Support for Flower Growers: cultivating cut flowers for profit and professional use
*Mentorship & Advisory Service now open!*
Ever dreamt of growing your own cut flowers, but don't know how to start?
Or perhaps you're a seasoned gardener, but need help understanding how to switch to growing productively, and to market standard.
Or maybe you're a florist with a small patch where you'd love to grow some flowers to compliment your wedding work.
Perhaps, even, you’re already a year or two into your own flower farming business, but are struggling to overcome certain hurdles.
You don’t have to figure it out alone. You absolutely can have an abundant cutting garden, a profitable patch and a pleasurable working life! Sometimes we just need a fresh perspective or some experienced support to help us through the challenges.
This is where Amy comes in.
Meet Amy.
Amy has been working in small-scale commercial flower growing for seven years now, and in ornamental gardening and floristry before that. She launched Remedy Fields in 2023 and now grows towards 20,000 stems per year for retail and wholesale markets, on a rented 0.10 acre site in East Ayrshire.. She is also a Co-Director at The Wash House Garden CIC in Glasgow’s east end, a community market garden, where she leads on the team’s vision, values and radical work policies. She is passionate about regenerative farming, not just for the benefit of our ecosystems, but especially for its capacity to create a truly sustainable approach to work.
An advice session could help you with...
-
Planning your selection of cut flowers with productivity and profit in mind.
-
Considering what’s needed to upscale your growing set up (bed creation, irrigation, site planning, business plans, labour allocation).
-
Growing stems fit for market.
-
Understanding best cut flowers for growing in the Scottish climate.
-
Refining your processes, e.g. for harvesting.
-
Identifying and reaching your ideal customer base.
Bespoke help for you.
Anyone who’s curious about the natural world will tell you this: there is always more to learn. That’s what makes this field of work so stimulating!
When you embark on your journey as a grower, one thing that’s for sure is that you are in for a whole heap of lessons, many wonderful and many very challenging. You’ll never stop learning.
If overwhelm is appearing, however, one thing that can help is having a supportive guide to help. Someone who’s made plenty of mistakes herself, who has a broader scope of the field and of options available to you, and can help you find a way through the challenge.
What’s more, your set of challenges will be completely unique to you, and the type of project you are managing. Bespoke sessions with Amy allow you to explore the specifics of your circumstances and, together, map out a route forward that’s in alignment with your values, goals and needs.
Scotland specific knowledge
Most of the advice available from popular flower farmers are suited to either the USA or southern England. Scotland has its own climate (not to mention the wet west coast where Amy grows!) and this affects everything from timings to what will grow with success.
Accessibility within farming
Amy actively works to counter the ableism prevalent within landwork, through her work supporting disabled growers and in her personal approach to working the land. Whether you experience disability, chronic illness, have caring duties or experience other barriers that keep you from diving into running a farm full-time, there are still plenty of ways to have a fulfilling relationship with your growing site and cultivating crops. Amy, for example, spends a maximum of 3 days a week on the farm, even at the height of the season. She can help you design a growing plan according to your unique needs.
Starting out with low investment
It can feel hard to know how to start if you’re not blessed with unlimited funds! Amy’s story proves you don’t have to be a land owner / home owner / van owner / large savings account owner to start growing flowers. She can provide a realistic perspective of what challenges to expect from having lower capital, and support with planning to navigate them.
“The one-to-one sessions I had with Amy have provided grounding and perspective in the midst of the busy growing season. Amy brings an easy empathy and generosity of self which allows for depth and complexity.”
Cesca, Market Gardener
Ways to work together:
How does it work?
1. Click here to purchase the amount of sessions you want to book.
2. You will be taken through to a calendar where you can select the appropriate time and date.
3. At check out, please fill in the form giving more information about what issues you would like to cover.
4. Sessions are held remotely through a video call. After payment you will be contacted by Amy with confirmation of your call and a link to use.
5. Each call lasts an hour, and can be recorded if that is helpful in lieu of note-taking.
Other FAQ's:
-
For the Bundles and A Year of Mentoring, it may be possible to for one/some of the sessions to take place in person at your or Amy's growing site, in order to cover more practical issues. This can be discussed during your first call, but may not always be possible, or will entail an extra charge if far from Glasgow.
-
Once paid for, sessions must be booked with 12 months of purchase date.
-
Cancellations and rescheduling must be done with at least 24 hours notice, or lose the price of your booking.
-
All sessions are paid for upfront, apart from the Year of Mentoring which is paid for monthly, via automatic direct debit.
Register your interest
If you're not ready to book in yet, but would like to stay in the loop about any announcements or offers around this advisory service, then feel free to sign up below.