Becoming a Cut Flower Grower

Hello and welcome to 11 November 2025. 

There's so much to tell you about in this episode! Life in the cut flower field has been busy: my young cockerel, Lion, finally has his own enclosure and a wife (!); I've been drying more stems in the unlikely event that someone wants to buy them (or they end up in wreaths); physocarpus shrubs have been planted; achillea 'The Pearl' is being moved to a new bed; a new florist came to the plot to buy a mixed bucket this morning (very exciting) and it was great to tell her what I'll h...

Hello. It's Friday 7 November 2025. Welcome to tonight's episode.

Tonight it's all about mistakes I've made in 2025 because I've been thinking like a gardener rather than a cut flower grower. I have therefore compiled a list of the Top 10 mistakes I've made and I thought I'd share them with you in the hope that you won't make them!

There are many benefits to having a background in gardening if you're thinking of establishing a cut flower grower (although I'd argue that a knowledge of marketing would probably be more helpful at times). The benefits include knowing...

Hello. It's Tuesday 4 November 2025. Welcome to the latest episode.

Another busy week: lots of planting new plants, particularly foliage in my new dedicated foliage bed, lifting and dividing of perennials, moving peonies, weeding, and watching the last of the strawflowers that the chickens haven't trampled putting on a lovely colourful display. 

I talk about how I'm getting on with making leaf mould this autumn, as well as the benefits of inter-cropping cut flowers amongst other plants to maximise yields. I'm also thinking about inter-cropping with vegetables next year so that I have more homegrown organic v...

Hello and welcome, it's Friday 31 October 2025. Happy Halloween (if you're celebrating it).

Lots to tell you: today I bumped into my fabulous dahlia mentor, Richard Bailey, and he has lots of dahlia tubers for me. These are tubers from plants that he no longer wants and I'm very lucky to receive them. I have also been offered some beautiful pink Japanese anemones which I will be gratefully digging up next week.

I've been learning a lot from fellow podcasters this week (links to the show are below), particularly about lilies. I adore lilies for their...

Hello, it's Tuesday 28 October 2025. Welcome to the latest episode :-)

The clocks have just gone back which means shorter days and longer evenings: it's a great opportunity for plenty of studying in the evenings but I have to remember to get the hens to bed an hour earlier...

I've had the busiest weekend planting out my new shrubs including the Hydrangea Limelights, Eucalyptus, Lilac and Cotinus, plus some raspberry canes and peonies that I transplanted from home. I also relocated my Verbena bonariensis from one area of the plot to another to make space for...

Hello and welcome to a slightly rainy Friday 24 October 2025. 

Straight into it tonight: let's talk about bouquet recipes. What are the categories of flower type and what months of the year am I growing in? What do I have flowering in each month and in each category? I've made (yet another) spreadsheet and this one has been illuminating so I'm going to talk you through it in this episode.

I answer some really great questions from a listener about growing perennials and annuals and I hope the answers are interesting. I talk about the number o...

Hello and welcome to Tuesday 21 October 2025. 

Lots has happened and there is so much to tell you. I went to a fantastic peony sale held by a local cut flower grower on Saturday and picked up three new beautiful varieties which I'm excited about. I also finished prepping bed 4 and supervised the installation of a sink in Kylie's Room (aka the new studio/workshop), and cleaned out gutters to collect the incredible volumes of rainwater we've just had over the weekend. 

The main part of the episode is a conversation all about doing retail flowers in...

Hello, it's Friday 17 October 2025. Welcome to today's episode!

The hens are causing havoc in the flower area: I hope the vast amounts of poo they are depositing everywhere compensates for the destructive behaviour and that my echinacea recover from being trampled and used as a dust bathing area. 

I've been shopping for woody shrubs this week and the main part of this episode is me talking about my experience of growing Hydrangea paniculate 'Limelight' this year and why I'm such a huge fan of this plant for cut flowers. There are very good reasons why i...

Hello and welcome to Tuesday 14 October 2025. The temperature has noticeably dropped, especially at night. I haven't had a frost yet but it's definitely feeling autumnal.

I've been messing around with the stems I have on the plot at the moment and trying out arrangements in a variety of vases and containers. It feels very indulgent to be able to do this because I didn't dare to touch anything during the summer in case my wedding florist wanted to buy any of them.

Crop planning continues apace: there's a lot to consider to ensure that the...

Hello and welcome to Friday 10 October 2025. 

Today's episode starts bright and early on the plot this morning as you're joining me letting the hens out and serving breakfasts. Great news - my poorly hen Mo has made an incredible recovery and has now rejoined the plot.

