Growing Flower Seedlings for Profit
By the Hensley's team, with thanks to the Slow Flowers community
Translate your expertise into a revenue stream when you grow and sell cutting garden plants to flower lovers and fellow growers.
A recent Slow Flowers industry forecasthighlighted "Plant Your Bouquet" as both a growing gardening trend and a new income opportunity for flower farmers.
The idea is easy to see in action. At a Seattle-area wholesale growers' market , some farmers began bringing surplus 4-inch pots of sweet pea starts. Uncommon varieties from one Washington grower disappeared quickly into the carts of florists and would-be flower farmers, even at a premium price per pot.
Gardening like a flower farmer has become popular, and home gardeners and flower lovers increasingly ask for the special cultivars professionals grow. Flower seed sales keep climbing, yet many gardeners would rather start their cutting garden with plants someone else has sown, often because they are short on time or space.
A trip to a typical garden center shows why. Nurseries sell plants already in bloom because flowers on the bench offer instant appeal. That is not ideal for a cutting garden, though. Anyone hoping for an abundant, colorful cutting patch needs young plants that will grow through the season and reach harvest in the garden.
Since that forecast, more and more home vegetable gardens have made room for cut flowers. Florists and new flower farmers are eager to buy hand-picked sets of starts and seedlings from experienced growers.
A Slow Flowers member survey asked how growers were broadening what they offer customers. The results are only a snapshot, but they are telling. Members could choose every option that applied:
There are plenty of ways to turn flower-growing skill into new revenue. Below are approaches and advice from several experienced growers:
- A cottage-garden designer in the Twin Cities (Minnesota)
- A flower farmer near Bellingham (Washington)
- A grower who runs her own micro flower farm and the flower program at a hydroponic farm (Salt Lake City area, Utah)
- A grower in the South Puget Sound area (Washington)
- A couple who run an island farm (San Juan Islands, Washington)
What expertise do you have that customers want?
One Washington grower no longer uses plastic six-packs and sells only soil blocks. Third-party photo.
Start by asking yourself this. Customers might want hard-to-find seeds or plants, or a new skill such as soil blocking or planning a planting layout.
Flower-farming knowledge comes from years of hands-on work, and that knowledge can be offered to flower lovers as a product or service.
Turn your crop-planning, variety-selection and design experience into something you sell. Helping customers grow successfully only increases their respect for what you do. Whether you create planting plans by theme, season or color, or sell the plants and seedlings themselves, teaching people to grow their own flowers has no real downside. It sparks a new passion and raises awareness of local, seasonal flowers in your area.
Variety Selection: What flower varieties do customers want to plant?
One Washington grower sells a mixed box of seedlings that customers plant to create their own cutting garden.
Third-party photo.
Home gardeners want the lush blooms they see in flower farmers' social media feeds, without the hard work of farming. Selling plants at retail prices means trading your time and expertise for new income. Everyone we spoke with recommends offering varieties with obvious extra value. For annuals, that means vigorous, long-stemmed plants with unusual flower forms or in-demand colors.
The designer at a Twin Cities cottage-garden business keeps in mind that her clients want a beautiful garden to cut from, not a farm. Third-party photo.
The designer at a Twin Cities cottage-garden business reminds herself that clients want a lovely cutting garden but have no plans to become farmers. She keeps things simple by starting beginners with the easiest flowers:zinnias, cosmos, rudbeckia, cornflowers. Early success keeps new gardeners motivated, and frustration makes them quit. She also encourages adding flowers such as dahlias to vegetable beds for more cutting opportunities, and shows clients how to use herbs and vegetables in arrangements, such asrosemary or basil , which are both edible and decorative.
For the South Puget Sound grower, Gratitude Flowers, lisianthus is a leading seller. Home gardeners often tell her that starting lisianthus from seed ties up a small greenhouse for months, leaving no room for anything else. She is licensed with her state as a nursery dealer, which Washington requires of businesses that sell plants beyond a small amount each year. She began by growing starts for small flower farms and encouraging home gardeners to plant more flowers, and her buyers are mostly newer farmers and gardeners who prefer local starts or cannot order and ship plugs in large quantities.
Her season starts with cool-season annuals for spring and moves to warm-season annuals for summer. At her opening spring sale, she offers dozens of flower varieties in soil blocks. She has dropped plastic six-packs in favor of soil blocks and gives quantity discounts to move them. Any 2-inch blocks that do not sell are potted into 4-inch containers after a few weeks.
