What Florists Really Want From Growers: An Insightful Interview With My Wedding & Event Florist (Part 1)

Hello, it's Friday 29 May 2026.

I'm really delighted to share with you a wonderful conversation with my wedding & event florist, Jo Caldwell, on today's episode. We had such a long chat that I've actually had to split it into two parts so here is part 1 and the second one will be available next Tuesday. 

We cover a lot of ground including how growers can adapt to colour trends, how and why stem length is linked to pricing, who you could sell to if you're just getting started, and how inviting florists to your field could strengthen your relationship and, crucially, improve your sales as well.

In other news, I talk a little about the impact of the recent heatwave on the field and the seedlings eagerly awaiting planting out, plus the new flower that I have flowering on the field right now (and it's really pretty).

Please do come back and join me for part 2 next Tuesday where we discuss what to do if you're already supplying a florist and they suddenly stop ordering from you, how Jo likes to receive her flowers from suppliers (and what she really hates), how important it is to have perfect images of your flowers, and more pricing talk (because we can never have enough information about pricing). 

https://joannecaldwell.co.uk/

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Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, welcome to my podcast, Becoming a Cut Flower Grower. I'm your host, Lydia, and I'm here to share my year of growing and selling cut flowers. I'll be giving you the lowdown on everything I'm doing and sharing all the highs and lows, the good times and the inevitable disasters, all in real time. Join me on my cut flower journey starting right now. Hello and welcome to the latest episode. It's Friday, the 29th of May 2026, and as always, I'm going to congratulate us on making it through the week with a very special congratulations for making it through a week with an epic, epic heat wave. It has been so challenging this week. Also very warm. Thursday, I think we actually had a real sting in the tail. We had about 30 degrees right towards the end of the day, which I wasn't expecting. And as I talk to you now, it's Friday. It's still really warm out there, but it has definitely dropped and there's a little bit of a breeze. So it's been challenging with the sweet peas. Everything on the field, I have to say, is absolutely fine. Although some things uh I had mint in pots because it has to be contained in pots, they were definitely flagging yesterday evening when I did the watering. And the seedlings are all absolutely fine. They definitely need to get out of the trays this weekend. I'm having a mass planting event over the weekend. They have been absolutely fine this week, no issues whatsoever. They have spent the whole week under a parasol, so I've noticed a bit of uh the some of the stems going a little bit leggy because they're obviously not getting the amount of light that they would like. But the flip side of that, if I'd taken the parasol down, they would have literally burnt to a crisp. So I'm sure they will sort themselves out when they get onto the field. Nobody is like dangerously big and wobbling over. I've just noticed that the stem length has just kind of shot up. Now I have got some. My first verbascum is flowering on the field. These are the tiny, tiny, tiny thumbnail size plugs that I bought last year, super cheap. They've been in all winter, barely had any water. They have had water this week. I did feel a bit sorry for them, but they are super lovely little plants. And one of the verbascom is actually flowering today, which is it's so pretty, but the only problem is it's very, very short, so it would be perfect for a bad vase, but not for anything else. And I'm sure the verbascums were supposed to be about, I don't know, 60 to 90 centimetres tall. So I'm a little bit surprised. I think they've just panicked. That's what I think they've done, and just decided to just go for it. Uh, but it's only one out of the whole crop, so fingers crossed the rest of them will slow down now that the weather is cooling. Now, the most exciting thing to tell you about, amongst a whole load of exciting things, is that this is part one of my interview with my fabulous wedding and event florist Joe Caldwell. Uh, we recorded the interview this morning, it was really more of a chat, actually, it wasn't a formal interview. We recorded it this morning, and I thought we'd probably take about 30 minutes on it, and it would just be one episode, and we ended up talking for 50 minutes. So, what I've decided to do is cut it in half, and we'll do the first half tonight, and then we'll do the second half on Tuesday in the next episode. And we honestly we could have spent probably all day chatting in there, we really got going. I did give her the list of questions in advance because this is not a topical political show where I'm trying to obskewer her and make things difficult. I do want her to be as prepared as she possibly can be and have a chance to look over the questions first. So she had them a couple of days in advance, had time to think about them, and we recorded in her new studio, which is an absolutely fabulous space. It is on a farm, so about 20 minutes in, you will hear a lorry reversing right outside the studio door. And I was a bit