Flower Business Opportunities, a Roundtable with the Pros

so let's get let me get us back to zoom all right so hey everybody thank you so much for joining us here this evening um my name is lisa mason zigler and i am here with my good friends and i'm just going to let y'all say your name and your farm name order i'll go next time i'll go first i'm jenny love from love and fresh flowers in philadelphia um i'm ellen frost with local color flowers we are not a farm only a florist uh in baltimore maryland uh i'm steve this is greta sunny meadows fire farm in columbus ohio i almost went first i'm dave dallin with ball color link i'm a sales rep for them i used to have a cut flower farm for 20 years in maryland so i came to know all these people through the ascfg that's the association especially cut flower growers and we have all been heavily involved attending conferences on the board and we have two past presidents and um anyway so i came to be really um a part of this circle of these super knowledgeable people and we have a little bit of the different industries here for the cut flower world and um i'm gonna just ask each one of them to kind of bring us up to date on what is happening in their industry tell us what your kind of area of expertise or where your focus is and kind of what's going on there jenny why don't you go first oh okay sure i guess you volunteer your farm first you have to go first and all the questions um so i am heavily involved in the wedding industry uh as a farmer florist i also do a home delivery service which has happened since covid and i also do a lot of workshops at my farm so those are my three areas that i get heavily involved in as well as full sail um a little bit but do you want me to talk about that now or just explain what my specialty is that's kind of what your area is so what what is the state of the business now i mean are you having a lot of weddings to do i mean are your flowers in demand what's going on oh yeah definitely i think i think across the board in the floral industry there's tremendous demand i don't think any of us have seen a shrink of demand unless i'm i'm utterly wrong here but uh so there's a a vast increase in demand across the board in weddings in particular uh we're we're playing catch-up for the past year plus of rescheduling because of covid reschedules and then also just a surge of demand in general there's also a wellspring of new interest in locally grown flowers and seasonal and sustainable floral design so it's like both of those things are coming together those two tides are coming to make it one huge wave of um just a lot of business for farmer florists in particular that do event design so there's that and then with workshops too that is a huge i've just never seen so much demand for workshops i've been teaching workshops for a decade now on-farm hands-on floral design workshops and it's just i can't they sell out in seconds i can't keep up and i hear that from a lot of farmer flower farmers that people just want to get their hands on the flowers they want small group experiences at a flower farm and so that's another huge portion of the industry that i think is just going to grow exponentially next year okay great how about you stephen gretel what's going on there i think y'all are kind of overcome with um florist demand aren't you oh we can't hear you okay yeah it's been um a crazy especially the past month you know when rose shortages have been happening but you know this year for us we cut out the farmers markets we cut out selling to wholesalers next year we'll be fulfilling our commitments with weddings but then being finished with weddings just so we can focus on florist sales so we kind of became the wholesaler i guess this year so we've been ordering stuff in from like charles little um and like star valley other growers you know that ship um to have that stuff in our cooler for a florist too so still like focusing on you know flowers that are seasonal or things that we could potentially grow providing to them and we're selling it as like coming from oregon or coming from california um so that people don't know when it's like not coming from our farm but um yeah it's been crazy the past month has been i mean we've cut everything we can possibly cut every day and the cooler is empty the next morning like there's been a lot of flower emergencies so we are um in the process of developing new like boundaries for going into next year like now that we you know have grown the customer base um thinking about yeah just like minimums or 24 hour notice or something like that because for us we don't always have everything in the cooler and we have two farm locations so sometimes if somebody wants something it's at the other farm and so it can't just like be here and so kind of educating the florist on that as well um like we're not a wholesaler in the way that there's just always things that are bunched and ready in the cooler it's like if we get your order and then we pick it that morning and then it goes out the next day you know so um so there's been a lot of learning this year and um we have an online store where floors can shop so that has really helped because then people can shop anytime and the inventory is live so if it's in there then it's available for them and it doesn't require as much like um response from us you know you're like waiting for an email back like if you place the order then that that order is confirmed so um yeah so it's been kind of crazy we're lucky that we were like set up for shipping to florist already like going into uh coveted times that really like expanded our reach being able to provide flowers to florists when wholesalers were shut down and yeah and you know i think it was easter and the wholesalers were closed so that's really what kind of like we've been shipping