Besides designing and growing themed cut-flower collections, the Utah grower (her own micro-farm and the hydroponic farm ) grows dozens of varieties, from lisianthus, snapdragons, ranunculus and anemones to full flats of 'Benary's Giant Mix' zinnias. These tend to sell out at the spring plant sale. Pre-orders have pushed her to grow more each year, and even after a big increase in lisianthus, the flats sold out within minutes with a line of customers outside.
She recently added perennials and was surprised by demand for lady's mantle, rudbeckia, Silene 'Blushing Lanterns' and echinacea, among others. She focuses on perennials that bloom their first year. Customers want the tall, cutting-length varieties that flower farmers grow rather than the short types sold at most nurseries, so she offers exactly that.
Seedling Collections
At the island farm, shoppers can pick a ready-made garden collection or build their own mix. Third-party photo.
Several of these growers sell ready-made seedling collections. The South Puget Sound grower has built a loyal following for her seedling box, made from repurposed wooden wine crates that friends and family save for her. Each crate holds a few dozen 2-inch soil-block seedlings for a starter cutting garden. Her spring box mixes annuals and perennials, and a summer version is all annuals. Customers like it because she chooses flowers that are popular in arrangements.
The Little Farm on Olga Road sells a ready-to-plant garden set of six 4-inch pots, from heirloom perennials to medicinal herbs. Buyers can take a pre-designed collection or make their own. The display gardens show how each plant will look at maturity, how far apart to space it and which plants combine well.
As head of the flower program at the hydroponic farm, the Utah grower and a small seasonal crew grow for two channels: wholesale for buyers with a resale license, including new and established farms, and pre-planned collections for home gardeners. Retail plant sales have grown so strongly that they recently surpassed wholesale. Customers can buy collections or take a class to learn to grow on their own.
On-Farm Education & Training
At the island farm, visitors are invited to wander the gardens and learn how mixing flowers and vegetables supports beneficial insects. Third-party photo.
The island farm's owners run a mixed business: events, workshops and tours; u-pick flowers, herbs and vegetables; and a popular ready-to-plant box for starting a backyard flower garden. Their farm stand also sells bouquets, plants, pots, eggs, cards, apparel, candles and skincare products.
They see the farm as a source of ideas that visitors can adapt at home, whether that means a small flower bed or turning a whole yard into a space for cut flowers, bouquet-making and vegetables for the kitchen, as they did themselves. Guests are encouraged to walk the gardens, gather vegetables, pick fruit and cut a bouquet, and they learn that combining flowers and vegetables creates habitat for beneficial insects.
The farm's emphasis on sustainability appeals to both the island's small year-round community and its many summer visitors. The owners say their approach of opening the whole farm to visitors is unusual. Guests photograph flowers they have never seen, and the farm dogs greet them.
In a quiet island setting that draws visitors interested in nature and learning, the farm encourages guests to slow down and use their senses. Signs with QR codes along the beds share stories and growing tips for individual plants. One owner, an experienced adult educator, is launching a multi-day immersive market-gardening course for curious gardeners, aspiring entrepreneurs and food lovers, with the aim of sending participants home ready to grow and share their own harvest. Because a neighboring inn and restaurant are close by, lodging and meals may become part of the course.
What skills do customers want to learn?
The hydroponic farm offers a Backyard Cut Flower Garden Course covering everything from growing to arranging.
Third-party photo.
The Utah grower first taught a flower class at the hydroponic farm and was later hired to run its nursery program. The farm grows greens and basil hydroponically, runs a shop selling salads and pesto, and has some outdoor ground where she grows flowers for bouquets sold in the shop.
She teaches the "Backyard Cut Flower Garden Course" which has run for several seasons. Enrollment is kept small each year, many students come back, and others return to buy the farm's flower starts. The course grew out of the farm founder's idea.
After watching part of an earlier one-day class, the founder felt the students were trying to absorb far too much at once and decided a longer course would work better.
The farm gave her a former vegetable plot and greenhouse space, which she has gradually filled with flowers; the greenhouse is now known as the flower house.
Every student gets a small plot and meets with her twice a month from spring through fall. Topics include irrigation, pest management, when and how to pinch, filler choices such as different basils, and a new perennial area for learning about perennial cut flowers. The course also covers dahlias, including a tuber digging and dividing session, plus arranging and bouquet nights where students take buckets of flowers home to practice.
