Claim OwnershipBecoming a Cut Flower Grower
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© 2025 Becoming a Cut Flower Grower
Description
Join new cut flower grower Lydia for a behind-the-scenes look at how she's starting to grow and sell cut flowers in the south of England. Over the course of 2025 she'll be sharing everything she's doing to get her cut flower business up and running, from the planning stages all the way through to harvesting flowers, by way of highs and lows, hints and tips, lessons she's learning along the way (often the hard way) to the production and selling of beautiful cut flowers.
If you're thinking of starting your own cut flower business or you'd just like the low-down on what it's really like, this is the podcast for you. Lydia talks very honestly about everything she's doing and she would love you to join her on this journey.
Lydia is a professional gardener and garden consultant who is establishing a cut flower business in 2025. She records this bi-weekly podcast as well as writing monthly articles for The Country Smallholder magazine.
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✅ Find Lydia on instagram @henhillcutflowers
✅ For more information visit her website www.lydiathegardener.co.uk
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86 Episodes
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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...
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 marketin...
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 t...
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 b...
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 ...
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...
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 o...
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 f...
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...
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 conf...
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'...
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 t...
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 a...
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 findin...
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 experimentin...
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...
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 tha...
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...
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-ordinatin...
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 ...
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