for a few years but really like skyrocketed the you know just the number of customers that needed us and i think that i hope that that's what comes out of what's happening in the industry right now is you know local flowers were there for you now in this moment so i hope that you continue to you know continue to utilize them as a resource whether that's like planning them and your wedding designs that's brides being like less specific so that you can use like what's seasonal and like selling more by the color palette and the designers having more yeah artistic freedom and being able to do that so i think it's like hopefully this is the beginning of a full shift like that because that we sold weddings that way so i know it's like possible to not promise the specific recipe or whatever um yeah so i think that florists were kind of forced into that recently yeah maybe wouldn't have done that before and um yeah so hopefully that creates kind of a shift in there in the mindset you know ellen have you ever heard a better description of people that need to take your course so ellen's course is all about i mean it was like oh my gosh gretel you just don't even know ellen's course is all about helping florists and designers work out how farmers work and why what you just described is not possible from farmers you know what i mean that instant gotta have it right now call and have it just you know hit the floor ground running and um so that was i mean that i had wanted to keep from chuckling while you were talking i wasn't laughing with you it's like that's exactly what ellen talks about and um so you've lived it you've lived the other side of it so anyway so why don't you tell us what's going on in your industry ellen and tell us what your industry is well we are a floral design studio in baltimore we um do similarly to jenny we do weddings we do daily deliveries we do subscriptions um pre-covered we did lots of classes and and workshops we don't have an outside space and we still have a mask mandate so we're holding off on on those right now um but we are definitely like deep in wedding season and this is you know the fall is always a busy time for us for weddings but like jenny said we are um we are dealing with uh weddings from 2020 and 2021 all in like a 10 or 12 week period um so we have we are doing four five six weddings a week at this point people are getting married on tuesdays they're getting married on mondays like there's no rules anymore it's just like every day is wedding day and there's also no rules in terms of like oh i'm getting married in two weeks and can you do the flowers and it's a full service wedding like there's no like it's an elopement and it's one bouquet and that's it it's like a full wedding short notice um so we are really trying to keep up just with the contracts that we have um while also you know fielding consultation requests for next year and the year following um next year you know they say is going to be a record year for weddings um they're saying more weddings next year than we've had in 40 years um and because there is still a um problem with international sourcing we are going to continue to see which what we see right now is more conventional florists and traditional florists who have not sourced locally before searching out local product for the first time which is great there's just like a lot of there's a big learning curve right there's like the stuff gretel's talking about there's just a lot to learn um and so we're definitely seeing more people trying to get local flowers and we have ever seen before in since i've been doing this for 15 years we've never seen demand and you know we're now in competition to get flowers with like every florist in the city you know where before everybody was just going to a wholesaler and there was only a few of us buying local now everybody there's a large number of people searching out local flowers which makes me have to be at my computer the exact time an availability list comes out so that i can be ready to order so that's what we're doing we are just like thick in wedding season right now um and we have not had a frost we don't have frost in the 10-day forecast so luckily we are still our growers are still cranking out dahlias in like record numbers i think we're buying like 2 000 stems of dahlias this week um so that's what we got going on sorry i couldn't get my finger to unmute myself so thank you ellen and you know y'all i don't know if y'all are feeling this way but this is like a really historic time for the cut for the local flower source for local growers the domestic market could be as ours again and we just have to really shine and so dave i want you to share kind of what you're hearing from growers and what they're kind of doing um as a as the person selling them a lot of their seeds and bulbs and plugs and things um but i want to say this carl our stick man is on facebook and he wants to know jenny love how you have flowers behind you when it's dark outside in our other pranks it's magic oh wait watch you can see they're not really behind me dennis our other good friend told him go ask your kids carl they can fix this and they'll explain it yes oh so sorry i had to break it so dave tell us what you're kind of seeing from people trying to plan ahead and get ahead of this incredible way tsunami yeah yeah it's definitely a tsunami a huge influx of new growers you also have that i mean alana can tell you that you know 15 years ago she had half a dozen growers now she's got 30 or maybe 40 farmers that she grows that she buys from that weren't it were not in existence eight nine maybe ten emails every day from new growers saying yeah hey i have we have stuff so i have three things every day so you have that influx of new growers who are great because they can help supply this new demand for cut flowers that's not only going to the retail florists and the designers but just homeowners who are buying flowers at the farmer's markets buying a flower subscription a bouquet subscription a csa that kind of stuff it's not all going to the elements of the world um you know they're going directly to the consumer and having these new growers are helping to fill that demand because the growers that we had five years ago wouldn't have been enough to to supply what's needed and with the disruption in the supply chain as stephen gretel have seen you know they're having trouble supplying the new demand that they have which is probably out of this world compared to what you had just two or three years ago and i think that's going to continue because like you said these florists and designers now have discovered that hey local flowers can supply me i can use them they can work i have to plant my business a little bit different can't promise that bride a certain flower on a certain date but they can just sell them a a style and a color and everyone's happy in the end so i definitely see that as a a benefit in the future that for the local grower that the designers and retail floors have learned that local flowers do work and they do have a place in the business not just for the special event where i'm missing something and need at the last minute they can plan ahead and count on the local grower to supply their store or supply their shop i also want to say that with all those new growers also comes shortages um there's always you know i've always liked to say i wish i was selling nuts and bolts because you always get more of the back warehouse but when you're dealing with bulbs and tubers and seeds that sometimes take years to produce you can't just go get more when all of a sudden you've got a hundred new growers who all want a hundred of that one variety of dahlia or that one variety of tulip and they're gone and you can't just make more overnight i was just looking today like for ranunculus it takes two years a full two years to get that renuncious corn that you're going to grow to get that flour next year so the grower that produces that corn started that two years ago but from hand pollinating crossing two parent flours to make the seed to then grow that for a year to get the corn to sell to the supplier who then sells it to you so it's not like we can they can say oh we need more uh cream-colored ranunculus this year because it's the in color they had to make the decision two years ago there's obviously that lag on the supply and demand the demand is always trying to catch up where the supply is always trying to catch up with the demand and just the way it's always going to be in the green industry there's no way around that the same thing happens with bedding plants and shrubs at the nursery when there's a hot flower or a hot plant you can't always have enough production to meet the demand thank you dave yeah that is um that's the scary part yeah so get your orders in early yeah i mean i've been waiting i've been as a retailer you know selling garden goods and seeds i mean i am just so candid with people on our lives to say this is not a marketing ploy y'all i'm here to tell you as someone that can't get certain products i mean i'm buying so many soul blockers from england so far in advance right now because the day that they're not available anymore i mean that's a big part of our business you have to stockpile we're all having to do it you have to buy before you need it is what the bottom line is and um that's true with seeds and i mean i've heard all i'm sure you've heard the stories too dave people call and write about their problems but you can't just create stuff overnight and so what this really seems to me i'd like to let's go around again and so what is the plan from these seasoned people of moving forward and preparing i mean for me it feels like this is an excellent opportunity for people to hit the reset button on their growing operations or maybe adding um you know expanding their business and scaling it by adding events or adding hooped houses or greenhouses there's just you kind of are for sure you're gonna sell the stuff is the way it feels nothing is for sure but if you do the work and show up and do it right this is a great landscape to be starting new stuff in um so jenny what would your advice be to somebody brand new or somebody that wants to grow or reorganize in their business i mean i i love to say to people the highest dollar you'll ever get for a flower you grow is using it in an event is that right in a wedding yeah definitely it sometimes isn't always the highest profit margin so um you always have to understand that balance between what is the retail price and then what do you actually take home you know there's such a huge difference between gross sales and net sales and any any type of business and definitely any type of flower business needs to really consider the gross versus the net um so it takes some nuances to learn exactly how to do weddings in a way that's profitable how to price them properly so that you can get there um all of that but in terms of like where to go from here if you're a farmer florist or want to be a farmer florist um definitely get stuff in the ground now as fast as you can anything basically like there shouldn't be a bare bed in your farm space at all there should be something planted everywhere um so whether you need to you know hustle to dave and beg him for some more bulbs or you get on a plug suppliers like current availability like ready to go right now plug list or you go get some seed i always say seed is cheap so you know take that chance we're having like this crazy unseasonably warm october right now so like i can still sell all sorts of stuff that i normally would never sew in october so you