I had completed a Master Gardener course in North Carolina but we had no other formal plant-related education. We have been organic vegetable gardeners for 20 years but had never grown flowers. As a result of on-the-job chemical injury from paint solvents, I had to give up my tenured faculty position at a university where I was an associate professor of clinical psychology. I was diagnosed with severe chemical sensitivity and tolerate almost no man-made chemicals. I suffer chronic fatigue on a daily basis as well as difficulty breathing and significant nervous system impairment when exposed to even minute amounts of everyday chemicals (fragranced detergents, gasoline, shampoos, lotions, pesticides, building materials, vinyl etc.) As a result I am basically housebound on our 20 wooded acres in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
I spent the summer of 2000 trying to decide what to do with my time and very limited energy that could supplement our income and give meaning and purpose to my life. My only serious love besides psychology was gardening and I wondered if we could make some money from it. I had been reading Growing for Market for several months and noted that flower growing seemed more lucrative than growing vegetables. So I ordered Lynn Byczynski’s book, “The Flower Farmer”, “We’re Gonna Be Rich” by the Arnoskys and all of their back articles, as well as Allen Armitage’s book, “Specialty Cut Flowers”, and set out to educate myself. On the basis of those three sources I selected flowers, ordered and started seeds.

Jim helped me develop a simple flier on the computer advertising our subscription program for cut flowers. We identified the flowers as organic and highlighted the associated benefits but we have no idea if this mattered to most of our customers. Jim placed the flier in two restaurants owned by organic friendly individuals and most of our phone calls came from the restaurant that put the flier on the inside of the bathroom doors! We limited ourselves to 11 customers with 16-week subscriptions. We charged $150 for 16 bouquets and were paid up front by all but one of our customers. We also did one anniversary party at the peak of flower season. Our customers were primarily employed women, one bed and breakfast, one restaurant, and one doctor’s office. Two of the women regularly bought flowers from the grocery store or florist prior to becoming our customers.

Jim made deliveries twice weekly on his way to his regular job. Deliveries were made to an independent bookstore where one of our customers works. The bookstore was delighted to have the extra flowers around and our customers coming into their store. We also delivered to the three businesses and to two other locations. This year we will reduce the number of places we deliver to three or charge an additional delivery fee of $20.00 for those who want that service. Flowers were delivered in recycled quart sized spaghetti or mayonnaise jars supplied by our friends and customers as well as ourselves. The most attractive are the spaghetti jars with raised imprints of vegetables or logos. Customers returned these jars to us every few weeks and we washed them in the dishwasher and reused them. Jim carries the flower filled jars placed in old styrofoam coolers and stabilized with old towels in the back and passenger seats of his 4 door Toyota car.
I put a large number of flowers in my bouquets and was able to use most of the flowers we grew. One advantage of this type of program as compared to growing for a florist or even the farmers market is that all the flowers do not need to be perfect or long stemmed. Flowers with a little imperfection can be placed so that the blemish doesn’t show. Short stems can be used strategically. We used no chemical preservative both because of my illness and respect for the environment. Although we didn’t have a problem with longevity of most flowers, next year we will experiment with a vinegar/sugar/aspirin solution.

We have started small due to our uncertainty about my health as even on my best days I’m only good for about 2 hours a day of light labor (transplanting, weeding, seed starting). In general Jim is the labor and delivery man and I’m in charge of planning, planting, nurture, and bouquet making. Jim rototilled 6 new deep beds with a Mantis tiller (just under 600 square feet). In the past we have double dug our beds by hand but this year he lacked the time. Our beds are 4 feet wide and vary in length depending on location. Most of our cleared acre is planted to vegetable beds and various permanent berry plantings. However, we have a number of young fruit trees with a good deal of space between the rows. We decided to use that space for our flowerbeds recognizing that in later years we will only be able to use some of them for shade loving plants. Other beds were planted closer to our road than we would plant food crops allowing us to again make use of unused space.

I began most of the perennial flowers in the basement under a grow light/book shelf made from cinder blocks suggested in Lynn’s book. My major problem seems to have been heating, as the basement stayed too cold to germinate about half of the seeds. This turned out to be a good thing as I filled all my available bed space with the plants that did germinate. To save heating costs I will start next year’s seedlings in another room in the house rather than heat the basement. I started the seeds in soil blocks made from an organic mix. This had a number of advantages. I was able to avoid plastics many of which off-gas chemicals that make me ill and which also tend to end up in the trash. Additionally, the soil blocks make free pots and have about 100% transplant success if planted slightly below soil level and watered in.

