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My Top 5 Flower Farming Books
If you’ve ever wanted to pick my brain in person, tonight you have the chance. Grown Not Flown have introduced a membership perk of their online education platform (the GYM) called ‘office hours’.
Office Hours is an unrecorded zoom meeting where you can ask the host whatever questions you may have about their topics of interest. It is for members of the GYM only (you need a membership - you can’t just purchase this one session).
I am hosting the very first session. It will be tonight Tue 30 July at 6.30pm Melbourne time.
Also don’t forget that you can ask any questions here for out monthly Q&A by filling in this survey
I have always believed that knowledge is power. We are lucky to live in an age where we can find almost anything on the internet. However, that doesn’t come without issues, especially now with the rise of AI.
When you are looking for information, how do you sort the good from the bad? And more importantly - how do you do it without spending an age sifting through the information?
I tend to think that books remain a reliable, and relatively efficient, way to take in information.
Often they are organised, from people with relevant experience, and fact checked.
In my opinion you will never regret investing in your education, and a solid - even if basic - foundation will help you to navigate the challenges of flower farming, and also all of the information that now exists about it.
These are the top books that I would recommend to anyone starting a flower farm on a micro scale, and especially those interested in doing what I do - mixed crops and mixed sales outlets.
Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden by Erin Benzakein & Julie Chai
It feels almost cliche to recommend this book at this point. The discovery of this book is what led many gardeners and flower lovers to realise and then pursue the dream of flower farming - myself included.
The pictures are dreamy and this book would have to be first when it comes to aspirational farming.
However, despite that, the information contained within cannot be discounted. There is a reason many people read this and thought they could start their own flower farm - it has plenty of information and the steps you need to get started, especially on the growing side.
It might not be as in-depth as some would like, but for a solid foundation you can’t go past this one.
Even better, the popularity of this book means you can easily find it at many libraries, and it is often on sale at various booksellers.
The kindle version of this book is also a good experience if you prefer to do your reading on a device like an ipad.
A step-up in depth from the Floret book, it took me some experience in growing before I realised the value of this book.
Byczynski is often credited as being one of the pioneers of the renewed Slow Flower movement. Her work in renewing interest in local flowers, and in encouraging others to start micro flower farms, is incredible.
This book is a wealth of knowledge and answers many of the questions that are often posed by new flower farmers.
It covers everything from very basic flower anatomy, through growing, weeding, general harvesting, and basic sales.
It has a permanent place on my shelf and is one of my most-read books about farming. Every time I seem to pick up something new.
The Cut Flower Handbook by Liza Zieglar
When I started flower farming I didn’t realise that there were different times to start different flowers. I thought everything had to be planted after the risk of frost was gone.
It wasn’t until I discovered Lisa Zieglar (or Lisa Mason-Zieglar) and her book Cool Flowers that a whole new world opened, and proper succession planting started to fall into place.
For a long time Cool Flowers was a book I recommended constantly to beginners, especially those growing in a temperate or cool climate in Australia like I do.
This year Zieglar has released a new book: The Cut Flower Handbook and, as I’ve mentioned in other articles, I think this is the perfect book for anyone wanting to get a handle on their crops.
This book covers basic growing techniques, but more importantly it has a detailed breakdown of many common cut flower varieties that includes growing tips and tricks (how to grow from seed, how to care for, etc) but also when and how to harvest, and post-harvest care.
Invaluably, this book also includes many pictures, including correct stage of harvest, to create a brilliant reference for any grower.
The Cut Flower Sourcebook by Rachel Siegfried
When starting out it is relatively easy to find information about what annuals to grow. This makes sense because annuals are quick, easy, and relatively cheap to establish and to start seeing a return.
However, once you have been working in the space for a little while you may start to notice that every farm in your area has a similar offering.
To help you stand out you might want to search for something different - and that’s where this book really shines.
Siegfried has compiled an excellent list of perennials and woodies that will a touch of magic to your cutting garden.
However, it is more than that, too.
This book will give you a foundation in growing perennials and woodies as well as giving ideas for how to incorporate them in your work.
Like Zieglar’s book, this one also comes with profiles of specific types of perennials and woodies with notes about how to propagate and when to harvest.
The Living Soil Handbook by Jessie Frost
To be honest, I struggled to pick a fifth cut flower book for this list that said something that wasn’t already said in the earlier books.
At this point I have an extensive collection, and while I love many of the books, after some reading it becomes apparent that while each has its own point of view, and some differing tips and tricks, the essence of each is the same - and these sorts of books will only take you so far before you need to put what you have learned into practice, and then adapt from there.
However, there is one element that isn’t extensively covered in the above, and that is soil health.
The more I have learned through my journey, the more I have realised that the health of everything on my farm comes back to the health of my soil. Like water, my soil is the asset I most need to care for to ensure successful growing.
This book will help you understand why soil is important, and also provides some practical measures for how to care for your soil in a commercial setting.
Honourable Mentions
Flower Farming for Profit by Lennie Larkin - the only reason this book isn’t number one on this list is because I’ve already given it an entire article. I still think it should be read by anyone thinking about flower farming before they do anything else.
Floret Farm’s a Year in Flowers by Erin Benzakein - a beautiful book to help you plan your flowering year with ideas for how to use and arrange the flowers you grow.
Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels - for anyone wanting to get a better understanding of the soil food web.
Specialty Cut Flowers by Alan Armitage - a textbook and tome, often considered to be the bible of cut flower growing. Being a textbook there isn’t a lot of help from pictures, however, and can be a bit pricey. Armitage has recently released The Field Guide to Specialty Cut Flowers which is a much more approachable version of this book, though perhaps with fewer cultivars. The reason these books didn’t make the list is because I think Zieglar’s book offers much of the same information, but has the additional information about establishing a farm and growing that offers something extra.
The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming by Jean-Martin Fortier - not strictly flower farming, however there is a lot of overlap between small scale flower farming and market gardening, and a lot we can learn about processes and setup, too. This has been an instructional manual for many farms over the years, and contains practical knowledge about how to setup and operate such a farm.
Growing Wonder by Felicia Alvarez - a book about growing garden roses for cut flowers. A good guide with many recommended cultivars that we can still get here in Aus.
Dahlias: Seed to Bloom by Kristine Albrecht - perhaps the most comprehensive book about growing dahlias currently on the market.
Do you have a favourite flower or gardening book? Any that you think should be here but aren’t? Let me know in the comments!
**This article contains affiliate links to books on amazon. This means if you make a purchase using the link I may receive a little money from Amazon - this does not impact the price you pay for the book. These links help to support this newsletter. Many of these books are also available at your local library or bookseller.**
Great list!