#ascfg

[blessings-grow-meadows]

We had the honor of creating a pretty in pink gift for Rose, placed on DoorDash from a sweet angel! We hope you enjoy your Fresh-Cut Flowers. 🩷 💐

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#bouquet #arrangement #flowers #gift #freshcut #bloomsoftheday #pinkarrangement #forRose #blessingsgrow #growingwithpurpose #grownnotflown #gnfshoplocal #ascfg #metterchamber

[locoflo-blog1]

Baltimore In Bloom

Last weekend we were thrilled to host Dave Dowling, President of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers as well as Mimo Davis of Urban Buds: City Grown Flowers from St. Louis Missouri for a whirlwind tour of flower farming in and around Baltimore.

We’re so proud of our Baltimore flower farming community and we were excited to introduce Baltimore to our out of town guests.

We started at the Sunday market to visit Elisa Lane of Two Boots Farm. Elisa started farming in Baltimore City when she co-founded Whitelock Community Farm in the Reservoir Hill. She and her husband now farm in Hampstead, Maryland. Each year she grows more and more flowers (because it’s addictive!)

Next we headed over to Ananda Growers. Jen and Abhi are first year growers growing in East Baltimore in the shadow of Dr. King’s image. In addition to Ananda Growers, Jen also runs a youth farming program called Common Ground Youth Farming as part of her OSI Fellowship. 

Next, we traveled a few blocks east to visit Walker at Tha Flower Factory. A big sunny half acre in the middle of East Baltimore, Tha Flower Factory is in it’s 2nd year of growing. Watch for big things from this urban farm.

Next we headed north to Hillen Homestead. Maya has been growing flowers in Baltimore City for five years. With two sites, she is the biggest producer of flowers in the city. 

At her original plot on Hillen Road, we checked out a plethora of gorgeous blooms including lisianthus, zinnias, love in a puff, snaps and amazing dahlias! 

At her second site the Sahara Rudbeckia were the stars! 

After a quick stop at the Crown gas station for a snack (Turkey Hill lemonade and chips for everyone...just call me...the hostess with the mostest”) we drove 45 miles west to visit our friends at PlantMasters. Mimo was especially excited to see Leon and Carol Carrier’s farm because of all of the ways the extend the season for sales in early spring and late fall/winter. Their new hoophouse is filled with gorgeous Cafe Au Lait dahlias. 

Of course, we couldn’t be touring around without Bob Wollam getting in on the action. It was pretty great to see these two flower friends reunited.

Our last stop on the tour was Endless Row Farm, owned by Leon and Carol’s son Lee. The name is so fitting! This farm is so beautiful! It reminded us all of the wide rows at Mel Heath’s farm.

As we headed back to Butterbee Farm for dinner, my heart was so full. I’m beyond grateful to be part of this amazing flower farming community. From teeny tiny first year farms, to farms that have been producing local blooms for over 30 years, all of these growers play a crucial role in making the Mid-Atlantic such a special place for growing flowers.

[localcolorflowers-blog]

The Price of the Peony

Now that it’s mid-May and the temps are getting hot, peony season is in full bloom! At Local Color Flowers, our cooler is packed full with giant peony heads, thick with layers and layers of their sweet scented petals. Customers rush frantically into the shop asking “Do you still have peonies?” and then sigh with happy relief when we smile and say “Yes! We sure do! We’ve got ALL the peonies!”

Peony fever is a real thing. If you have it, you’ll know it’s not a cheap ailment to fix. Peonies are one of the most expensive flowers to purchase at any flower shop (along with roses). Since peonies truly are such a stunning flower, customers are usually happy to pay these premium prices without question “I have to have them!” However, we did have some questions about peonies’ high cost and wanted to get educated about them!

 We asked some of our local peony growing flower farmers, why are peonies so expensive? They were gracious enough to share some information with us. Thanks to Butterbee Farm, Hillen Homestead and EcoBlossoms for the info!

            1) High Start-Up Costs: Peony plants are expensive to begin with! The cost for a specialty peony plant can be as high as $60 for a single plant. The high cost of the plants comes from the laborious task of cultivating a new hybrid peony plant (by a plant scientist) which can take up to 10 years.

           2) Slow-Pokes!: Peonies take three years to establish. Which means that once you plant a peony, you must wait three full years before you can start cutting from it. Even then, it still takes five more years to fully mature and really start producing a lot of blooms. This all means that flower farmers must invest a lot of money up front before they start seeing any financial return from a single peony plant.

           3) Real Estate: Peony plants take up a lot of room! They are large plants and it’s recommended to plant them 2 - 4 feet apart, depending on the variety. They are also perennials which means that the plant comes back year after year so nothing else can be grown in that space. Having peony plants on your farm means there is less room to grow other crops which could yield more blooms and bring in longer lasting income.

           4) Handle With Care: Peonies are highly perishable. Once cut off the plant, peony blooms only last for about 5 days maximum in water. In hot weather, even less. Out of water, less! Because they are so perishable, transporting peonies can be finicky and flower farmers must factor some loss into their growing budgets. That extra cost gets charged to the wholesaler or retailer, and eventually to the end consumer.

           5) Burst of Glory: A peony flower only blooms once per year. If a peony plant produces eight flowers, once those blooms have been cut off, it’s done for the season. No more blooms will come back in the place of those cut. In contrast, plants like zinnias and dahlias produce multiple cuttings (so more blooms to sell and more profit to earn per plant). However, their rare availability is certainly key to the peony’s charm.  

 Reading this you might ask, “So what’s the point of even growing peonies if they’re so expensive?” The answer is demand. Peonies tear an emotional response out of people that is magnetic, “Must. Have. That.” No other flower compares to the peony in shape, color or scent, and can truly can take your breath away. They will win over your wallet with one heady glance.

 With a little more knowledge about the peony growing process, (and all the work involved) we hope you’ll feel confident paying a fair price for every stem. This way, we can all financially encourage the flower farmers to keep growing peonies for our tables, our bouquets -for a world made more beautiful. In the end, it doesn’t seem like too high a price to pay at all.

[locoflo-blog1]

What’s the first thing you do when you receive a bouquet of flowers? Smell them of course! Their sweet, spicy, heady scents take us back to our wedding day, our grandmother’s garden or our favorite vacation spot. Have you noticed however, that flowers today have lost their scent? Flowers we expect to be fragrant aren’t anymore. In today’s global flower industry, flowers are bred for sturdiness not for smell. Flowers coming from South America and Holland could spend more than a week traveling to their destinations. Scent will only make these traveling blooms die faster.

Not so for locally grown flowers. Since our flowers travel less than 100 miles to their final destination, growers can grow scented varieties like paperwhites, heirloom carnations, daffodils, freesia, lilies, tuberose and more. Buying local means your flowers smell as flowers should. Take a minute to smell the flowers. You won’t be disappointed.

[locoflo-blog1]

Spent some time this week with amazing Chris Wien, Emeritus Faculty member at Cornell who continues to do valuable cut flower research in his retirement. Flowers growers in our region cheered a few years ago when this giant in the cut flower world decided to make Annapolis his new home after leaving Ithaca. This week, the designers and I got to contribute our experience with lisianthus to be included in his research on spacing, stem production and bloom time. We also got to here all about the creation of the black pear pepper and it's journey to market beginning at the USDA research lab in Beltsville. We're so greteful to be part of this weird, wonderful flower growing community!

[luckybreakacres]

We are back from Michigan after absorbing as much cut flower knowledge as humanly possible in two days. Now it's time to finish planting ALL of the bulbs. #flowerfarmerintraining #ascfg