can still get bachelor buttons and agar stima and nigella in the ground right now and those seat packets just cost a couple bucks each if you can get a hold of them which you can um so you might as well put something out there you got it you gotta sew it to be able to sell it so you better start now there's too many people that are still like overwhelmed by what this past season was or um worried about next season or whatever just you gotta you gotta plan it to get it there and then from there do a little education over the winter to learn about marketing and about how to do if you want to get into weddings um i have a wedding course just about to open on friday an online course called the wedding process through the gardener's workshop where i teach you know all about how to run a good profitable sustainable wedding business um so that's really helpful too and then the other thing i would say is that the industry is so like kind of cracked open right now in terms of the wedding industry in particular not just the flower industry but the wedding industry is i mean it's kind of sad it's like utterly broken like the wedding industry is a a bloody mess for lack of another way of putting it um there is so much change happening right now there is so many people that have been in the industry for decades who are just walking away just literally like closing the door and bailing and that's because we've all been through a war you know with kovid it's just been a war uh but that means there's so much opportunity it's not just that there's more weddings than ever before coming up but that there's less forest coming up like there's fewer established florists so there's so much potential for getting your foot in the door if you are new to it or expanding your business if you were just dabbling for a little while and also most importantly ellen hinted at this earlier too all roles are out the window they're all gone every role that ever was that had anything to do with weddings is gone so we did like ellen was talking about last minute weddings we booked an 8 000 wedding 10 days before the wedding so like that kind of stuff is just happening all the time now um and uh clients are are tired and it's been a hard road for them and so there's just a lot of room for change in a good way in a very very good way but it is kind of overwhelming sometimes so i think it's the time to jump if people have thought about being farmer florist and getting into event design now is the time to jump and not be scared um to do it because it's never going to be easier frankly than it's going to be next year so yeah oh but one other bit but before before i forget the one thing i do have to say is when dave was saying how the green industry you know you can't just go out and get new nuts and bolts from the back warehouse well apparently you cannot get new cylinders from the back of the warehouse like glass cylinders any sort of base any sort of cold glue any of that stuff yeah right so basically if you do want to get into floral design and do wedding work you better start stockpiling inventory now of like the basic stuff because it doesn't exist anymore seriously i want a second jenny saying that we are stuck on everything i literally jenny had a drive from philadelphia to baltimore on saturday to bring me stands that i can't buy because they've been on back order for a year like this is how stronger things are like start buying vases start buying supplies yeah cold glue bind wire massage bands pins everything all of it buy it now basically yeah yeah put your orders in so anyway that's my last my last piece of advice thank you jay that was great what about you guys stephen gretel um you know i know that you guys are heavily invested in growing in houses hoops and greenhouses and it sounds to me like now is just a great time for people that want to expand in that way to really take the plunge yeah definitely i mean we just put up another big three bay like gutter connect to prepare like for more ranunculus because if this fall was like this like you know there's gonna be a huge demand for ranunculus even more so in the spring so yeah now is the time if you've thought about it and you know i think that as far as like jenny was talking about like this you know smaller growers there are a lot of like collectives also popping up you know now where people can kind of figure out who's growing what and maybe specialize in stuff so you know for us what what we're doing is going to cut out some of the like summer annuals that a lot of growers grow and just kind of like have that space for specialized as you know we grow a ton of dahlias so this year i think there were like 55 000 and so as we expand the dahlia production what needs to be cut is some of those other summer annuals that are taking that space so that we can like rotate our fields properly so um you know i think that even like jenny was saying that the the seasoned like florists are you know i don't know changing their game or whatever it's like that's kind of what what we're doing too is just like kind of focusing on you know like do we need to grow dianthus or ami like how much of this stuff is like valuable um yeah as is that valuable in bouquets and could we be using that space for something something better so um that's kind of where our headspace is right now but but i think with growing in greenhouses and hoops you know the demand in the spring is just going to be that much higher and so you know it might be kind of late to construct a whole greenhouse and start growing in it and have early ranunculus right now but if there is hoop house space that you would have available or you know like early spring stuff you know stuff you could plant and yeah i mean we actually i shouldn't say that we put up most of our greenhouses in october and november and