Hello and welcome to Friday 12 September 2025. It's feeling quite autumnal tonight: the nights are drawing in quickly and there's a little bit of a chill to the air.

My two wedding orders have gone out and I hope the brides enjoy seeing them. I managed to cut the flowers in the dry (one order by torchlight which is not ideal) but the foliage ended up getting cut in the rain, which was a messy business.

Tonight I'm answering some questions that I've received. I love answering your questions so do feel free to ask away. I'm not an expert but I can talk about what I'm doing, and in the first part of this episode I talk about my dahlia choices, how I'm collecting and storing this year's seeds, plus how I balance learning about being a grower and simultaneously doing it (you can probably guess the answer to this one!).

In the second half of the episode I talk about my star performer of the year so far: my hydrangea paniculatas. These shrubs have been my most popular for cut flower stems and have sold at a good price. The plants have been super-easy to look after, productive and very popular so I'm planning on buying more for 2026. Compared to growing from seed, shrubs and perennials are invaluable but they're expensive to buy when getting a cut flower growing business established, so it's a bit of a catch-22 situation.

I hope you enjoy this episode and that you'll come back and join me for the next one: episodes come out on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and you're always very welcome to join me.

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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.