The Backyard Bouquet Podcast: Cut Flower Farming Podcast for Flower Farmers & Backyard Gardeners

Most of us think of tulips as a spring flower. Emily von Trapp and Linda D'Arco built their businesses on proving otherwise. Emily grows 200,000 tulips a year in Waitsfield, Vermont, all of them in crates, in soil, blooming in the dead of a Vermont winter. Her first stems come around January 7th. Linda grows in Jay, New York, up in the Adirondacks. She forces hers hydroponically, and she started in the basement of a little farmhouse. They met in a Facebook group. Linda saw Emily's photo of tulips blooming in January and asked what the magic was. Then she talked Emily into teaching it. Today they run The Tulip Workshop together. In this episode we get into: * What forcing actually is, explained for farmers and backyard gardeners both * What 5C and 9C mean, and why the variety matters as much as the number * Soil versus hydroponic, from two growers who each chose differently * The three mistakes that cost people their crop * Why your bulb order got canceled this fall, from someone who imports them If you have bulbs showing up at your door this month, this episode is for you. ABOUT OUR GUESTS Emily von Trapp grows flowers in Waitsfield, Vermont, on land her family has farmed for three generations. Her grandparents bought it as a dairy farm in the late 1950s, and her parents ran a retail nursery there for 42 years. She was selling bouquets at the local farmers market by the time she was twelve. Today she grows around 200,000 tulips a year for a winter CSA with 350 members across 13 pickup sites, plus up to 15 markets and shops throughout Central Vermont. Her tulips run January through June. Her lilies run April through January. Connect with Emily: * Website: https://vontrappflowers.com [https://vontrappflowers.com/] · * Instagram https://instagram.com/vontrappflowers Linda D'Arco grows on two and a half acres in Jay, New York, inside the six million acre Adirondack Park. She spent fourteen years in independent schools as an art and design teacher and a faculty dean before flowers took over. She learned forcing at one of Emily's first workshops in 2018, went hydroponic after a research trip to the Netherlands, and now runs Ampersand Bulb Co, a wholesale bulb import company. Connect with Linda: * Website: https://littlefarmhouseflowers.com [https://littlefarmhouseflowers.com/] · https://ampersandbulbco.com [https://ampersandbulbco.com/] · * Instagram: https://instagram.com/littlefarmhouseflowers Find them together: * Website https://thetulipworkshop.com [https://thetulipworkshop.com/] * Instagram https://instagram.com/thetulipworkshop Connect with Jennifer, Host of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast: * Website: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhousehttps://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhouse/ * Follow the Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thebackyardbouquetpodcast/ * Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter

About eighty percent of the flowers sold in this country are imported, and I have said for years that local growers are not competing with each other, we are competing with that eighty percent. So this week I wanted to understand it better, from someone who knows it from the inside. Arnold Wittkamp is the founder of Thursd, the global online magazine for the flower and plant industry, and he came to it after thirty five years in the trade that started on the floating flower market in Amsterdam when he was fifteen. This is a different kind of episode for this show. On this podcast we typically focus on local flowers and the growers who grow local flowers, and this episode looks into the whole global system instead, into imports and exports and what a flower farm actually builds in a village in Kenya. I asked him the hard questions and he answered all of them. Some of what we get into: * Why Arnold believes our industry told the wrong story about sustainability, and what he thinks we should have said instead * What the flower trade has built for families in Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia and Ecuador, told through one farm he watched change over ten years * Why he says anyone handling imported flowers every day should be wearing gloves * The oldest flower shop in Amsterdam, and the four words its owner said to every stem he unwrapped This podcast still believes wholeheartedly in local flowers, and nothing in this hour changed that. We believe that they matter for our communities, they matter for the environment, and they matter for the people growing them. Keep asking where your flowers came from, find your local flower farmer, and support them. About Arnold Wittkamp Arnold Wittkamp is the founder of Thursd, the global online magazine for the flower and plant industry, which he launched in September 2019 around the line Thursd is good for you. Thirty five years in the trade took him from the Amsterdam floating flower market to his own export company to importing scented garden roses into a European market that did not want them. Thursd works with growers, breeders and industry organizations including the Kenya Flower Council, the Ethiopian producers' organization, Asocolflores and Fairtrade. He is building Thursd Shop, a direct to florist sourcing platform that will be partly owned by the growers themselves. He also hosts a Dutch language podcast with more than sixty episodes on how people really feel about flowers. Connect with Arnold: * Thursd: https://thursd.com [https://thursd.com/] * Thursd author program: https://join.thursd.com/solutions/author-program * Arnold on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoldwittkamp/ * Arnold's personal site: https://arnoldwittkamp.nl [https://arnoldwittkamp.nl/] * Email Arnold: [email protected] Connect with Jennifer, Host of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast: Website: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhousehttps://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhouse/ Follow the Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thebackyardbouquetpodcast/ Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter

In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, I'm joined by Melissa Stewart of Sweet Bloom Farm, a boutique dahlia farm in Battle Ground, Washington. Melissa's journey began the way so many of ours do, with a few mystery dahlias from a garden center and a spark she couldn't ignore. What started as six blooming plants in her suburban backyard quickly grew into 20 varieties… then 50… then 100… and eventually into a two-acre farm growing 4,000 dahlias. In this conversation, we talk about: * Scaling from 600 to 4,000 plants in one season * Why their second year on the farm was their hardest * The soil test that saved their crop * Farming no-till in rocky Pacific Northwest soil * Selling dahlia tubers online and shipping nationwide * Whether the dahlia market is oversaturated * Why local flowers matter more than ever * The community that flowers create beyond the blooms Melissa shares openly about balancing a corporate job, raising two children, building a farm with her husband, and learning when to ask for help. If you've ever wondered whether your backyard dahlias could become something more, this episode will inspire you. Book: Weeds & What They Tell Us: https://amzn.to/3ZHkWQO Connect with Melissa: Website: www.sweetbloomfarm.com [http://www.sweetbloomfarm.com/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweetbloomfarm Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetbloomfarm Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2026/02/24/ep-86-sweet-bloom-farm/

What's possible when you start with just a small bit of earth—and a love of flowers rooted in childhood stories? In today's episode, I'm joined by Fawn Rueckert, founder of Sego Lily Flower Farm, a thriving suburban flower farm growing on just one-third of an acre in Utah's Salt Lake Valley. Fawn's journey into flower farming began long before her first seed tray—from listening to The Secret Garden as a child to learning from generations of women who gardened before her. What started as a backyard cutting garden evolved into a farmers market business, a regional cut flower plug program serving over 100 growers, hands-on education for backyard gardeners, and leadership as a founding member and president of the Utah Cut Flower Farm Association. In this conversation, we talk about growing cut flowers in small spaces, knowing when to pivot as your business evolves, and why community matters so deeply in flower farming. We also dig into lisianthus—a flower many growers struggle to start from seed—including what it really needs to germinate, why it's so slow, and when it makes sense to grow from seed versus buying plugs. Whether you're growing on an eighth of an acre, dreaming of your first farmers market, or just trying to grow better lisianthus this season, this episode will leave you inspired to try what's possible—right where you are. Links * Sego Lily Flower Farm Website: https://www.segolilyflowerfarm.com [https://www.segolilyflowerfarm.com/]Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/segolilyflowerfarm/ * Snuck Flowers at Snuck Farm Website: https://snuckfarm.com/pages/snuck-flowers * The Backyard Cut Flower Garden Course https://snuckfarm.com/products/backyard-cut-flower-garden-course-in-collaboration-with-sego-lily-flower-farm-spring-2026 * Utah Cut Flower Farm Association Website: https://www.utahflowerfarms.com [https://www.utahflowerfarms.com/] Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter Join Us At The Profitable Dahlia Summit The first-ever virtual summit focused exclusively on growing dahlias for profit is here! Join us March 3–4, 2026 to learn from experienced dahlia growers who are selling bouquets, tubers, CSA shares, event tickets, and more — and doing it profitably. You'll walk away with real strategies to turn your passion into income, even if you're just getting started. Save your spot here: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.mykajabi.com/profitabledahiliasummit/ [https://thefloweringfarmhouse.mykajabi.com/profitabledahiliasummit/]

Welcome to Season 3 of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast — and to the first episode of 2026. To kick off the new year, I'm doing something a little different. In this episode, I'm sharing the full replay of a live planning workshop I hosted this past weekend called How to Plan Your Most Profitable Dahlia Season Yet. Growers joined live from all over the world — Australia, Canada, Germany, France, New Zealand, the UK, and across the U.S. — and the response made it clear this was too valuable to let disappear once the workshop ended. If you're growing dahlias or running a flower farm and want 2026 to feel more focused, profitable, and aligned, this episode will help you step out of overwhelm and into clarity. What You'll Learn in This Episode In this live workshop replay, we walk step-by-step through how to: * Reflect on your 2025 growing season — what worked, what didn't, and what you learned * Clarify what you want 2026 to look and feel like, both personally and financially * Build a realistic, actionable plan instead of guessing or reacting mid-season * Map your year season by season so you're not scrambling later * Choose the right revenue streams for your farm and stay laser-focused While this training was created specifically for dahlia growers, the planning framework applies to all flower farmers who want to grow with intention and profit in mind. Mentioned in This Episode * The Profitable Dahlia Summit (March 3–4, 2026) A 2-day virtual summit focused on real business strategies for dahlia growers — pricing, selling, marketing, tuber sales, farm events, and more. Grab your ticket here: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.mykajabi.com/profitabledahiliasummit/ There is a free 2026 planning workbook that goes along with this episode. You can download it here and follow along at your own pace: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.myflodesk.com/2026workbook Your Next Step If you make it through this entire workshop, I encourage you to choose one action to take next — even a small one. Whether that's: * Tracking your numbers * Clarifying your revenue goals * Committing to selling instead of giving your flowers away Momentum comes from action. I'd love to hear what your next step is — you can message me on Instagram or leave a review and share what stood out for you. Let's Make 2026 Count 2026 has been declared the International Year of the Female Farmer, and I truly believe this can be your most profitable and aligned growing season yet — if you plan for it. Grab the workbook, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and let's start planning. Welcome to Season 3 of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast.