Welcome everyone to the Flower Files podcast sponsored by Wildly Native Flower Farm. Here everyone is welcome to talk with fellow flower lovers, including real perspectives from the farm, the flowers and me, the florist.
Speaker 2:From the messy day-to-day operations down to the details and even business perspectives, this podcast has a little bit of everything. To keep it real, we know that life can get crazy and we don't always have the time to spend on what we love, so we are here to help you take a little time to indulge in nature. I'm Liza Goetz.
Speaker 1:I'm Lizzie Frey, and we are the team that makes this podcast. Every once in a while, we have a couple guests. This business thing and what we are working with is called life.
Speaker 2:Join us as we walk you through how to think outside the box, talk from the farmer's perspective, have honest conversations about florals and how to run well life so listen in.
Speaker 1:You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify in the podcast section and any of your other podcast platforms. You can also find us online at wildlynativeflowerfarmcom and, in an easy way, you can look in the show notes and all of the information will be right there for easy access for you guys hello there, flower files, people, fabulousness I was trying to do friends, how about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, you're much better. What is that called when it's all the same letter? Oh, I don't know. There's a, there's. There's a word for that. There's a word for that. There's a word for that.
Speaker 3:That's too far out of my vocabulary.
Speaker 2:On the same letter. Maybe give me your word for next week. In words in a row when you use the same letter in a alliteration. There you go, mrs Walters, if you're listening To all the English people out there. So alliteration, there you go, mrs Walters, if you're listening To all the English people out there.
Speaker 3:So alliteration English was my bad subject in school.
Speaker 2:Your bad subject yeah.
Speaker 3:I'd have straight A's and everything else besides English.
Speaker 2:Well, we're not going to comment on your ratings. No, I'm kidding my speaking skills, that's what's bad? You're all right. You're all right. So, speaking of things, they're bad. That's a perfect lead in to today's conversation. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about some of the hardest flowers to grow, and I want to look at this from not just hard to grow, as in maybe hard to germinate, but also hard to grow.
Speaker 3:Keeping it alive.
Speaker 2:Keeping it alive or when it's in the fields. You know different times that we've struggled with things because it's easy to look at the price of something and be like, wow, that's really expensive. But when you start to figure out how things grow, then you're like, oh, that's why that's expensive and that's why, yeah, yeah, the supply and demand and logistics and money and all of that. I get that, but there's also other factors.
Speaker 3:And also, too, it could be really easy to germinate, could be really easy to grow, but it's really hard to figure out when to cut it. Yeah, or?
Speaker 2:it's really difficult to maintain, or it doesn't ship well or it's I mean. So there's there's a lot of reasons why things are considered hard to grow, but I want to look at it from the grower's perspective. Yeah, um, so I feel like springtime. Everybody gets super excited and they go to their local seed store and they pick up seeds and they're like oh, I love this and I'm going to grow this.
Speaker 2:You know, most people can grow tomato, most people can grow certain things, but if, if you don't have a greenhouse and you're trying to grow in your window, there are things that definitely stretch and become difficult to grow because they don't have the conditions that they need. So we're going to talk about it from the perspective also of having a greenhouse, not just a sunny southern facing window. That is great for growing things, although if you are that green thumb person, great Kudos to you, because I can never figure it out. I always see this stuff on TikTok, too, where it's like oh, love that rose that somebody gave you, take a clipping, shove it in a potato. I'm like what? I never understand that it, the potato, has the hormones and it helps it and it gives it the food and the starch and all of the stuff that it needs to grow but also if that potato has eyes on it, you're also going to be grown potatoes exactly?
Speaker 2:and, on top of the fact, how long is it going to take to actually get a flower? Yeah, that's not going to be a one year like hey here's a, thing, no no, that doesn't. No. So so, kenley, how would you define, out of all the crops we grow, something that is difficult for us to grow?