yeah getting out pretty quickly it's in there but yeah january february so it's definitely not too late actually yeah and so i mean and with supplies too like dave was talking about i mean seeds and seeds and stuff that we've definitely been you know saving more of our own seeds and also like with our dahlia tuber production we are taking a lot of cuttings to propagate to like help replenish you know when we dig our tubers we also need to make sure that we're keeping enough for us to plant and so basically yeah we we need to propagate in order to like replenish that so that's we're trying to also figure that out you know now that it's about to be digging time um thinking about yeah what are what what are some varieties maybe that we could sell more of if we know that we can take more more cuttings and so knowing that there will be more demand on the supply and too you know we're also preparing for that so yeah you know something that's becoming really clear right now as i'm listening to you guys talk is how everybody's business just is constantly evolving you know how some people think that they've done something wrong if they're changing a lot i mean you know me i'm changing every year it's like i'm always looking to do something different but this is just a game of flexibility and seeking out like stephen gretel talking about we're going to dump some of the other crops so we can grow more high value those crops were very helpful during a certain stage of their business you know stuff just really evolves and that's just really coming clear to me is that people need to really understand that there is no one right way and just because you did it this year has nothing to do with what you might be doing next year and that's how it works that's how it really works and it's really okay um so what do you think ellen um well one thing i want to say before i tell you about floor stuff is i want to like stephen gretel know and dave knows my love of winter flowers um we i would encourage any grower who has been thinking right about putting up a tunnel or putting up a greenhouse like if you've been delaying this is the year to do it now is the time to do it because demand like the reason stephen gretel are cutting out summer stuff not only because it's maybe not a high money-making you know plant but there's a lot of people who produce flowers in the summer there's a huge number of new people who have zinnias and and you know a lot of things in the summer um but if you can be growing in those extended seasons i think that is uh that's key so i don't know for florist i think if you're thinking about sourcing locally um this winter is the time to get yourself ready so you have to start building relationships with farmers you have to i mean sure you can take my course and learn all about local sourcing but you have to really i think position yourself so that you are um not trying to build a relationship the week before you need flowers you have to be like start now go out for coffee in the winter start emailing people start um you know getting to know growers in your area so that you're ready to go when you need flowers don't wait i'm just there's lots of other people that are going to be in line in front of you to get flowers from growers if you don't start making those relationships and and then also on that um don't wait until you have flowers and then that week contact a florist and try and dump you know get rid of a lot of stuff too because we've been in that situation and it never it never works out yeah so from the growers side reaching out and developing those relationships with florists also like now is the time winter is the time create a seasonal like projected availability and provide it to somebody you know we created one when we were at first by making a harvest log of the number of buckets of stuff that was coming in from the field because floors need to know like what you're going to have when so they can plan for it so there's both like sides of that relationship as far as like the responsibility of the grower in order to like provide that service to the florist it's kind of like dayton isn't it it's like you don't marry somebody right out of the gate right same thing yeah and you know most florists who have not bought locally before may not know a lot about seasonality like they may not even know what's available when so even having like remember remember bob's list his like laminated list of all the flowers and when they were available like we still have that like on the refrigerator but it's such like an easy tool to give to a florist and be like okay here's what we're growing and here's the months that they're available just to give florists who are used to buying from a wholesaler and getting whatever they want whenever they wanted start to get them used to seasonality start to get them used to like okay peonies are not available in october dahlias are not available in april like this is how how it works so the more we can get educated as florists and the more the farmers can help educate florists i think the better off will be to be ready for the spring of next year and if i can just jump in real quick i'd also say both from both perspectives that ellen and steven gretel have here though this winter is such a great opportunity for both florists and farmers to develop community as a whole within their local area not just be like ellen wants to make one relationship with this one farmer and now she has to manage that one relationship and the farmer has to manage her there's this whole concept of cooperative selling that can go both ways where a florist maybe wants to start buying from local farmers and has enough floor space in the back of their shop that they could offer to host multiple farmers to come and then other florists come to that shop to get their