We’ve Been Expanding The Flower Patch

This fall we have been hard at work expanding our growing spaces and working to increase our offerings. Flower farming is a lot of long term planning and a lot of patience. Annuals are planted each year and take months from seed to harvest. Perennials, however, can take YEARS before reliable flower harvesting can happen. My favorite flower, the peony, is a perennial and we just finished planting 150 of them! They will take about 3 years to be fully established and reliably harvestable for bouquets. It’s so hard to be patient, but it will be worth it!

In addition to peonies, in the spring we will also be planting a variety of other perennials. These perennials will eventually help allow us to offer flowers earlier since they are able to start blooming earlier. Currently our bouquet availability begins in early July, and by planting more perennials and bulbs our goal is to have flowers available in late spring/early summer as well. 

Part of expanding our offerings includes experimenting and learning how to grow new flowers and with new methods. This year we are trialing three new flowers that I am very excited about. First, we planted a small amount of tulips as a trial run. Tulips for cut flowers cost more to grow so the purpose of this trial is to see if our raised bed method will keep any critters out of the bulbs. 

The other two flowers we are trialing are ranunculus and anemones. Both of these flowers are stunningly gorgeous, but they are a little picky about their climate. They love to grow in cool climates and will stop flowering once it gets too hot. As well, in our growing zone it is recommended to plant these in the spring since our winters get too cold for them to be planted in fall. However, in our area in Western Michigan sometimes our springs go from snow to summer in a very short amount of time and can make it hard for the ranunculus and anemones to have enough time to grow and flower. To solve these problems, we will be doing what’s called “overwintering”. Large growers may use a hoophouse to do this, but in our small space we have chosen to do low tunnels. These low tunnels look like a little caterpillar and will essentially create a greenhouse for these flowers to spend the winter in and will give them a jumpstart on growing come spring. 

We are so excited for these test runs and for the expansions we are making. We plan to offer bouquets of our tulips, ranunculus and anemones in the spring, but we will have limited quantities this year, so if you are interested, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to be notified when they are available.