14 May 2021
Flower Forecast
When we moved to Cornwall last May and begun the groundwork (literally) for growing our own flowers, we had planned to grow specific varieties in large enough numbers to be able to add a stem or two to our Petalon bouquets. In practice, this is actually far more difficult than we’d anticipated, as guaranteeing the numbers you need to be able to do this on a weekly basis is pretty tricky – flowers bloom when they want to, so sometimes we’d have too many, sometimes not enough. It made us sad to think that if we only had a few handfuls of one particular variety one day- not enough to be added to every bouquet – they’d potentially go to waste. So Field Flowers was born in April, offering our customers fresh, seasonal flowers, in limited availability that are cut on our farm that morning and in your home the very next day.
With our Field Flowers well and truly under way now (our fancy new branded boxes have finally arrived too!) we thought it might be nice to take a look at the year ahead and what will be blooming on the farm as the months go by. We’ve absolutely loved seeing your photos of our Cornish-grown flowers in your homes – if you have a favourite flower below, you’ll now know when to keep your eyes peeled for them on our site!
April/May – Anemones and ranunculus were our first flowers to bloom on the farm this year and are now just coming to the end of their season. The butterfly ranunculus have been providing us with bucketfuls of flowers since the end of March and they’re also coming to the end of their season in the next couple weeks.
May / June – We currently have deliciously fragrant sweet peas as well as snapdragons blooming on the farm and available to order. As we head in to June we are hoping to see clarkia, larkspur, phlox, calendula, delphinium and foxgloves begin to do their thing. We’re particularly excited to see how the more unusual colours of delphiniums and foxgloves we’ve planted turn out.
June / July – as June gives way to July, we expect to see rudbekia, zinnias, a different variety of clarkia and some amazing pom pom asters (unlike asters as you know them!) join the party. We’ll also have some gorgeously scented things such as bee balm, clary sage, mint and geranium, which although aren’t your big, focal flowers, will create beautifully scented accents that’ll hit your nose as soon as you open the box.
July / August – say hello to cosmos, chrysanthemums, campanula and celosia. We love cosmos, but they typically don’t work for our bouquets when we import them, as they’re delicate and have already been cut 2-3 days before we get them, so we’re excited to see how these lovely floaty flowers fare when grown ourselves, without the extra journey from Holland.
August / September – as we near the end of summer we don’t expect to see any new varieties in these months, however we’ll still see delphiniums, asters, rudbekia, zinnias, salvia, calendula and monada all flowering away, some through to October, maybe November if we’re lucky.
October/November – We will hopefully have a polytunnel full of home grown chrysanthemums in various shades and shapes.
From November the farm will start to quieten down and we’ll be in full prep mode for the season next year – preparing the soil for the next planting, planning our new planting schedule and sowing seeds. Things like ranunculus, anemones, delphinium and snapdragons can be planted as early as September for the following year, but February – April is a particularly busy period for sowing and planting. We plan to have a go at overwintering a few more varieties this year to take the pressure off the seed sowing marathon in February.
We’ve learned an awful lot so far this year, with some really beautiful wins, some curveballs (can’t sell a 10cm tall anemone) and also a fair few seedling murders. We’re eager to put those lessons to good use on our second time around. Is there anything you’d like to see us grow? Drop us an email and let us know!
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