Build a Better Market Bouquet: Tips, Recipes & Techniques
By the Hensley's team, with thanks to the Slow Flowers community
Judging by Instagram posts, farmers' market season is in full swing across North America, with fresh produce and armloads of flowers drawing shoppers to take home the best of the local harvest. For many specialty cut flower farms, selling at one or more markets brings steady cash flow, face time with loyal customers and a way to promote their other sales channels.
Market selling does have a cost: time away from the farm, or wages for someone to run the stall. Still, experienced growers who sell through several outlets keep coming back to the farmers' market.
Markets can be profitable, but good margins depend on an efficient bouquet process and branding that stresses quality and uniqueness rather than competing on price. Flowers are an affordable luxury, and the growers we talked to, members of the Slow Flowers network, see a lot of built-in value in a market bouquet. Here are a few of them and the practices that keep their bouquets appealing, affordable and profitable.
About the Interviewees
Zephyros Farm & Garden, Paonia, Colorado
One grower we feature is a diversified family farm on Colorado's Western Slope, where a farmer–florist couple run a busy, flower-focused business. On a few dozen acres in the North Fork Valley they grow certified organic flowers and vegetables for seasonal mountain-town farmers' markets, restaurants, florists and flower CSA members. They're also floral designers who do wedding and event work and sometimes host weddings at the farm.
Bluegreen Gardens, Lancaster, Ohio
At an Ohio flower farm, a couple runs a small flower farm and design studio. They met working in public horticulture and later settled outside Columbus, Ohio, where they grow for CSA members, a community market, local florists and DIY wedding couples, and sell at several farmers' markets in and around the city.
Robin Hollow Farm, Saunderstown, Rhode Island
A farmer–florist couple runs a busy flower farm in Rhode Island, close to the state's main cities. Longtime growers, they use sustainable and organic methods to supply local CSA members and shoppers at several weekly seasonal markets. The farm designs flowers for many weddings and events each year and also sells wholesale to local florists.
Start With Good Field Practices
The Colorado grower says much of their bouquet success starts in the field, with careful stem stripping that keeps buckets cleaner and leaves stems ready to sell or use in bouquets.
At the Ohio farm, flowers are usually bunched, sorted and cleaned in the field and held overnight in a cooler. That way the day before market can be spent just making bouquets, and the next morning it's grab and go.
Match Your Bouquet Style to the Personality of Your Farmer’s Market
Each market has its own personality, the Ohio grower says, and that shapes the bouquets. One weekday lunchtime market near downtown offices gets small jar bouquets that people can take back to their desks for the week, priced at around ten dollars. At a more upscale market they bring three sizes, filling the larger, pricier ones with premium flowers to add value.
They've found that customers value unusual, harder-to-grow varieties, which brings a good return for the bouquet size. Custom bouquets are possible, but since only one person staffs the stall, they focus on ready-made bouquets, single-variety bunches and single stems, and they actually sell more ready-made bouquets than they did when making them to order.
Assembling a Market Bouquet, Start to Finish
At the Rhode Island farm, a steady crew of two or three people who know the farm's style and best practices put together the market bouquets. A dedicated studio with an efficient layout is key. Everything is set out beforehand, from guillotine cutters and elastics to enough bouquet buckets for the day. Buckets are counted, filled with about 4" of water and assigned four bouquets each, so there's no need to keep counting.
Mixed bouquets are planned by color or style, with loose stems sorted into buckets to match. Color schemes range from tone-on-tone and pastels to light-dark contrast, bright and vivid, blue and white, yellow-orange, and pink and green.
Because the farm is also known for wedding work, they want a high-end, distinctive look. Every bouquet includes flowers customers see as premium, such as lilies and lisianthus, and open lilies have turned out to be ideal for market bouquets. They make both wild, garden-style bouquets and tonal ones, since customers like both and appreciate the choice.
3 Essential Bouquet Elements
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Focal flowers: Besides lilies and lisianthus, the Rhode Island farm's focal flowers can include dahlias, sunflowers, hydrangea and peonies, depending on the season.
- For more focal flower ideas, see Starting out with cut flowers: 15 top cuts
- Secondary and accent flowers: Secondary flowers include snapdragons, dianthus, amaranth, monarda, echinops, foxglove, asterand crested celosia. Textural fillers include feverfew, gomphrena, gypsophila, ageratum, astrantia, astilbe, larkspurand feathered celosia.