Speaker 3:Dahlias Okay, why they are insanely time-consuming, insanely time-consuming. They're beautiful flowers but you have to buy the tuber and you could grow them from seed. But that way, growing from seed, if you don't know anything about dahlias, they aren't the same as the mother plant, so if you-.
Speaker 2:Take me to the mothership. They aren't the same as the mother plant. So if you take me to the mothership, whenever she says the mother plant, I'm always like okay we're going to aliens amongst us.
Speaker 3:But anyway, go ahead. But if you take a pink flower and you let it go to seed, those seeds will not produce a pink flower in the same shade of color or the same size of flower, because cross -pollination the bees love to do it. It's their thing. But if you buy the tubers, then you have to wait until the right time of year to plant them, and then they grow and they grow and they have to cut them back and they keep growing and then by the time frost hits they die back and you have to cut them all back and you have to dig them up and then you have to store them and then you have to divide them.
Speaker 2:It's a, it's a very you have to wash them, yes, to be able to see them. To divide them, yes, which takes a long time.
Speaker 3:Your hands freeze the whole time. Yeah yeah it's. It's not a everybody like glorifies growing dahlias but nobody shows the true like the labor it takes the absolute incredible labor.
Speaker 2:I've actually seen some growers who grow on such a large scale of dahlias that they use sweet potato harvesters to lift them up out of the field.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not a regular. So a potato like hey ho, I'm from Idaho like that kind of potato, like a potato that would become a baked potato. They're a little more sturdy than a sweet potato, so a sweet potato requires a different lift because they're softer and dahlias are softer, like that Interesting. So you've got tubers that are softer and are easier to split apart and things like that.
Speaker 3:I always thought of sweet potatoes being harder. That's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in general they're softer, they're softer, yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, speak, so to speak. So yeah, I think they're. I think they're hard too, because things want to eat them. Yes, there's all kinds of stuff that that wants to eat the tuber and then it wants to eat the flower, and then I mean we didn't even talk about the top of the flower.
Speaker 3:No, you have to bag all of them, so that way, insects and pests love them. Every type of insect is on the freaking flower trying to eat it.
Speaker 2:Now explain when you say we bag them Okay, we don't take grocery store bags and cover them. No, so we bag them okay.
Speaker 3:So we we don't take grocery store bags, no, so we bag them. That means that they're called organza bags. They're like mesh bags, kind of what you get like a potpourri bag in um and they, you see the bug come up. It's there for like a couple days as soon as it's big enough and come up, it's there for like a couple days as soon as it's big enough and large enough and strong enough to support a organza bag to fit on it. You will put a bag on it and it protects any sort of insect from getting to the bud to then eat a hole through it and it helps them be pretty. But then sometimes there's bugs that sit in the bud and then are trapped inside the organza bag yes, yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's a lovely process, yeah, yeah they're, they're fussy, very, they're very, very fussy and I feel like I feel like dahlia's peonies are another one that everybody's like. Oh, I love peonies, but peonies get. They do get some disease. And I just want to clarify when we're talking about this, we're not talking about somebody in their home garden who has like 5, 6, 7, 10 plants. I think even when you get to like 20 plants, you're still kind of okay. We're talking hundreds of them.
Speaker 3:We had 400 foot rows of dahlias this year. So we had 400 feet of dahlias and that's we had five.
Speaker 2:Don't forget the hundred feet oh yes, yeah, we did have five okay yeah, and we hand dug I think 450 of them and the last 50 feet. We looked each other and went this is a mix. We're gonna do an experiment, see if we can leave them in the ground and we're gonna see in a couple weeks if they're mush or not.
Speaker 3:Yep, but we've had a rough winter. That's been cold. Every day we walk in.
Speaker 2:How are you cold? Yeah, oh yeah, how are you? I can't feel my fingers pretty much. Yeah, it's, it's been an interesting winter, um, yeah. So I feel like there's when you have things in mass, you have to watch diseases differently because things are more drawn to them, and where it's a onesie, twosie situation, it's not that big of a deal. But when it's larger, that's when you're like ooh, oh, my God, that's running through it. Larger, that's when you're like ooh, oh, my God, that's running through it. So, as far as seeds go, I think when you're talking about perennials, annuals, and you're looking at tubers versus regular seeds, I think dahlias definitely win for that. But when it comes to starting seeds, what are some of the hardest ones to grow, do you think? When it comes to starting seeds, what are some of the hardest ones to grow.