stuff so instead of this like every man for themself every woman for themselves good luck out there we have to have a much more like for this place to live is this this like environment we all live in for us to thrive both the florist and the farmers at whatever level you're doing business we have to stop this like competitive isolated mentality and really just like get in it together and figure it out and it maybe isn't like always sweet and easy and it's gonna be messy but whatever we gotta figure out a new model everybody so don't don't put up barriers instead just be really open to conversation no matter which side of the industry you're on and that's what those winter is gonna be really great for doing so i encourage people to do that dave do you want to add something yeah when i just always like your mind yeah i just always like to remind people that selling the flowers is just as important as growing them so like ellen is saying cultivate these relationships in the off season you still need to cultivate it all summer and all season but working to sell the product the flowers is just as important as growing the best flower you can grow because you can grow all the flowers you want but until you sold them you haven't made any money and you're not going to keep yourself in business so you have to put the effort out there and the time and the expertise to make that sale make that relationship find those florists whether it's to find the floors finding the new farmers market a new way to sell your flowers but a way to sell all the flowers you're going to grow because next year you need to grow a lot of flowers because sales is going to go through the roof i had customers this year whose sales by late june had already surpassed the fought the year before fails so you know half the year's over and they've already sold everything they sold the year before and i expect that to happen next year some of those customers have doubled or even tripled their orders for tulips or plugs because they know sales are going to be insanely good next spring but again you have to work at making that sale you can't just grow it and show up and say here's my stuff like steve says you got to plan ahead don't knock on a floor door the week you have all your crops blooming they have to know weeks in advance that you're going to have this stuff and then once you have it you got to be able to have and supply them every week i want to say a couple things i'm just watching over on facebook too and you guys aren't aware of this but whenever we do lives we've started asking all of our students everybody's students here to always use the little sunflower emoji to kind of identify them as our students and there's a lot of sunflowers over there so we have a lot of our folks that are watching us um and when ellen was talking about when actually gretel mentioned about selling weddings um by not having specific flowers ellen did a great talk about that and it is over on my podcast field and garden you can find a lot of um of her talks over there that relate to that and you know i just feel like this is just such an optimistic time for our enter for our industry to move forward and i think so much that you guys especially ellen and jenny that are in this wedding um in the front seat of the wedding scene that the rules are being rewritten and i just couldn't be happier to be with a better group of people that are helping to lead that way i mean i'm not kidding i've known all of you all for over a decade and um you just are such leaders in the industry so i did post on the facebook feed a link that will take you to everybody everybody here has a course teaching you how to do what they're talking about and we would love to have you go and investigate it and check it out and enrollment for um all but mine and dave's is happening in the next month over the next month and we would just really encourage you why don't you jenny just say what the name of your course is and when registration is and when school is because i'm sorry i know i'll screw the dates up do you wanna everybody know their dates go ahead jenny go give it about my dates well but you have way too much faith in me the name of the course is the wedding process i know that much and then um the registration window opens up this friday october 15th and i believe it closes october 18th um or is it the 18th or not are you giving me the five like is it no that's it that's it okay it's open it closes on tuesday i don't know what that [Music] so date think that means it closes on the 19th but and then uh i don't know the exact dates that it starts sometime in november and it finishes before christmas so her course runs at the same time mine does um it's the first week of november and it's one a week for six weeks so we finish up before the holidays um so anyway so hers goes on sale this weekend and to remind anybody that may not have run with us before our courses only enroll once a year because as you've just heard all these people are very involved in their businesses or their jobs and so they're so interactive in their course that we can't just run it over and over again so you only get one chance a year stephen gretel wait one question one thing though i do have an on-demand course called making workshops work for you which people can get at any time and it is a really good course that i think every um flower farm that has good space for hosting people and events you should totally take it because not because i care about making money off the course but because i i think next year is going to also be phenomenal for workshops so if you want to dip your toe into what it's like to take one of my courses you can look for making workshops work for you through the gardener's workshop as well and jenny doesn't know this but if you register for her farmer flores