When a student asked if the farm could sell cutting-garden plants, the request grew into a busy retail plant program. Many people want cut flowers but lack time or space to start seeds. She runs the program almost full time from late winter through early May, which has meant scaling back at her own small micro-farm. She now uses that plot to test unusual varieties before offering them to retail or wholesale buyers.
What are future business opportunities?
Flower farmers who grow plants for other farmers and gardeners, teach cut-flower classes or design cutting gardens say they now see real potential in expanding the nursery side of their businesses.
The South Puget Sound grower hopes to add more perennials and eventually split sales evenly between annuals and perennials, since perennials bring higher prices. She keeps an email list for retail customers who come to her periodic pop-up sales at home or visit by appointment, and otherwise promotes through local social media groups and her newsletter.
She still custom-grows for some farmers but now mostly charges retail prices, since wholesale pricing is not worth it for a part-time operation. Her customers are mainly newer flower farmers who want to buy locally, and for them small quantities without shipping costs are still a good deal.
The Utah grower also consults, and she finds flower farmers face the same challenges everywhere. Quality comes first: poorly harvested flowers that fade quickly will not bring customers back. Grow with best practices, produce healthy, high-quality plants and set customers up to succeed.
She adds that sharing flowers and plants builds community, something she did not appreciate when she started. Now plant sales are a highlight, a chance to talk with customers, see flower friends and answer questions.
Case Study: Slow Flowers’ Ultimate Cutting Garden Plant Sale
Slow Flowers members gathered at a Seattle wholesale market for a new cutting-garden plant sale planned as a yearly event. Third-party photo.
In the Seattle area, a nonprofit organic gardening group has long held a very popular spring sale of vegetable and herb starts, with crowds lining up at the gates. Cut flowers, though, were largely missing from it.
To fill that gap, organizers from the Slow Flowers community worked with a Seattle-area wholesale growers' market to hold a cut-flower plant sale in the market's parking lot, once the landlord approved.
The sale was held on a Sunday a week before Mother's Day, on a different weekend from the vegetable-start sale. Local growers and market farms were invited to sell cut-flower starts, annual seedlings, perennials, seeds, bulbs and tubers. Booth fees were kept modest, with a discount for community members.
Growers had only about six weeks' notice, which made planning hard, so future sales will be announced early in the year. A grower from a farm near Bellinghamshared her booth with a fellow grower from a neighboring farm. The two had held their own plant sales before, but it was hard to get shoppers to drive out to their rural farms. She found this city sale far more profitable, and the central urban location was the key to strong turnout.
A few garden-product sponsors supported the sale, and promotion was mostly by newsletter, local email lists and social media. Interest in cut-flower gardening in Seattle is strong, so shoppers ranged from keen home gardeners to new flower farmers.
The South Puget Sound grower called it her best sale ever; she sold out within minutes.
The Bellingham-area grower from a farm near Bellingham got ready for the sale by growing fast-maturing annuals such as gomphrena and specialty pansies. Third-party photo.
She prepared by growing quick annuals such as gomphrena. She also sold six-packs of specialty pansies , flats of warm-season annuals, dahlia tubers and gallon perennials such as geum. Her booth partner brought heirloom mum starts, a specialty of her farm.
She was surprised that shoppers bought whole flats of cosmos and specialty varieties such as ‘Zinderella Peach’ zinnias, plants many could not start at home for lack of space or equipment. It felt like a good exchange that let growers serve a wider community.
The market's operations manager called the sale a big success. The market had been testing Sunday hours for trade buyers only, and this was an exception that let the public shop the cooler. The day showed that any future Sunday hours should include public shoppers: public traffic was very heavy, sales were several times those of other Sundays, and every register had a line, a welcome boost right before Mother's Day.
Cutting Garden Plant Sale Tips:
- Look up your state's nursery licensing rules and talk with your insurance provider to confirm you have the right coverage for a public plant sale.
- Show photos of each flower you sell, on a large sign or on the plant tags. Labeling remains a weak spot for many growers; a label maker or tag printer is worth the investment, especially before expanding plant sales.
- Keep prices simple and consistent, particularly when several growers sell together. Standard pot sizes for annuals and perennials also make things easier for shoppers and for the checkout team.
- Concentrate on easy seed crops or divisions of perennials you already grow. Propagating from your own plants makes sense, since buying in expensive perennials to pot up gives no guarantee they will sell.
- Have boxes on hand for shoppers. Even when promotions ask people to bring wagons, carts or boxes, many forget and need a way to carry their plants.