panic stricken. I didn't know whether to pause it and lose the flow and go and shut the door, or just to carry on and hope that the tractor got reversed really quickly, and it does, it passes very, very quickly, but you will hear the beeping. I mean, it could have been worse. This is why we didn't do it on the field because it would have just been one ambulance going past after another. And also, there must have been a bird in the studio tweeting away as well because it sounds like we've recorded in an aviary, but uh hopefully you'll be able to tune that out. So we cover a whole load of topics, there's a lot of questions to get through. We talk about pricing, stem lengths, um, conditioning, trends, photos, what to do if you don't have any decent ones, and it's a really fascinating insight into how a florist thinks and works, and I learned so much just from these 50 minutes. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Jo. She is an absolute ray of sunshine. I'm gonna put the link to her website in the show notes so you can pop over and have a look. There's lots of pictures of her and all of the work that she does. She is an absolute wonderful person, always incredibly positive, a great communicator, and a genuinely warm and friendly person. So I'm not surprised she's so busy with all her events. Now she set the business up in 2010, she won an award in 2019 for the best florist in our area. She does weddings, events, funeral flowers, bouquets, subscriptions, workshops, some of which are in fabulous locations where you can also get a glass of wine. And we met through Isabel, who runs my local plant nursery, who I'm currently making hanging baskets for. Joe used to have a studio there, and we were introduced, and I told Joe what I was doing. Um, she was kind enough to meet me in October, I think, 2024. So we're going back a little bit now, and she talked me through the kind of flowers that she wanted to use and the colours that she'd be using in 2025, so I could go away and purchase my seeds and basically grow to order. And the kind of deal that we had, such as it was, it wasn't a proper deal, but I said I'm very, very new. I was completely honest. I said, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna grow some stuff, and if it's ready for your weddings, I'm gonna offer it to you. And if you'd like it, you're very welcome. But if I don't manage to be successful, I know that you're gonna be able to buy stems from other suppliers. So it was a kind of win-win situation for everybody. And uh there were some weddings that I managed to get flowers for, some things that I grew specifically for the weddings, and then other things that I grew just weren't ready, and they kind of missed the slot. That was entirely my fault. It was a learning curve. But she was gracious enough to just give me a chance to sell flowers into her, and she loved coming up to the field, she came up, had a look at everything, met the chickens, and she's been a really, really strong supporter. She's my number one buyer, um, and I just love working with her, and I think you'll find this very, very interesting. So, without further ado, I'm going to play part one of the interview, and then don't switch off at the end because I'm going to come back and talk to you at the end with some reflections on what we discuss in that section. So, here it goes.

unknown 7:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

So, first off, I'm going to say sorry about the state of my lip. Actually, I was going to mention this when I walked in. I got stung on the field uh trimming my living paths down, and I don't know what it was, but it looks like I've started to have filler and then either run out of money or told the woman to stop. Run in with someone. I quite like it actually. It feels weird. Man half is horrified. He's like, don't get any filler ever. I'm like, I quite like it, you know. Anyway, tell me how the weddings went last weekend because I saw you when you were just making everything and you were going to drop.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah, we had a full workshop, didn't we? Yeah, it was good. Um I was quite glad to see the back of them before it got too hot. Um, but um, it went well. Two new venues that I've not been to before, which was lovely. One down on the river in Bray, Mediterranean restaurant, beautiful, and simple um arrangements on the table, nothing too fancy, but we took the Budvives idea and kind of elevated that, and there was lots of colour, so that looked really lovely. And the other was at the Stirrups Hotel in Bracknell. Again, I've not been there before, but a very um slightly more traditional wedding. And um yeah, everybody was very happy, good, very happy, all went well, all delivered in on time, wonderful, everywhere. It's always a bit of a chore when you've got two venues to deliver to on the same day. On the same day.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I don't know how you do it, and I should say they may have been simple, but they looked absolutely stunning. I mean, they were really gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, I do love it when there's a pop of colour. Um, and when you're on the river, you know, you're in a restaurant, it's all white tablecloths, and you've got the backdrop of the river, and to have that pop of colour was just the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