In this episode I talk about my thoughts on confidence (or lack of) and how I really would benefit from having a life coach and a business coach on permanent speed-dial (hey, a girl can dream!). How do you manage your confidence levels? 

Finally I share 5 tips (an...

Hello and welcome to Tuesday 7 October 2025. 

Good news: my dog now has super sparkly white teeth and my very poorly hen, Mo, has made a miraculous recovery after surgery. What a relief.

Lots of activity on the plot including spreading some of my black-gold compost onto the newly prepared beds (compost is one thing I am actually really good at making) and this homemade compost will really help improve the soil. I've been busy making a new path to run down the centre of the plot so I don't have to keep brushing past plants a...

Hello. It's a rainy and windy Friday 3 October 2025. 

You're joining me from a car park outside my vet where I'm waiting for my dog's teeth to be cleaned and for my little hen, Mo, to have some surgery. 

This week the podcast is celebrating 10k downloads which is amazing and very surprising. Thank you if you have contributed to this number - you're very welcome at every episode.

I've been super busy tidying and weeding on the plot and yesterday I had a massive drama when I managed to lose my house and ca...

Hello. It's Tuesday 30 September 2025. Welcome to the episode!

Lots of activity on the plot to share with you: weeding beds 3 & 4, adding bark to bed 1, more cutting back and weeding, and mulching some of the perennials. Many of the zinnias have been cleared away because they've gone really mouldy, even though some of the flowers are ok.

With some invaluable help I've finally finished my studio, aka 'Kylie's Room' and I'm really pleased with it. I now have lots of storage in the form of an old wardrobe and some chests of drawers, plus lots of...

Hello and welcome to tonight's episode on Friday 26 September 2025. 

It's spreadsheet time! I simply couldn't wait to do a reconciliation with all the data I've been collecting in 2025 so I've done an interim report this week and I'm excited to share my findings with you in this episode. I'm afraid I'm quite geeky so I took great pleasure in creating lots of tabs in my spreadsheets and then sorting all the data to work out my most profitable cut flowers. If you're interested in my findings then this is the episode for you!

Other news f...

Hello and welcome. It's Tuesday 23 September 2025. 

Lots of news to share with you in this episode including my astrantia finally being ready, hub sales, connecting with a new florist, and making a website for the cut flowers. Also real progress is being made on the new beds on the plot, which is excellent. I've been adding lots of lovely chicken manure compost as a top dressing (I have a 'no till' system) and found plenty of worm casts, which is positive. I'm about to start experimenting with using a soil blocker to germinate my seeds and I'll l...

Hello, it's Saturday 20 September 2025. Welcome to today's episode.

In this first part of today's episode I'll fill you in on all the activity on the plot including rediscovering my cephalaria, harvesting seed, removing stakes and support string, planning new paths, and mapping out the new beds using my road pins. I chat about what's still flowering well and what's not looking so good in its current location, which is all useful information for crop planning in 2026.

In the second part of the episode I talk through my key learnings from the dahlias this season. I...

Hello and welcome. It's Tuesday 16 September 2025. It's been a glorious autumn day today - just beautiful.

This week I have been "testing" the local flower hub that I've joined. I say testing, because it turned out that it was actually live and I was actually selling to areal florists - scary stuff! The majority of this episode is me chatting about the testing process and the outcome of it all. 

I chat about my thoughts on the importance to me of understanding how my florists work so that I can serve them better. Maybe it's b...

Hello and welcome to Friday 12 September 2025. It's feeling quite autumnal tonight: the nights are drawing in quickly and there's a little bit of a chill to the air.

My two wedding orders have gone out and I hope the brides enjoy seeing them. I managed to cut the flowers in the dry (one order by torchlight which is not ideal) but the foliage ended up getting cut in the rain, which was a messy business.

Tonight I'm answering some questions that I've received. I love answering your questions so do feel free to ask away...

Hello. It's Tuesday 9 September 2025.

Well it's been a weekend of bad stuff: an attempted fraud on my bank card, a cancelled bank card, failed card payments which meant no phone contract renewal (which meant no working phone), together with hormone dramas, plus poorly chickens and sadly one of them, Florence, passed away unexpectedly yesterday. So it's been a lot. 

I'm still busy on the plot: deadheading, cutting back, tending to the dahlias, negotiating sales with florists, co-ordinating availability lists, cutting and conditioning, practising my spiral hand-tied bouquets and wrapping them (with some success this time), p...

Hello and welcome to Friday 5 September 2025.

Where has the week gone?!? I have no idea. Time is just flying by. I've been busy on the plot deadheading, cutting things back and collecting seeds, in between the heavy rain showers. I can't wait to do a big tidy up and let the chickens enjoy rummaging around and fertilise the soil.