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Fillers and foliage: Greenery includes thornless blackberry, marigold foliage, rose geranium, mountain mint, basil, alternanthera and dusty miller.
- For more crop ideas, see Fillers and foliage: favorites from three flower farmers
The Basic Bouquet Recipe
Clear guidelines help the Rhode Island designers decide quickly as they work. A bouquet should fit in one hand and take only a few minutes to make. The basic recipe:
- Use five or fewer kinds of flowers per bouquet: one focal flower, one or two secondary flowers, and one or two fillers or greens.
- Keep bouquets symmetrical, with flowers spread evenly. It's often easiest to start with a frame of bulky focal flowers, such as lilies and sunflowers, and fill in around them with secondary flowers.
- Make sure bouquets look good from above, since that's how they're displayed, with every focal flower visible.
Bouquets by Color Palette
The Ohio farm works by color palette, making five or six bouquets in a color before moving on. There's no set stem count per size; they simply fill the pre-made sleeve. Short stems go into small jar bouquets so nothing is wasted.
A full, colorful, exciting stall is their best marketing, the couple says. They don't compete with other flower-only farms; some produce vendors bring flowers, but the quality and sheer volume of their blooms sets them apart. A full stand shows customers they're serious about flowers.
Bouquets by Pricing Tier
The Colorado grower knows market customers want something special, and they helped create that demand by bringing higher-end designs. Their basic bouquet is a table bouquet packed with flowers at a mid-range price, built with as many seasonal elements as possible in unusual color combinations.
Their large bouquet uses freshly cut flowers, foliage and grasses such as bupleurum, bells of Ireland, honeysuckle, perennial sweet peas, lilac, Nanking cherry, peony foliage, amaranth, ninebark and smokebush. It also features pricier seasonal flowers such as peonies, several types of lilies, dahlias, lisianthusand tuberose, along with secondary flowers such as delphinium, yarrow, Icelandic poppies, Scabiosa caucasica, helenium, eryngium, echinops, phloxand veronica, plus annual workhorses such as snapdragons, zinnias, dianthus, godetia, calendula, celosiaand asters. It sells at a premium price, roughly double the basic bouquet.
The key, they say, is offering different color schemes and styles at both price points. That keeps the work interesting and means hiring people with their own eye. They're often surprised that a bouquet one person dislikes finds a customer who loves it, and over time they've learned which color combinations their regulars buy.
They also bring lower-priced options, such as small mini bouquets and bunches of sweet peas, scabiosaor poppy pods, which some shoppers add on to a larger mixed bouquet.
Even with all that care, some bouquets get passed over. Then the crew pulls out anything that looks off or refreshes the design with a few new stems. It becomes market theater, as shoppers watch the design come together, and often someone buys that bouquet right out of the designer's hands because it looks freshly made, even after sitting out all morning.
Like many small flower farms, the Ohio farm keeps reviewing its prices. A small price increase on their small bouquets boosted profits without bothering customers, who still saw good value. They often offer larger bouquets at a higher price, especially in dahlia season. Prices stay the same all season and include sales tax; they just adjust the number of stems to fit the price depending on what's in the bouquet.
Most of the Rhode Island farm's market bouquets sell at a single round price with tax included. Other vendors at their busiest market offer cheaper bouquets, but a simple round price works like an express lane: customers hand over one bill and get on with their errands without waiting in line. It's proven to be the sweet spot for the farm and shoppers alike.
Custom Arrangements
Besides plenty of ready-made bouquets, the Colorado stall brings extra stems to sell individually and use in custom arrangements. That keeps staff busy and draws curious customers. Often when someone buys a bouquet made on the spot, a shopper who watched will ask for the same thing, and sometimes several sell in a row that way.
Packaging
The Rhode Island farm's bouquet operation runs smoothly thanks to years of refining its methods. In April, before any flowers are ready, sleeves are labeled in advance. They have used kraft paper sheetsbut are now trying pre-made paper sleeves since more sizes have become available.
The Ohio farm packs bouquets in two sizes of kraft paper sleeves, marked with the farm logo using a self-inking stamp, which costs less than the stickers they used before.
Payment Processing
The Ohio farm takes cards at all of its markets, which helps because not every customer carries cash. A tablet with a card reader handles all sales and saves time because the transactions flow into their accounting software. It also makes sales tax easier to track across different tax jurisdictions.