Perennials
About a third of my flower plants this year were perennials and they did not produce much during their first year however, a few are worth mentioning. I have never seen Sneezeweed listed as a good cut flower but ordered Red and Gold Sneezeweed seeds from Fedco Seeds after reading the catalogue description. Fedco is a Maine seed cooperative and they have not only the best seed prices I have seen but support organic methods. My seeds were low germinators but easy to grow. Each three-foot stem had multiple flower heads that were either yellow or yellow streaked with red. They flowered at the end of the summer producing even after frost and lasted almost 2 weeks in the vase. I was able to use purple coneflowers from my medicinal garden for cutting and these make very nice long lasting cuts. You may be surprised to hear that I grow gladiolas as perennials even in zone 6. I have done this for years by simply adding 3 inches of straw or leaf mulch to the beds about the time of the first fall frost. My only problem has been that they multiply so fast I must divide them every three years or they start producing much smaller flowers. We put in about 150 glads this year and they were a big hit with customers.

The sunflowers were the most popular of our annual flowers and I got terrific production from Italian White. This is a small very pale yellow flower with a dark center that produces many, many flowers over a long period on 6-ft stems. Mine produced for about three months and I even harvested some after the last frost. Sungold a fluffy double and Soraya were also very attractive, productive and made good cut flowers. These fairly big yellow sunflowers were most prized by the customers and I will grow more next year. I was disappointed with Valentine as the flowers were easily damaged by rain and developed dark spots on the petals after a few days in the vase.

We had terrific production from the ageratum, Blue Horizon which I started in soil blocks outside once the weather had warmed. They bloomed for several months up until the last frost. I cut the first flowers a few inches above the ground and they kept producing tall stems regularly. The same was true for my salvia, Lady in Red that I started the same way. Twelve plants of each gave me all I could use for my weekly bouquets. Catchfly was easy to start both inside and out. It made a great hot pink filler although it was somewhat difficult to cut. Coreopsis Tinctoria was also an excellent addition to bouquets and it’s red centers looked great with the sunflowers. Cosmos, Sensation Mix were easy to grow and productive. Verbenna Bonariensis, which is grown as an annual in zone 6, made a tall addition to bouquets and bloomed for months up until frost. A small planting of the Mexican sunflower, Torch produced hundreds of bright orange flowers but they only looked good in the vase for about 4-5 days.

Failures, too
We had some wonderful flowers that the bugs and rabbits liked just as much as we did. The bachelor’s buttons never had a chance to bloom before rabbits devoured them. A lovely little flower, the helipterum Pierrot that was very easy to grow, was amazingly productive and lasted forever in the vase was devastated by rabbits one night. I found dozens of blooms lying flat on the ground the next morning and every sign that the plant or stems had existed had been eradicated by the critters. We were forced to grow these plants under row covers or completely surrounded by chicken wire in order to obtain any flowers. The Goldstrum and Rustic Colors rudbeckia and especially the Painted Daisy were so popular with bugs that I could use only about one of ten in bouquets. Next year we plan to try garlic barrier as a deterrent.

Some of the flowers that others find easy to grow didn’t produce at all for us. I had a terrible time with statice, which never developed a decent looking bloom although I planted three separate times and two varieties. Likewise, all four types of asters did poorly and had deformed blooms. I believe this was because of the disease aster yellows that probably lives in the wild asters that thrive on our property.

Wildflowers
We are fortunate to have lots of wild Shasta daisies, feverfew, queen anne’s lace, black eyed susan, and goldenrod in the field where we garden. Jim weed eats around them and I use a great number of these in our bouquets. We have found that the more native “weeds” we Ieave around the borders and in all uncultivated spaces between the beds, the more beneficial insects we have. Most folks viewing our garden from the road would not see our beds through the weeds. I also use butterfly weed and bee balm that have naturalized around the house. Butterfly bush cuttings from our yard added fragrance and the foliage of tansy that I had planted around the base of our house to deter termites contributed a dusky addition to some bouquets.
We live in a very rural area with the closest small town about 12 minutes from our home.

If we can get subscribers then most anyone near a small population of employed middle income women can develop a part time program. We also believe there is an untapped market of churches that could provide a regular Sunday income in some communities. We averaged about 10 hours a week of labor including delivery time and we were able to gross about $1800 from less than 600 square feet. Owing to my complete lack of success with some flowers and the fact that a third of the beds were planted in first year perennials, only about half of that space was productive this year. We expect to be able to almost double our production next year with no increase in space or in labor beyond time spent cutting and making bouquets. We will increase our price for subscriptions to $170 next year. Five of our customers have already reordered. We feel things have gone rather well given that we didn’t even know what some of the flowers would look like when we planted them.