre backyard my fiancé and I lucked into.

my first piece of advice to anyone interested in a new hobby (flower farming or whatever)- read a book about it!

I began the deep-dive into my new hobby in October of 2023 by reading The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers and Flower Farming for Profit: The Complete Guide to Growing a Successful Cut Flower Business. The main takeaway from the two books was : don’t overwhelm yourself your first year. The easiest way to set yourself up for success is to keep it simple. Therefore, I decided to limit the types of flowers I would grow to a maximum of five. Once I decided how many flower types I’d grow, I did a little research regarding other flower farmers in my area. What did they grow successfully and how were the two questions I kept at the front of my mind. I combined this information with the advice I’d gained from the books I’d read and from there, to be frank, I picked the easiest flowers to grow.

Therefore, the flowers I will be growing my first year of flower farming are:

• zinnias
• cosmos
• snapdragons
• eucalyptus
• gomphrena

Now that I knew the types of flowers I was going to grow, I decided to utilize Google slides to help me retain the information I needed to know to successfully grow each variety. I put together a few slides on each variety of flower I was going to be growing, focusing on three main topics:

1. Characteristics/ Qualities
2. General Care
3. Startup

At this point, I measured the bed space available in my backyard and determined how much space I wanted to dedicate to each type of flower. Using that size and the recommended spacing I’d recorded in my Google Slides, I selected approximately 2-3 varieties of each flower type.

This method allows me to grow numerous different flower varieties with only 5 different total types of flowers. It was also comforting knowing all the knowledge I needed was always just an app away. While time consuming, this method really helped me retain the information needed to be successful with each flower variety I attempt this year. Completing this by mid-December allowed me to dedicate all of January to perfecting my downstairs grow station.