In our four years of growing cut flowers, we have realized that making bouquets is the most profitable and satisfying way for us to market them. Virtually all of our flowers now are made into bouquets and sold at farmers’ market. In order to have an adequate number of flowers to make bouquets all season long, we have to plan our plantings well in advance, and we’ve found it helps to have a dozen or so bouquet recipes to guide us. We have learned what we grow well and what sells well at the farmers’ market. With these bouquets in mind, we now use our field and hoophouses much more efficiently and profitably.

We begin selling in May and end in late October. Bouquet making actually begins in the field, when we cut the stems to the length we’ll want in the finished bouquet and strip the foliage. We put the flowers in buckets of Floralife, take them inside and let them rest for four hours or more. When we make bouquets, we put five different flowers on the table and make 10-12 bouquets all the same. We place the flowers carefully, starting with a single flower in the center, turning the bouquet as we add more flowers. We make all the flowers level on top, pincushion-like, to provide the best view when customers look down at them at market. A full bucket of one bouquet style has much more impact than a bucket filled with four different bouquets. Sometimes we combine two styles that look great together in one bucket.

Each season brings specific seasonal bouquets. Here are some of our favorites:

In spring, we grow Delphinium bellamosum, Campanula ‘Champion’ and snapdragons in our two 20×96 hoophouses. These bloom at the same time as Asiatic lilies and Centaurea macrocephala. We combine the blue D. bellamosum, or blue Campanula ‘Champion’ with yellow Asiatic lilies and Cherry Rocket snapdragons. Blue, yellow and red are primary colors so this is a very lively combination. With orange Asiatic lilies we combine the yellow heads of C. macrocephala and D. bellamosum or the Campanula. This is also a very lively bouquet. The blue and orange are complimentary colors and the yellow centaurea just adds more sparkle. We add yellow to every bouquet we possibly can.

Late Spring brings Lisianthus. There is really no need to combine anything else with lisianthus. Customers who like it are very loyal, they come back every week for more “Lovely Lisianthus.”
Of course summer is filled with more potential bouquet combinations than any other season. This can be a blessing or a curse. It is best to focus on one combination at a time, and most of our bouquets usually combine no more than about five different flowers.

Zinnia, rudbeckia, celosia, butterfly milkweed (We pick it wearing gloves!) sunflowers and lisianthus are our major summer crops. We have so much variety that we have given names to our best bouquets.
Envy Bouquet: Our Mother Martha’s favorite zinnia is the focus of one of our best selling bouquets. We use five Envy zinnias and 5-7 Echo Blue lisianthus.

The Summer Picnic Bouquet: This is always the first bouquet to sell out. It is always yellow, orange and red: all hot colors for hot summer days. The number of the individual ingredients varies to give a total of 12-15 stems. We use 1-2 each Benary Giant zinnias: Crimson, Orange and Golden Yellow, 3-5 Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias ‘Silky Gold or Silky Deep Red), 3 yellow sunflowers or 3 rudbeckia especially the double one from Germania.

Raspberry Cooler: Too many lilac zinnias in the mix this year? We combine 3-5 lilac and pink shades zinnias, 3-5 pink or rose shades of Cramer’s celosia, 3-5 stems of Echo Champagne lisianthus and 3-5 ageratum. We substitute 3 tuberose for the ageratum during the tuberose production glut.
We also make a Blueberry Cooler bouquet: 3-5 lilac zinnias, 3 trachelium, 3-5 Echo Blue or Mariachi orchid lisianthus, 3-5 ageratum and 3-5 purple statice.

To continue with the liquid refreshment theme we make a Pina Colada bouquet. We created this one this year to use our Temple Bells celosia, which seems to contain many peach and salmon colored heads. It contains 7-9 peach, salmon and or yellow celosia with 5-7 similarly colored zinnias.

Tutti fruitti is a brighter version of this same pastel theme. We use a mix of 5-7 salmon, carmine, lilac and or coral zinnias, 3-5 pink celosia (We think this is Chief rose; it comes in the mix, the plants are never as vigorous as the other Chief colors but it is such a beautiful bright pink) and 3-5 Echo Blue Picotee Lisianthus.

Autumn themes
Early fall seems to bring out the pinkest color in the Echo Champagne lisianthus. We combine 5 lisianthus, 5 blue Caryopteris incana and 3 Eucalyptus Silver Drop. This is a fall favorite. Another fall favorite is the Victorian bouquet: This is 3-5 Cramer’s Burgundy celosia and 5-7 garlic chives. These are just so simple and elegant and easy to make.

Fall also brings a plentiful harvest of mixed sorghums, broom corn, eucalyptus, and Caryopteris incana. At least it has cooled down and cutting is a much more pleasant task.

The Fall Picnic Bouquet is very like the summer picnic: 3-5 orange, red or yellow celosia, 5-7 yellow or orange zinnias, 3-5 butterfly milkweed and one small sorghum. A sunflower would not hurt this bouquet, but we’ve usually fallen behind the planting schedule by now and we do not have any!
We also make mixed grain bouquets: Three to 5 grain (all colors mixed), 3 Pampas plume celosia, 3-5 butterfly milkweed, 3-5 Nippon Taka peppers (from Johnny’s) and a sunflower if we have it!

Sometimes sorghum can seem overwhelming in a bouquet, but great quantities can be used in sorghum wreaths. We use grapevine wreath bases and hot glue the sorghum on. These are simple, quick to make and very popular. Dried okra pods or dried peppers can also be added to these.

Sometimes when we are making bouquets, a combination seems so perfect. We write it down, so when we order seeds in the winter, we’ll remember we want more of this crop. We try many new crops every year because you have to grow it to know how and when it will be useful to you.