And what was the food like? Because I know you ate there as well. Was it any good? I did go there, it was lovely. It was lush, yeah. Yeah, it was really nice. Yeah, always enjoyed it too. Okay, well, look, let's get started with the questions. Thank you for sending your questions in for Jo. Um, first question is from Allie, Bank Farm Flowers. She's in the Midlands, and her question is: I've picked up a couple of posts about brides requesting some hints of blue in their flowers this year. Do you have any advice on how to play the trends for growers given the lead times we operate and whether it's safer to stay with more neutral blush tones that are maybe more enduring? What do you think, Jo?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Well, I've got all of my mood boards for my wedding clients out in front of me now, and there's definitely a blue trend, that's for sure. Um there's three or four weddings here with a definite blue and white, and I've just done a quote for next year with the same blue and white. Um that's definitely a trend that's continuing, probably. Um, the neutral blush tones, there's there's always a place for those. Um there's always gonna be your pink wedding, there's always gonna be your classic white wedding, um, which are lovely. But then there's always, and this probably is the um more people people leaning more into the season, there's always gonna be those weddings where they just want real pops of colour, like I just spoke about. We had um corals and yellows and blues and pinks, and um, and I've got a couple more of those weddings coming up later in the year where we can really lean into the dahlia season and um make the most of those. So um I suppose there's there's no right or wrong.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