Speaker 3:Do you think germination wise lisianthus?
Speaker 2:obviously, because we buy that we buy them as plugs at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we tried to germinate them once and it took 12 weeks to germinate. They germinated fine after the 12 weeks, but we don't have the room for something to sit for 12 weeks at the mass that we need and that required heat because we had to.
Speaker 2:We had to start them in December, so that required a longer heat period for us. So doing the comparison of actually does it financially make sense for us to kind of struggle a little or know that we have a hundred percent success, buy them as plugs, plant them and know that they're going to go? Not worth the time, Absolutely not worth the time.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Now our next sound that you can probably hear is a helicopter. Probably hear is a helicopter. So we are not in a cushy studio, we are actually recording where we work.
Speaker 3:This is real time, real conversation. Yeah, so we're deeply staring into each other's souls. I look away because I'm always like I look at you and I start to think about something else. I lose my train of thought. I'm like hold on, now they're like no, no, hmm. I look at you and I start to think about something else. I lose my train of thought.
Speaker 2:I'm like hold on, no, you're like no, no, no, got to stay on the train. So no, I think, lisianthus, you don't even try to germinate them. Eucalyptus is another one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, eucalyptus, freaking smokes to try and germinate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you have to have the bottom heat and you have to have, and you have to like the list. It needs so much that it doesn't. Oh my God, I saw a TikTok the other day where they were like oh, you want flowers that bloom the entire season and are very hardy, just plant Lysianthus. And they had this person. They had a raised bed and they were just like sprinkling the seed down the center of it, and then the next picture was like this beautiful, full blooming bed of Lysianthus and I was like that's bullshit. There is no way that you could just sprinkle them and let Mother Nature take care. No, no, absolutely not. No, at least not here. No, maybe I should go back and find that tic-tac and see if I can figure out where in the world they lived because it was like now.
Speaker 3:Now, by the time those seeds would germinate when it's cold. If it was in a greenhouse like a heated greenhouse that you could actually grow something, the protection they need maybe no.
Speaker 2:They need to be on top of the soil so that they have high oxygen rates and light.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I was like that should blow away Negative, negative.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we know the tool two that we definitely rule out. What are some of the flowers that we do germinate in the greenhouse that are still a little tricky? I know which one immediately comes to my mind, but those were ireland interesting. Oh, that's where you went.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say snapdragons snapdragons are tricky, but they germinate okay. It's just because they're so little tiny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have some people um, love you, um, but there's definitely some people who have sprinkled them like on top of you would sprinkle with cookies. She was just, I'm done, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there'd be like 300 in the tray, but they grew, they grew, they grew and that was like our best year of stamp dragons, yeah, but that was also weather and everything else too.
Speaker 2:Weather helped too, and that was in hoop house one. Yeah, something about that hoop house was magical, which is great. Yeah, we're converting it, and now it is going to be where all of the little babies We've had a hoop house. We're converting it over to a heated space. So, because our greenhouse is out of space, yep. It is, it's literally we have shelves and we've stacked and we have things on the floor.
Speaker 3:We did about a foot of walking space in the greenhouse and that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to make sure you don't knock anything over with a hose. Like it is, it is. We are, I mean and that's hard, it's trying, it's all of that infrastructure trying to figure out what's next and how do you balance? We need this, but we need that, yeah, but what about this? But we need that to do this, yep like, oh yep, it's crazy.
Speaker 3:I know I always come to eliza and I'm like, hey, we need this. She's like we've already spent thousands this month. Give me a break.