school there's a special on that course that you can add it on to the school um and she says you have to have space but she also teaches you in that course how to actually do destination workshops as well um so yeah thank you jenny i just can't keep it all straight in my mind so stephen gretel tell us about what's the name of your course and do you know your dates this is not a test it's that i just don't know no i do know actually because we just got a new dry white board that i wrote it down on so um so our classes grow growing cut flowers and hoops and greenhouses so we talk about um growing flowers in both heated and unheated spaces so and it starts with like you know talking about choosing what kind and and all of that so starting from the beginning and then talking about crop planning and everyone wants to learn about radunculus so that's you know there's one there's a whole week about spring flowers a whole week about fall flowers um and greenhouse management and stuff so our class launches it's november 19th through the 23rd um and so that's actually the same november 19th is also the same day that our dahlia tubers launched so it'd be busy day for us that day in the office but um yeah but last last year's class yeah we had a lot of engagement with people that were excited about growing in hoops so i hope that the people that were in our class last year you know gained enough information and confidence that they went for it so um because yeah now's the time like we've been talking about and so their course actually the school runs in january and february right to about mid february yeah so we start whatever the first full week is after new year's or whatever um in january and then it's six six weeks long so yeah february i think one of the remarks i remember about steve and gretel's class from one of their students was like my mind exploded there's so much information i mean the depth of pest control and crop planting and anyway so yeah but y'all you can learn all of this by going over on to our website and i would also recommend that if you sign up for their wait list on their course page all that means is that we're going to email you and we email you resources that they have provided and then we ding you when enrollment opens so you won't miss it so ellen why don't you go um okay so the class is called growing your business with local flower sourcing it is geared to florists designers farmer florists even farmers who are interested in sourcing from other local farms and it opens for registration november 5th and i think it's november 5th through 9th and our schedule for classes are the same i think as steven gretel's it starts at the beginning of january and ends right before valentine's day so you'll be ready to start sourcing locally early in the season um yeah it's a great class i mean not because i made it but i think if you're referring to um is really trying to make the change to source some stuff locally um i think this will put you in a good position it'll give you a leg up on other people um just in terms of working with farmers and working with your community and things like that and that is so true ellen and i think i mean we're hearing firsthand from stephen gretel how it is so different i mean for florist you can see why florists get put off buying local because they just don't know how it works yeah and they try to use their old way and then it doesn't work and it just makes it and they're already exhausted and frustrated angry hurt broke maybe over it you know i mean it's just yeah so ellen's course really connects the dots for all that and i also want to say on the course pages you can read other student reviews i mean you can read what students are saying about it um so dave's course doesn't register until next june and it runs at the end of the summer but give us a go right there dave yeah my class usually has registration in mid-june and starts the first week after fourth of july um it covers bulbs perennials woodys and touches a little bit on structures like greenhouses and tunnels but just the very basics steven gretel's goes into big detail if you really want to grow in the greenhouse and tunnels theirs is the best best steak for that but the just the it's a six week course learn all about growing all the bulb crops for cuts perennials and the woodies i don't forget it's like 50 different crops i forget how many days it's a lot it's a six week course the facebook group lots of interaction there lots of happy customers we're happy students yeah we just lost jenny she i don't know if her computer died she'll probably pop back on here um and then my course is the basics annual crops marketing and more my course is really about getting people on how the whole flower farming thing works how to make that transition and my course just registered and doesn't register again until next october but i really recommend that you check them out if you want to get years of experience in just a few weeks that's what these courses do but it does more than that so each of these instructors does weekly coaching sessions with their students and um then you get a live q a that's recorded and put in your library as well as one additional but the part that we're finding people are really embracing and really loving is the closed alumni facebook groups where they are with their all their classmates the instructors drop in and out of there and they get to have support forever it goes on beyond the course so i think it's just i mean i'm just so pleased that we that you all have decided to become a part of this community because i feel like we are really helping people build businesses and she's back sorry that's all right we talked about why you were gone want to say something really quick about ellen frost and her local color flowers she's probably one of the