Hello, it's Friday 8 August 2025.

You're joining me for this episode on the plot: it's a truly beautiful evening and at one point a bat actually flies right over my head. This week has been good in terms of the cut flowers and my lovely event florist collected an order from me this morning. I have also got my car back from the mechanic and my cold has gone, so all round, it's a win.

I've got dahlia news for you from my mentor and expert dahlia grower, Richard Bailey, after my visit to see him this afternoon for one of our regular catchups. He talked me through his dis-budding process and my brain melted halfway through: it's complicated! There is a knack to dahlias but the results are well worth the effort. 

This week there has been the usual deadheading, cutting, conditioning and arranging, as well as some emergency staking of the snaps. Do your staking well in advance! There have also been the (fairly standard) crisis of confidence and feelings of failure this week: if you're experiencing the same, I hear you. Growing cut flowers for sale is a steep learning curve: the highs are very high, and the lows are equally low but it's certainly never boring.

I hope you enjoy this episode and that you'll come back and join me for the next one!

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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.