But I mean, um the question I think is maybe the timing because I know I tried to grow blue things for last year, and some of them I got ready in time, and others I didn't. And if you miss the boat, like I did for the Nigella and stuff, then you've got a crop that you then you can try and sell it to someone else, but it's kind of not suited for you, and therefore you then have to go and buy it from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So, yeah, my my bluey, purpley weddings are definitely kind of July, August, September. Um, and then your whites and your pinks run through the year, and then your hot colours. I know I did one this this um weekend, but making the most of gorgeous peonies because we had I think I had three different types of peonies in one. Um the Sarah Bernhardt, the Coral Charm, and and another one, but also some really hot um pink and orange roses, yeah. Um so yeah, but those colours again tend to come through in late summer, yes. Um, and as I said, dahlias and things like that. So I I don't tend to push anybody into a trendy colour. No, everybody there's no two weddings are ever the same, no two brides are ever the same in terms of what they want. Um, you could have a white wedding, but they want totally different flowers or or style. Maybe one's a more white meadowy look and the other is a bit more classic with colour lilies and roses. So um I try to ignore trends and just go with what we love.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, exactly. So I think maybe I would suggest uh to Ali about you know hedging your bets in a way. Maybe the bulk of things is blush and white that you can sell throughout the whole season. Go for some um, you know, hints of blue or whatever the trendy colour is, but don't overly rely on it in case something happens to the crop or whatever, and and uh yeah, have a good mixture.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, but as we've worked together, some of these quotes I put together for this year I knew about last year. Yes, and before your before your buying or thinking about what to plant, and I've obviously still already got some um customers in the bag for next year, yeah, which we can also talk about. Yeah, so it's I guess I know your season is, you know, your you've got your time scales, but then I've got sometimes quite long lead times, and we can plan ahead and talk about um what you could potentially grow for me to fit in with my colour schemes.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, and that's really useful advice. So if you have relationships with florists, then ask them what they're gonna be growing next, what they're gonna be wanting next year, so that you can make sure you get your seed ordered in time so you've got the basis covered. And if you're not having that conversation with florists, then you need to start making friends with them and having those conversations so you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Especially if they're an event florist, because they will be working with long lead times, yeah, and you can um be ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Exactly. That's what we need. Okay, question number two. This is from the girls with the flowers, and they are in Kent. So, to what extent are super long stems important to a florist? Obviously, different stem lengths are required for different work, e.g., table centres, bouquets, events, show pieces. But how should growers think about stem length given that some flowers are naturally shorter but presumably still useful? And what's the most useful way that we can categorize and price the different stem lengths for our florist customers? There's quite a lot of questions in there, actually.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Quite a lot of questions in there. I think it's fair to say every flower has its place. As an event florist, um, so yes, I may well need those really long stems because we're we're creating a big pedestal arrangement, for example, that's going in and urn and it's sitting in the garden and you know, of a venue or whatever. Um, so we will need stems that are super long to create that impact, but at the same time, we're still filling pretty bud vases. Yeah, um, so we might need everything from 30 to 100 centimetres and anywhere in between.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Um, and if I'm working on a and a you know, a particular wedding and I do have a range of different arrangements to think about, um there, as I say, if you've got shorter stemmed flowers, and I've got from had from you some nice pretty things that we can put on in bud vases, but then we need the bigger, blousier, the hydrangeas that I've had from you. Um fox gloves, obviously, for normal. Foxgloves amazing, um, delphiniums, anti um anti rhinums or whatever. You know, so there's a there's a place for everything. And I think somebody else asked us in um, or you had some follow-up questions with regards to pricing and yeah. I mean, the one of the most expensive flowers on the market is the shortest flower, and that's the lily of the valley. Yeah. Um, so and then some of the cheaper flowers might be the taller ones. Yeah. So it's kind of there's no right or wrong. No, there's no right or wrong answers, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I think I think maybe if us growers are looking on say wholesale websites to try and work out our pricing, it's one of the techniques that we use. And we see that everything is like 60 or 70 centimetres, and we're like, oh my goodness, I'm not even sure I'm gonna get that on the field. And we're like, I wonder if anybody's gonna take it if it's shorter. But it's horses for courses, isn't it? Because if you've got table arrangements, that's what you want.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah, absolutely. So I've bought, as you know, for some of my weddings, I've bought buckets of flowers from you, but I've also but it's not everything I need, yeah. And I've I've used imported as well, so you might use your taller imported stems for something, and then your shorter ones for other things. So, I mean, even I suppose somebody asked me, um, I know we just spoke about that most common stem length that I might somebody asked that that question. Um, if I was gonna buy things from the wholesalers that might my most popular stem length is 60, because you know you're gonna get a decent sized flower head. So sometimes when you're getting, if you're thinking about a rose, sometimes when you're getting a shorter length, the flower head's not as big. So you would go for something taller. But um, at the same time, when you're making bridal, even bridal posies or you know, the bridesmaid's bouquet, 60 is too long. Yes, and you end up cutting half the stem off. Yeah, so you know that you can still work with smaller, shorter lengths. 30 is a good size for a bud vase, even a bit smaller. Um, if you see some some of my bud vases behind you on the shelf, they're only 10 centimetres long. Yeah. Um, so nice short little flowers, always a place for those. Yeah. If you've um if we're growing, if you've got stuff that we've spoken about for a wedding, some of it maybe is not grown as tall as you wanted. Yeah, probably not a problem. Probably not a problem. Because if you think about as well, the bouquets that I make for the bridal work. We can still work with shorter stems, but we'll always need the taller ones as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Um one of the bugbears I had about stem pricing and stem lengths is just you know, you've got a plant in the grounds, right? So it takes up the same amount of ground space as a plant with really, really tall stems, and you spend maybe the same amount of time looking after it and it's in the ground for the same amount of time, so nothing else can go in there. And then if the stems are really short and you can't price the same as a plant with really long stems, you might think, Oh, I'm not gonna bother growing the short stem plant because I just can't get the money, because the pricing tends to go on the stem length. But it's interesting that you've said about the the size of the flower head as well. I had not thought about that, so it's not just the stem length you're paying for, it's the flower head as well. So that I think is really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah, just even on a classic rose that I've that is quite popular, the Avalanche white tea rose. If you buy like a 70 or 80, you can buy them in 70, 80 stem lengths. I mean, Lord knows how they get them that tall. But then but then you also know you're gonna get a really big flower head. Um, but then so you pay more for that, yeah. But then it's obviously taken them longer to grow to get it to that length than cutting it shorter at 40 or 50 centimetres.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