I've had two new florists visit the plot and buy cut flowers from me, which has been great. I love showing people around and chatting about what's growing and what's to come in 2026. When it has...

Hello and welcome to the latest episode: it's Tuesday 2 September 2025.

Lots to tell you in this episode and I've divided it into two parts with a tiny bit of music in between so please don't switch off when you hear the music and think the episode has ended!

I've been cutting flower stems and foliage for two florist collections tomorrow. These are new florists for me so I'm looking forward to welcoming them to the plot. I've also had an order from my lovely wedding florist for this weekend which needs cutting on Thursday. I...

Hello and welcome! It's a wet Friday 29 August 2025.

Good news: my electrics are fixed, yippee! We've had a lot of rain this week which has caused some issues on the plot by flattening things and adversely affecting the quality of some of my cut flower stems. I was up on the plot super early on Thursday to cut for the local Flower Festival in a nearby town. I attended the Festival tonight and it was quite emotional seeing my blooms in a range of beautiful arrangements.

My studying continues with Lennie Larkin's incredible book, 'Flower...

Hello and welcome! It's a warm evening on Tuesday 26 August 2025.

Tonight I share with you all the latest news from my plot and also talk through the seeds I've just received for 2026 including stunning Orlaya and some (hopefully) pastel Zinnias. Selling stems has restarted after a short break and it feels great, the batch cooking has restarted and there's an update on Dolores.

We need to talk about plant spacings: I have made a mess of it this year and so things have to be improved in 2026. I've been getting some answers for how densely...

Hello and welcome to today's episode: it's Saturday 23 August 2025 (not the 22nd like I say on the podcast).

Join me on on the plot this morning as we let the chickens and ducks out together. It's been another busy week although somewhat quiet on the flower selling front. Still lots of watering to be done as we remain in drought conditions and lots of deadheading (although admittedly not as much as normal). 

Today I'm talking to you about cool-season annuals. Do you know what they are and why they're called 'cool-season annuals'? I've never understood w...

Hello and welcome to today's episode: it's Tuesday 19 August 2025.

Lots of successes over the weekend: the fat hose worked brilliantly to transfer water from the back of the van to IBC1; the fence panels are up around the newly-cleared area and they're secure; there is now a skirt of chicken wire around the fence panels to keep unwanted creatures out; and the dahlias are looking incredible and very big! Some bad news: the new flower hub launch has been postponed until September, and poorly Dolores the duck has been to the vet for treatment: fingers crossed that...

Hello and welcome to tonight's episode on Friday 15 August 2025.

Lots to tell you! No more navel gazing about how badly I feel I'm doing! This week I was sent a message by a very kind listener from the USA with a book recommendation: Flower Farming for Profit by Lennie Larkin. I ordered the book, it arrived today and it looks brilliant and just what I need. I then did some more research and ordered another book by Lisa Mason Ziegler called The Cut Flower Handbook, which also arrived today and looks amazing. So I'll be reading these...

Hello and welcome. It's Tuesday 11 August 2025 and it's really hot (yet again).

We're in the midst of heatwave no. 4 right now and so I've been busy watering and mulching with bark to keep the moisture locked into the soil and try to slow the weeds down. In many places on the plot I have the healthiest and best-looking nettles in the world right now. 

I seriously considered quitting this weekend (partly because I had a cold from hell) but I refuse to be beaten by the weather and my inexperience so I'm ploughing on. I've b...

Hello, it's Friday 8 August 2025.

You're joining me for this episode on the plot: it's a truly beautiful evening and at one point a bat actually flies right over my head. This week has been good in terms of the cut flowers and my lovely event florist collected an order from me this morning. I have also got my car back from the mechanic and my cold has gone, so all round, it's a win.

I've got dahlia news for you from my mentor and expert dahlia grower, Richard Bailey, after my visit to see him...

Hello and welcome to a warm and sunny Tuesday 5 August 2025.

I'm back to cheerful business this week. However, apologies for my voice on this episode: I have got a cold at the moment. 

I've topped up one of the IBCs with a new water pump, which has been great and saved a lot of effort with no spillage, although it took the same amount of time as doing it by hand. I've also been planting out more of my strawflowers: some of them are flowering nicely and they're very pretty. Some great news: my hen, S...

Hello and a warm welcome to Friday 1 August 2025.

Bit of a meh week! After praying for rain for months, it massively disrupted all my plans yesterday so today was a bit of a rush to fit everything in - and then my car broke down! On a roundabout! Not good. 

I've been feeling a bit flat this week because my marketing plan is clearly failing and I'm not connecting with enough florists so I'm feeling like I'm really letting my flowers down. They all deserve to be going to weddings and parties rather than just s...

Hello and welcome. It's Tuesday 29 July 2025 and I hope you had a good weekend. It's a warm and sunny evening tonight and I'm recording on the plot.

I've been busy clearing thistles and watching fence posts being installed to support the fence panels that will be going up around the newly-cleared area. There's also been lots of cutting, weeding, deadheading and watering going on. I've also been busy contacting local florists and inviting them to the plot so I can show them what's available.

The big flowers of the moment are zinnias and dahlias, whilst...

Hello and welcome. It's Friday 25 July 2025. How is it Friday already?!?

Today's episode is a little different: the first part is me talking frankly and honestly to you about the challenges of establishing a cut flower business with peri-menopause. It has not been easy! I discuss how my debilitating symptoms impacted on me at a time when I needed every bit of brain power to get going, and the far-reaching effects of peri-menopause on every aspect of my life and work. The podcast only happened this year because I finally sought help when I thought my life...

Hello and welcome. It's Tuesday 22 July 2025 and I've had to put a jumper on this evening for the first time in months. 

So much to tell you about this evening: I've been batch cooking dinners, collecting lots of rainwater, staking dahlias (properly this time), removing dahlia leaves to discourage earwigs, and deadheading cornflowers like mad (again). I've also had to deal with an unpleasant red mite infestation in the henhouse.

I've been doing a lot of thinking this week: how can I have more blush-coloured flowers next year as I don't have anywhere near enough, t...

Hello and welcome to warm evening on Friday 18 July 2025.

Tonight I'm sharing all my news about cutting and selling my flowers: this week I've been cutting and conditioning for a Thursday morning collection to my wedding florist, as well as securing a (very) last-minute order for a client that I delivered to a marina this morning. I'll also be talking about preparing my availability list for my florist for a wedding she has next weekend.

As well as all of that, there's more good dahlia news with some buds now fully open but the arrival...

Hello and welcome to a windy and cloudy Tuesday 15 July 2025.

Today's episode includes a chat about the challenges of prepping for supplying the weddings that I have coming up and the problems I'm having with pricing: it's really hard. I'm not sure I'm getting it right yet, which bothers me. It's also challenging for me to ensure that all the cut flowers that I'm committing to supplying are looking fabulous when my florist comes to collect them, which is not easy in the current conditions.

There is good news with the dahlias and some sad...

Hello and welcome! It's the evening of Friday 11 July 2025 and I'm recording from the plot so the audio quality is a little bit up and down. I hope it doesn't bother you too much. It's so much nicer talking amongst the flowers than at home. 

Today's episode is a gentle evening walk-round of the plot and a chat about what's going on with everything I have, starting from the entrance gates and ending up at the far end. I'm talking about everything that I have growing on the plot and assessing the successes and the not-so-good ones. I...

Hello and welcome to this episode. It's a hot Tuesday 8 July 2025. 

I've been very busy on the field with dahlia staking (thanks to my birthday present of road pins), deadheading, staking and weeding. I really must sort the staking out earlier next year as it's a nightmare trying to do it when the plants are big and flowering. No dahlia flowers yet but any day now...

I've also been busy on a big planting job for a couple of days which was nerve-wracking and either my hormones or my bolognese sauce conspired to make it e...

Hello and welcome! It's Friday 4 July 2025 and it's my birthday! And Happy American Independence Day if you're celebrating that today!

I'm on a massive high after selling 100 stems of cut flowers to my lovely event florist, Jo, so I chat about this and how I managed to get everything delivered without breaking anything or spilling any water (a miracle). There's a photo on my insta @henhillcutflowers so you can see one of the buckets. 

It's been quite a busy week as I took a day out to go to the beach with my other half t...

Hello. It's Tuesday 1 July 2025 and I'm sweltering, even at 8am.

Lots to tell you: we made some new gates to enter the plot over the weekend so that I don't have to go into Roland's enclosure every time. It's an improvement but then I managed to step on a bit of metal and injured my foot. Highs and lows! The sweetpeas are incredible and smell so good: they are a real success. It's such a busy time on the plot with all the watering, deadheading, weeding, and staking. 

Exciting news: I'm officially joining my local f...

Hello. It's Friday 27 June 2025 and the mercury is rising once again.

In this episode I talk about how the first six months of 2025 have been for me as a new cut flower grower and I hope you find it interesting. If you've been listening from the start then you'll recognise some of the issues raised, like the time I left a tap running and emptied out my own water storage tanks overnight. I discuss the highs and lows so far ranging from the excitement of actually selling stems to what to do with the ones I haven't...