How to grow your own Wedding Flowers: Part 1

Here are a few points to consider when deciding whether or not to grow your own flowers for your wedding this summer.
If you prefer someone else to do the work for you, check out our new Wedding Flowers page.

• Have you got the space, the tools and the time?

Space

You won't need much outside space, of course it depends on how many flowers you really need. Bear in mind that we grow flowers to supply our local community and the Halifax Market the whole summer long on not much more than 1 acre.
You will need to work out how you are going to dig up your plot, if you haven't already. Have you already got a rota tiller or are you prepared to double dig by hand?

Tools

So space and preparing the soil may not be an issue, however, you will require a few essential tools like spades, forks, trowels, secateurs and watering cans, and more importantly be willing to get your hands dirty. The list is endless of course, to get great results you might want to splash out on mulch, landscape fabric, organic liquid feed, worm castings.. can discuss these in a later post but you get my drift. You can borrow tools but I normally find that if I need it so does the person I am borrowing from so it can get tricky.

Time

That leaves us with a crucial decision maker or breaker... you've certainly got the willingness, but have you really got the time? To get the best results from flowers we suggest lots of tender loving care. Plus, they all need to be started now, in fact we started seeding some of our fancy blooms in February. So you need to get your skates on selecting and perhaps sowing seeds asap! Maybe you have a friend with a greenhouse which is perfect, or maybe you like plants in your living space (I have no choice in the matter and do not really recommend this option... it's a bit of a drag!).
Everything starts to go out in the ground after the last frost date has past. In Nova Scotia, this means you will need time around the end of May/early to mid June to get all your transplants in the ground or to direct seed.
Once in the ground, sadly it's not just a case of letting them get on with it and returning to them to harvest a week before your wedding. If your plants are growing well then so will your weeds, this is where mulch does come in handy, but usually there is nothing better than getting down on your hands and knees and pulling out the weeds as they come up. You will also need to be harvesting flowers and dead heading the plants to encourage their growth right up to the time that you require them. Furthermore, since Mother Nature is rather unpredictable you may also need to regularly get out there with your watering can and make sure everything is well watered. You will  also need time and energy to protect your plants from the sun and wind, not to mention invasions of bugs, deer and even neighbouring cats.

If any of these points are causing your enthusiasm for home grown Wedding Flowers to wane, then all is not lost, if you can enlist a friend, a parent or greenhouse grower then they might be able to do the work for you, in which case all you need to do is decide which flowers to grow. Check out the Wedding Services we provide here

Final considerations to plan for success

• When are you planning on harvesting your flowers?
• Where are you going to store your harvested blooms?
• Who is going to arrange them for you? - don't underestimate the time this takes!
• Have you got a plan B? There are no guarantees when it comes to growing your own so have a back-up plan in place to avoid last minute stresses.

My second post will cover how to choose which flowers to grow for your wedding.

If you don't want to grow your own flowers but would still like local flower for your wedding, contact us using the contact form on the left hand side. Check out our Wedding Flowers page which explains the services we can provide.