So that's really interesting. I had never thought about that. So okay, question number three. This is from Caroline of Sweet Pracken in Oxfordshire. Caroline's question: Is there a way of letting florists know that I have some flowers to sell on an ad hoc basis? Now, Caroline uh told me that she's a very new grower and she's growing in her garden and allotments, so she's not calling herself a professional grower yet, but she thinks she might have some flowers available occasionally. What's your take on this?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Well, maybe try and um explore your local area. You live in Whitney, which is um lovely part of the world, I have to say. You maybe so the person that sprung to mind here for me is a as a sort of comparison, is um a local lady called Sarah at Marlowe Cottage Garden Flowers. And she's a local grower, she doesn't sell to the likes of me, like buckets of peonies or whatever it is I need, but she does make up some beautiful little jam jar posies, and she sells them locally, Facebook, Instagram, they're always available. People can DM her for um for orders. Yeah. Um, so those are quite nice. That's nice thing to do, and you can just make use of what you've got. It's all very seasonal, it's all very pretty. Maybe it's just very pretty one peony in it, and some lovely other nice things around. You've got your big hero flower. Um, something I always also used to do, I don't know um what uh local groups or whatever you're you have access to, but when I my kids were at school, especially at junior school, the parents who knew me as a florist, I would provide little jam jar posies as teacher thank you gifts.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

So those are sort of things that you could potentially do. Um maybe you have some local farm shops that you could use as a little outlet um to sell whether it is a bucket of whatever's going or makeup, small florist choice bunches. Not very technical, or you can buy these lovely um like paper sleeves to pop your flowers in and scrunch, you know. Um so maybe look at different maybe it's not providing it to the event florist or worry about that just yet. Maybe it's not providing it to the event florist or the florist shop, but maybe it's finding little ways that you can um sell your flowers in yeah, in other yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

I think that's really good advice because it is quite a leap to go from growing to supplying wedding event florists where the standard is so exceptionally high.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

And maybe it's a good chance to just refine and practice a bit more and work out how things perform and what you enjoy growing and what works for you on your soil. And then when you've got really good at it and you've got a bit of confidence and you know that you can generate X number of stems and they're all perfect, then you can start thinking about um going to wedding advent florist if that's something you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Maybe there's some restaurants locally that you could chat to because they're always filling bud vases with um well, try and get convince them not to buy their flowers from the supermarket, yeah, you know, not to buy their unexciting roses from the supermarket and you know, buy a lovely seasonal bucket for their bud vases from you instead.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

And local pubs as well, because there's nothing worse for me than a little tiny thing of like dead dried flowers. I cannot stand dried flowers when you're having fresh food, it's just totally wrong to have dried up stuff that's turning to the floor.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

But if you've got restaurants locally that are priding themselves on seasonal produce or locally, yeah, local produce, then maybe a lovely bucket of seasonal flowers locally grown fits their sauce too.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And Caroline, you might also make more money doing that as well. You basically you just don't make any money whatsoever. Uh no, I'm joking. Um, so yeah, I hope that helps Caroline. Okay, next question. Um, question from Rachel. In addition to growing beautiful flowers, obviously, what could growers do to demonstrate their other benefits of working with them, like their reliability or their convenience uh to a florist like you, Joe? And is there anything else that you would want them to know about them before you decided to order from them?

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Um interesting question. I've loved coming up to your plot and seeing what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

No, I love it. Having a look around, seeing what's coming, seeing what's growing, or um so maybe inviting florists in to see where you are and what you're all about, um, and build your relationships up with um some local florists or event, whether it's wedding and event florists or um shops, yeah. Invite them up, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Um I think there'll be a lot of growers just cringing inwardly about that because we're all terrified about having people on the field because you always want it to be tidy and it's never tidy ever, no matter what happens. And there's always trip hazards and buckets and kind of mess, and you know what my place is like, like there's a whole load of stuff going on. So I know there's a little bit of hesitancy about doing that, but I do think if you think that's a great idea, no, I do think it's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

I love you know, if you can yeah, and no, definitely. I'd I'd love to coming up to see you and see what's going on, see what's happening, and because it sparks maybe it sparks some. Oh, I could do that with that, or do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yes, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

But yeah, definitely reliability. I mean, we we all know that you've got the um joys of the British weather to contend with, yeah. And so sometimes it doesn't always work out, yeah, but it is what it is, yeah. Um convenience, yes. Yeah, I can't be, I don't have time to be driving around six different growers picking up yeah, this, that, and the other. So working out some way of either getting it to us or yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Um ease of ordering, yeah, and um I mean some of these things are quite hard to demonstrate in a way before you start working. So, really, I guess it sounds to me like you're saying the relationship that you build with the florist early doors is is more important. Then get an order, deliver it perfectly, and then then the florist is more likely to order from you the next time.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Listen to your florists and you know, see what work with them on how they want things supplied, or yeah, um, somebody else asked a question and might be jumping the gun, but I think it's slightly linked about um what we would wish Louise's question about what we would wish local growers knew or did differently, but you're afraid to tell them. Um, and would you like your stems pre-bunched or absolutely no elastic bands or tie or whatever if there's one thing about buying with imports is all the packaging, the whether it's elastic bands, and yes, I can reuse my elastic bands, but not by the number of um all those horrible elastic ties. Oh, yes, that you none of those, but work with your florist and listen to them in terms of how they would like their flowers, um, whether wrapped in, I know some flowers, some of them like tulips, work well if they're wrapped in a bit of paper or whatever. Um, but more often just a lovely bucket of flowers suits me, and I haven't got any of that packaging to worry about or whatever. So that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I was going to ask you about the elastic band question because when I see how the imported flowers come in, I think, oh, that must be really easy for you because you can literally grab hold of a whole bunch of them, pull them out of the van, shove them in the studio, they're so easy. Whereas we supply things in buckets and you've got to lug these, and the stems are going this way and that way, and and I just think, oh goodness, would you rather everything was wrapped in elastic banded? So I thank you for answering that question.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, well, I think it quite might depend on what it is. I mean, I was just saying, two lips work well, don't know if they're if they're sort of snuggled in together and and less chance of breaking, yes, snapping the heads off. Yeah. So think about that. But otherwise, I mean, but also that you maybe a taller bucket for some of the taller stems. Yeah. Otherwise, yeah, just a just a bucket of flowers as they are, works well. And then that saves me a lot of time in the workshop um sorting them out. So perfect. Yeah. To answer Rachel's question.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Okay, well, that's right, we've done that one. Um so Lisa's question, she's talking about imported flowers. So which ones do you find don't import well or that you're sometimes disappointed when you do order them? Uh, because she would like to focus on growing those flowers. Clever girl, clever girl, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So peonies at the moment, I when we buy them from imported, some of our biggest problems are they've been cut too soon and they're like bullets, and they're never going to open for a wedding. I mean, you saw me here last week with my buckets in warm, warm air, and you know, we've got all sorts of ways of um trying to get them to open. But if but you can imagine they've also been in a cold store, whether it's the warehouse where they've grown, on a on a chilled truck, on you know, then in my wholesaler's refrigerated warehouse. So they're they're chilled, and then you know, I then spend a mad few days trying to get them to open, and some of them have been cut, definitely been cut too soon. Peonies, so I think buying them locally might be better because you can A, I can get them from you much closer to the wedding day, yeah, and maybe you guys can nurture them into being just at the right or cutting those ones that are just at the right point, yeah. Because for a wedding, you want them nice and open and at their best, yeah. Or for dare I say for funeral work too, which I sometimes do, you don't want loads of but if I was making a bunch bunch of peonies for a customer to enjoy opening and in their vase at home, then yes, slightly more close. So I think, but with wholesale, you get what you're given. Yeah, you you order 10 stems, you get 10 stems, and you get what you're given. Maybe so peonies definitely I think are a nightmare. Um, and other delicate flowers like cosmos or corn flour, yeah, sometimes by the time we've got them, um, they're sort of going over, and those delicate petals are dropping. Again, if you can get them locally from someone much closer to the date, maybe on the Thursday of the Saturday wedding, and we can throw them in to the arrangements last minute, or we're making something on the day at the venue, then that works well. So flowers like that, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah, yeah, good suggestion. And also, I would add to this when you when you have this relationship with your florist, is to ask them to get to know what they're going to use these flowers for so that you cut them at the right stage with what you've just said in mind. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know about you, but I found that really, really interesting. That is just part one of the conversation we had. So, in terms of the stem length, I thought it was really interesting when we were talking about this because it's clearly it's not all about the length of the stems. Florists need a really wide variety of stem lengths for all the different types of arrangements that they do. What I found particularly fascinating was that a longer stem equates to a larger flower head, which was news to me. Don't know why now on reflection I didn't realise that. I hadn't considered it, and it explains partially why the price for the longer stems is more expensive than the shorter stems. It's not just that extra stem length because I often think, well, they just cut it off and throw it in the bin. It's all about the flower head size as well. So that I think is a really useful bit of information. Now, when we were talking about who to sell to, if you're at an early stage or you're not quite ready to sell to florists, Joe offered up some really interesting alternatives, quite a few of them actually, including pubs and local restaurants. And I do think that's something worth thinking about before you dive straight into wedding and event florists, because I know I did it, and it has been very, very challenging. I mean, I don't know why I do these things to myself, it's quite cruel. Um, but it was something that I just decided from the off, and I couldn't even really list all of the reasons why I've got a few, which I'll tell you about, but uh it was something that I decided to do, and then just I just tripped over loads and loads of times last year with it, and it would almost certainly have been a safer bet for me to go into trialling out my flowers in other different venues, um, but it's not the way I did it. And if you want to go straight into selling to florists, you absolutely go for it. But Jo did give some alternatives, and finally, I think when she was talking about how you demonstrate your benefits as a grower to florists, she had some really key points there. I mean, she talks about how she loved coming up to my field to visit the growing space, and I think that would be a brilliant thing to do. I would encourage you, and now I know it's we all put up these um not barriers, but we're like, oh, it's too messy, it's not ready, it's I haven't finished this, I haven't done that, it's not tidy enough. Um, you know, there's always a pile of dead stuff, there's weeds everywhere. Um, some of us are quite reluctant to have florists on the plot because you obviously it's like your it's your shop window, you want it to look as good as possible, but I can assure you um there is permanently mess, even if you are a super tidy grower, there's just always going to be some areas that need a bit of work. So I would say don't worry about the mess, don't be shy about it. I thought it was interesting when Jo said that it really that coming to the plot really sparked something in her. She'll often see something that I might not have told her about, either because I've completely forgotten, which is quite common, but also because I think, oh, that's not quite right, that won't fit with her style or her looks. And she did buy a couple of things from me that I wouldn't have ever run past her thinking they weren't quite right, and turns out she absolutely loved them, so I thought that was a very useful tip. Now, in part two, the next episode, which is going to be coming out on Tuesday, we're going to carry on the conversation. We're going to talk about what she wishes growers knew from her standpoint, what to do when a florist stops buying from you, and conditioning, more about conditioning. So I very much hope that you've enjoyed tonight's episode and that you'll come back and join me for part two on Tuesday. In the meantime, have a fantastic weekend, happy growing, and I'll catch you on Tuesday.