Farm Blog and Garden Tips

Did you know that 70 percent of roses, carnations, and mums are grown and shipped to the United States from South America?  American growers of these flowers have long ago closed their doors because they simply could not compete with their South American counterparts in price, and in some cases, weather. 

Flowers seem so delicate and fragile but actually they can be pretty resilient--oftentimes traveling to destinations around the world without water.  Many flowers are actually shipped dry and then re-hydrated later at their final destinations.

In order to compete with South America, many local flower farmers grow specialty-cut flowers--essentially flowers that don't like to be shipped cross-country in a box without water!  That's good news for the local grower because that leaves a niche for their flowers.  The "buy local" campaign is very important to the success and even survival of local growers.

The success of sunflowers for The Backyard Bouquet Farm has been in selecting the best varieties and then selling them fresh from the field.  Bob has trialed approximately 50 varieties and has settled upon three of the most beautiful and long-lasting.  

We are growing zinnias in the greenhouse right now to be used in our landscape. We no longer sell zinnias commercially, but we love them in the garden.  The secret to gorgeous zinnias is to remove the first bud.  That is very difficult to do once you see that little bud ready to take off, but trust me--you will be rewarded with amazingly beautiful flowers if you remove the bud.

4/23/13  We have already received requests for sunflower weddings and have placed them on the growing schedule.  We think there is nothing more beautiful than a sunflower wedding.  They are so dramatic in photos.  A few years ago we provided flowers and arrangements for a country sunflower wedding--the reception was held in a barn with sunflower arrangements in rustic metal containers.  They had big milk can arrangements as well with long-stemmed sunflowers and broom corn stalks at the entrances. They had carmel apples as the favor and mini sunflowers running down the centers of the tables.   The sunflower wrist corsages and bouquets were really cute with dark brown ribbons and bows.   

The cold weather has prevented us from getting started on the landscape although we have seeded a lot of flats.  We will be increasing our amaranth this year because it was so adorable last year.  We ran out for our kale arrangements and we were pretty disappointed.  I've decided, you can't have too much amaranth!   

The allium didn't do well last year (seems they took a year off), but it looks like we are going to have a bumper crop this year!

We bought huge containers last year, and I'm going to load them with flowers and vines.  I'll post the photos.