Speaker 2:Just give me two more weeks. Two more weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's crazy, yeah, and a lot of people think of like, oh my gosh, january, you must have such an awesome downtime. Like you guys aren't doing anything and it's like we are constantly planning and constantly ordering and doing so much stuff. It's infrastructure.
Speaker 2:It's time to organize and get everything ready and prep and do? I mean it's go time and then March hits. You have to have everything prepped and ready and know what you're doing, because in two weeks or a week. It's time to get out in that field and really, really, really work it as much as we can to get ready because.
Speaker 3:Mother's Day is going to be here before we know it, we're going to blink and boop. We just got through Valentine's Day, that was it was busy, it was very busy, it was very busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what else would you say are some of the hardest flowers to grow? I know eucalyptus isn't technically a flower, but it's a green that we use in the flower world. Yeah, so I'd say lisiantha snapdragons.
Speaker 3:Bells of ireland and those are tricky because we have tried so many different ways to germinate them. We've found that two seeds per cell in a tray yes, helps them germinate better, but their germination rate is so low you have to plant extra, which takes up more space, to get a lower amount of plants and they're super fussy.
Speaker 2:They like it super duper chilly, yeah, and they like it super duper wet, yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's also not too cold, because all the ones in the field died yeah they, they cooked.
Speaker 2:We realistically lost half of our field. This year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, granted freaking. Don't listen to the farmer's almanac, we will. It's a wet and mild winter.
Speaker 2:It has been hardly above 40 degrees since november yeah, it's been yeah, and we've had single digit nights and then you add wind chill and it's just been. It's been on the wind this year. It's been unbelievable, unbelievable, like, and that's why in the morning I'm like, hey, can we go fix the fence Because the fabric blew and then it becomes a sail and it pops the rings that hold the fence in place, because we have the great big fence to keep the deer out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 2:I think we've struggled with some perennials too, once in a while, and just for the simple fact that the goldfinches will come in.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they pick certain seeds out of trays. Yeah, and it fascinates me, like how do they even know that they're in there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like they can read the tags. I will never call anyone a bird brain again no, but it's definitely like the one year we tried to germinate joe pie weed and literally all of it. You could see the birds like just attacked those trays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was yeah, you would walk in, it would be uh-huh, maybe flying out. It was like, oh, so we ended up having to put like um, theribon over it, which made it difficult to it just. Yeah, that year was yeah, but it's interesting, like, how do they? I don't, I don't know either.
Speaker 3:How do they know they didn't touch anything else. No.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was very strange. What else but?
Speaker 3:perennial side of germinating fever fuel. Really, it has a low germination rate and it's another one that needs to be on top of the soil for oxygen and light and all of that kind of stuff. Orangium too, yes, like orangium, everybody wants blue yeah.
Speaker 1:Blue blue, blue Orangium and echinops.
Speaker 2:Yes, Look at those. Yes, there's very true blue colored flowers, yes, and flowers, and those are some of. Depending on the hue, sometimes they can lean a little purple, but they really do look blue, yeah, um you've got to forget knots and and other things that are blue, but most of the other colors.
Speaker 3:Like summertime, there's no true blue flowers. Like fall is just all freaking orange and red yellow Burgundy.
Speaker 2:Bergamons.
Speaker 3:Burmont flowers are actually purple. I know some of them are red and pink, but that's true, that's very true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's. I'm trying to think what else, what?
Speaker 3:else have we grown that we've, so growing side, not even germinating side. We've struggled with Stock.
Speaker 2:Stock stock stock yes, stock is another one that has a lot of. There's a lot of tricks to it. When it first germinates, you have to pull out certain seeds that have certain shapes, like certain cotyledons and all of that kind of stuff, um, but then we struggle with it even after that, like just to get it to grow and then status, depending on the type of season that we have.
Speaker 2:If it's super dry, it's great and it's brilliant, like brilliant colors, and it's, it's beautiful um, but there's other disease pressure that that gets, that'll get some rust and you got to watch that like. So certain things may germinate well, but they may not do fantastic in the field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Acrostoma, that's what I was thinking of. It germinates in about like 80% germination rate Pretty typical for it. But once we plant it in the field no matter if it's in the fall to overwinter or in the spring it just like rots off at the base and dies Because our soil is so heavy yeah, we do have very overwinter or in the spring it just like rots off at the base and dies Because our soil is so heavy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We do have very thick, hard soil. We have to be really, really careful that that soil is some of the more, not overworked but like, really, really loamy, like that needs to be planted in the first sections that we've had, not the newer sections. Yeah, and that newer section is so much clay. We added literally literally tons of mushroom soil, of sand of.
Speaker 2:We added straw, like we really have worked that soil and every year we're always amending and flower tone yeah, we added bags and bags and bags yeah, for sure, yeah, for sure, for sure, because it's just put all the good stuff back in there, yeah, and it's still very, and then this year it's so frozen.
Speaker 3:But nothing matters, because it's all freaking frozen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, and larkspur, too, is another one that's I feel like we struggle with that, though, because the rabbits like to eat it yeah it's not one that is difficult to grow. I feel like we struggle with that because it gets eaten.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, no, it definitely does get eaten, but it could be difficult for home gardeners to grow, because we've talked to Nicole about it, where she's the person that tries to germinate stuff in her window. Um, it's definitely one that it needs to be outside during the winter cold, no cover, and don't try and plant it in April because it won't bloom.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't do anything it gets too hot. Yep, too hot, too quick.
Speaker 1:And then it's like I'm out yeah.
Speaker 3:What are some others that are?
Speaker 2:We learned that growing Gerber daisies doesn't work in the field they prefer to be pot bound and they like a really tightly bound root system. So they do great in pots, but if you try to put them in the ground, they just yeah. What are they?
Speaker 3:two inches tall a couple that were like maybe a foot tall, but the flower was like the size of a, like a spray mom, it was little yeah, yeah, it was teeny, teeny tiny, so we were like nope, um and asters we learned that if we plant asters at the wrong time of year.
Speaker 2:Like they really need to be timed? Yeah, because if you plant them at the wrong time of year they look like flowers we'd pick for Barbie yeah, yeah, pretty much like what would happen with that?
Speaker 3:yeah, because it's hard to get that timing like exact because they need to sit for so long, yeah, to grow and then bloom in the fall, but it's it's hard to time that because we get such hot summers.
Speaker 2:It pushes everything, yeah so it either pushes it too far or you get a couple cool nights and they go oh okay we're ready, let's go.
Speaker 3:And it's like no, no, no, and then the next day it'll be 110 degrees and burn it.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's why we do so many rotations of them, trying to make sure that we've got as many of them as we can, because they're an amazing crop for us in the fall of them as we can, because they're they're an amazing crop for us in the fall. I feel like I feel like there's like the solidago, the hellenium, like those things start to come, and then it's free reign for, like the asters. Yeah, that's like all right, okay, fall is here, and then the mums and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:They're pretty but they're basic. I'll say it I'll be the evil person well, if you're looking at a regular mom there's so many other moms that are cool for cutting yes
Speaker 2:you know, the fancy moms are cool like the regular like no, yeah no, we're not doing that, absolutely not, absolutely not. And I think I think if you, if you look at the qualities of a plant, that makes it difficult to grow, it's difficult to germinate, difficult to regulate and maybe is more disease prone. So I think Bells of Ireland wins for all of those categories. I really think. I mean, they're stunning and amazing and beautiful and they are some of my favorite scent.
Speaker 3:I always feel super accomplished when we actually get them to grow, which doesn't make sense to me either, because they're so picky. The best year we had them was hoop house, one, two Yep, and then it got hot, and then they got water spots and then it was a whole.
Speaker 2:But I think they do well in hoop house. One that hoop house has shading in the afternoon.
Speaker 3:It has a lot of shade yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So really think that they're just happier in there because they can be yeah.
Speaker 3:No, they, they are. They always piss me off. Every year it's like, oh, they're growing, and then it gets hot and they're like a foot tall, yeah nothing.