few flower or florists or event designers that use only local flowers and i don't know of any other florist steven gretel you sell the florist who would buy 2 000 dahlias in one week they've ever had a florist by that medallions so you know she really puts her uh money and her business where her mouth is and supports local farmers and uses the local flowers and if if you could take her class and mirror her business and do the same thing in your neighborhood or your state you're going to win yeah we always said that everybody needs an ellen you know like yeah if there was if there was a florist like her that was this committed like in every area i mean she definitely helps growers absolutely become no more flowers me you know because they know that they have that support from her so yeah the more that that can exist you know the more that we can all work together to like build this domestic floral industry as a whole and be less you know less reliant on the imports because we have all built those relationships and made the industry better yeah ellen's been doing it for a long time and has a lot of experience you know i mean so it's really cool and you know that i say to growers all the time when i'm talking to flower farmers it's like you want ellen to teach your customers how to buy more local flowers i mean it's like she trains them how to be better customers to us i mean we want ellen to be in touch with all of our commercial customers for them to figure this out i mean that's i mean that in the best way you know i'm it's um yeah so we have right if you're a farmer if you're a farmer get your florist customers to take ellen's course and become an ellen in your neighborhood and it'll help everybody i mean yeah it's pretty dead gum amazing so we need to um hop off here i said 45 minutes and we're three minutes over already but so i just want to say again the gardenersworkshop.com just go to our online courses go to the farming and business schools and you'll find all of these faces looking back at you you can learn more about the courses we do offer a payment plan but our courses are so affordable um they're 595 or 695 depending on the course and um it's an investment you will never regret making i can say that to you wholeheartedly without a shadow of a doubt and um so we just appreciate everybody joining and i appreciate you guys being willing to jump on here and in the heat of the moment of the season so i really thank you um so everybody what do you want to say dave you go first what are your closing words oh i always like to say plant like you plant more than you ever think you could sell and go out and sell it because the market is out there for it don't don't be shy when you're ordering your seeds you're planting your plants or starting your transplants just plant more than you think you need because you're going to need it alan um well i think like everybody said we're all in this together farmers and florists together like this is this is our time i think um there's never been a time like this um for local sourcing and local growing and you know get on board yeah very true all right gretel and steve well i would just say to the growers out there who haven't gotten frost yet who usually do our our power our powers behind you i know we're we're tired so um yeah good luck with the rest of the season stay strong yeah we're almost there yeah yeah but i think yeah i mean that this is this is the time and for the growers that were on the fence of maybe you know i don't know going in full force and turning it from a hobby into a position into a job or you had started and now you're thinking about employees and you know that like scaling up um yeah not not to be afraid i think that you know we steve dreams big and i like to work hard and that's kind of like just how it has has um like escalated into what it is but know that the demand is there um yeah frank garnosky told us once yeah if you need to make more money plant more and when it's blooming you'll figure out how to sell it and yeah i think now like dave was saying like this is the time for that this is it the time has come jenny um i would just say that if you've ever been on the fence about doing weddings or event design or just getting into designing in general now as the time and then also just welcome people onto your farm there's such a huge interest in people getting out on farms to get their hands on flowers um i have never seen so many new designers just popping up people that there's just like if you think there's new flower farmers right now oh my gosh that is equally matched or exceeded by new designers so people that during coveted lockdown started buying flowers when they had never really bought flowers before and now they are utterly hooked and they've decided to start their own business which is great um but they definitely need some education and then also we as flower farmers um can really be there to be you know in stride with them and help coach them um and nurture a healthier community so yeah definitely if you've been if you've been thinking about doing this this is definitely the time just like everybody else is saying and hire help i'm going to echo what girls hire a team do not do this on your own hire help because you'll never last you'll never last and ellen you need to go now right we didn't do you yet no you got me well folks i thank you all so much and i'm gonna try to do something now that may or may not work and i got this i this idea from ellen this morning and i just first want to say thank you to all of our followers that are watching us and they always show up for us and support us and i think these guys here for doing it and this hang on [Applause] standby [Music] [Applause] good night everybody good night

2021-10-18 05:33

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