Speaker 2:And the one year I had, oh my god, I had almost 50 feet of them and they were beautiful and it was so, so hot and I had turned on the overhead waterer and it the spray the overspray, because I was.
Speaker 2:I had gone a different direction. I was spraying another section of the field. I could overhead water a small section of young stuff that hadn't started to come into flower. It was just super easy early in the morning and it baked the entire bag. Some of those times where I just like, do I cry or laugh?
Speaker 3:or what do I do? Yeah, what do I do, yeah, yeah, they. What do I do? Yeah, yeah, they're tricky. And not to mention too that they have spikes on them. They're pokey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, don't. They're not friendly. No, no, that's not something you want to bury your face in.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 3:It's not fun, but bees love them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do. Yeah. So if I had to sum it up Lysianthus, snapdragons, bells of Ireland, eucalyptus and a smattering of other things.
Speaker 3:I know you say that dahlias are difficult, but I think they're difficult because they're so labor intensive because, they grow well they just if you want to do the work, then do it, but don't go into it thinking that it's going to be the easiest thing in the world, because it's not no, and it's always interesting seeing the different styles.
Speaker 2:You've got the teeny, tiny little round balls. You've got the round balls. Sorry, you've got those guys and then you have like a nicer size which is about the palm of my hand. And people love the dinner plate. They love that big, flashy, showy, but for our work it's too big, it's way too way too big and it pulls and they fall over, and then it rains and they fall over even more and it just it's not, that's, that's not realistic for cut flowers no, it doesn't.
Speaker 3:They're gorgeous. If you're gonna grow them yourself and put them on your kitchen table, that's like that's perfect. But yeah, trying to put that in a bouquet or in like a centerpiece, it it doesn't it doesn't work not worth it yeah, no. So we grow the step down from dinner plate and they're like eight to eight to ten inches wide probably like the cafe au lait.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of those styles, I mean they really, really because they work, they hold up, they've got sturdy stems, they do all the things that you want them to do. Yeah, in all of the ways, and they're just pretty, they are pretty very pretty, very, very pretty. So well, based on that conversation, sounds like the bells of ireland win. Yeah, yeah, not what I thought walking into this no no, not what I would have thought at all. A thought of at all If I could talk.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I said I was the one with speaking problems earlier. Oh my.
Speaker 2:God, what is happening with my mouth? So cool, yeah, all right. Well, I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit of hard flowers to grow. I would love to hear things that you guys have struggled with. And listen, don't tell me you're struggling with houseplants. We all struggle with houseplants. Do not tell me about your Venus flytrap death. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or your orchid or your cyclamen.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, my orchid is about to bloom, though I'm very excited. Not about to bloom, but it's like it's got the stem. It's starting to put out buds.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited, I can do orchids, I can do orchids. There's a lot of stuff I can do. There's other stuff I just look at and it withers and dies on the spot. I'm like, all right, nevermind, I'll go back to outside hours. Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. So, but thanks, guys, for sharing a little bit of time with us today.
Speaker 3:I hope your gardening is a complete success and we will chat with you very soon, yeah, and if you have any tips and tricks for us that you're like oh, it feels violent, they're so easy, yeah, please let us know. Yeah, please, send them our way.
Speaker 2:Please send them our way. So, and if you haven't looked at it and if you haven't had a chance yet, we will actually, by the time this airs we will have sent out. I'm so excited, I'm so nervous, but it's taken us months to put together and we've all collaborated on it.
Speaker 2:So we have our new freebie, which is the top flowers to grow and where we break down all of the different flowers in the season, a couple categories in each. So we've got a couple categories for the easy grower, the medium gardener, the advanced and the don't even try it. It's just easier to buy them instead of trying to which ties back into this episode.
Speaker 3:So yeah, actually that works.
Speaker 2:That works. That works Perfect. Well, if you haven't downloaded it yet, make sure you check it out. Thank you, bye.