transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:03] Hey, Flower friends, welcome back to another episode of Seed Talk with Lisa and Layne. Hey, Layne.

Speaker 2:
[00:11] Hello, Lisa. Are you ready for our special announcement today?

Speaker 1:
[00:14] I am so ready for it because I get asked about this all the time, and now we're going to have a great answer for them. So do you think we should just say it? Or I wish I had a drum roll, but I don't.

Speaker 2:
[00:29] We'll do an imaginary drum roll.

Speaker 1:
[00:32] And there it is, my friends. We launched the Warm Flowers from Seed to Harvest Online course with Lisa and Layne. And friends, we are so excited, honored and cannot wait to see what you guys grow. Tell us, Layne, what is in this course that you have put together?

Speaker 2:
[00:53] Well, we are so excited. This is the long-awaited counterpart to our Cool Flowers from Seed to Harvest course, and thank you, everyone, for being so patient while we put this together for you. But this is our Warm Flowers from Seed to Harvest course, and this is where we walk you through and guide you on how to sow, grow and harvest 13 of our favorite warm season tender annuals from seed, all with real life video demonstrations. And we cover everything from warm flower basics. So we have an in-depth session on when to plant. We help you calculate your first warm season planting date, your succession planting dates and your last seed sowing date for each flower. We cover seed starting tips for warm flowers, growing and harvesting tips, FAQs and troubleshooting. And then we move on to the 13 flower profiles where we cover everything you need to know about the plants. We've got sowing requirements and tips, spacing, pinching and netting information. And each plant has a seed sowing demonstration in soil blocks and a harvesting demonstration out in the field where Lisa demonstrates the proper harvest stage as well as too early and too late, where to make the cut, how to strip the stem. And then finally, one of my favorite sections of the course. It's called Variety Spotlights and Additional Tips. And we have really jam-packed this section with additional information, really detailed variety comparisons that Lisa walks you through for each flower, and a bunch of extra demonstrations. We have potting up seedlings to larger soil blocks, overwintering eucalyptus in the field, sunflower and limelight millet plug tray sowing demonstrations. And also, my personal favorite, a real-time demonstration of Lisa making a beautiful rooster pepper wreath from start to finish. And you will be the star of your holiday parties if you show up with a rooster pepper wreath like Lisa teaches you to make. So we're just so excited to finally be able to bring this course to you. And it's over five and a half hours of content that you can watch on demand at your own pace. Lots of helpful handouts that you can download as well. And if you're interested and want to learn more, you can find the course on thegardenersworkshop.com or you can use the link that I will put in the show notes and you can actually preview the entire Solosha Plumes Flower Profile Session for free. And that's yours to enjoy whether or not you end up purchasing the course, but we're just so excited to finally be able to bring this to all of you.

Speaker 1:
[03:07] You know, Layne, I get so many questions all the time and I know the office does. How do we grow the flowers so tall and so big? And our secret sauce is in this course. And, you know, to be able to have somebody to walk along beside you to like, oh yeah, what do I do now? To have a place to go. I have learned through years of trying lots of new stuff, it is priceless to have a reliable source to just go to and get the answer and go on about your business. And we're super excited, friends, so we can't wait to hear your feedback, Owen, what you think about the new Warm Flowers from Seed to Harvest course. And it is a beautiful, I mean, Layne has done it again, y'all. She has designed such a beautiful experience that you will just absorb it. It's like laying in the sun. It just helps you to learn so much more when it's such an enjoyable experience. So we can't wait for you to get it. All right, Layne, what are we going to talk about today?

Speaker 2:
[04:14] Well, today we're actually going to be talking about some tips for sunflower success. So whether you're a home gardener who has a cutting garden or you're a cut flower grower, a flower farmer like Lisa or something like that, we're going to give you some tips for growing cut flower sunflowers, which may be different than what you're used to if you've just grown them as landscape plants.

Speaker 1:
[04:37] Great, I can't wait because this is the perfect time of the year, isn't it? To get started and then to hear our secret that you can keep planting them over and over and over again.

Speaker 2:
[04:47] Yes, it's so true. All right, so our very first tip, we're going to have four tips throughout this. Our first one is going to be to plant the right varieties and there's a lot to cover here because we need to talk about single stem versus branching, pollenless versus not pollenless and then also how day length neutrality can affect a sunflower. So can you talk about some of those characteristics Lisa?

Speaker 1:
[05:11] Sure, and so I want to also mention y'all, if you are listening to this on a podcast, you might want to pop over to our YouTube channel and watch and listen at the same time. There is an absolutely beautiful image that Layne has up here of the ProCut series, Colors of Sunflowers. It's just a beautiful image, so you don't want to miss out on that. The first thing for us that I had to learn was that, while there are so very many beautiful branching sunflowers, their main purpose in life is not really to become the greatest cut flower, because not only can we not control the size of the bloom, like you see in this image, which is the perfect 3 to 4 inch size, but they don't tend to last as long. They often drop their petals prematurely, so we always choose single stem sunflower varieties. That's our first, okay, let's narrow down what we actually have to choose, because there are so many varieties, right? So we always go with single stem. Selecting single stem sunflowers means that we can control the size of the sunflower that it grows, and the perfect cutting size is 3 to 4 inches. And we do, we can control that size by the spacing that we space them in the garden. And that's just not an option when you choose branchers. So single stem is always our first stop. Then the second thing is, is it pollenless or does it generate and make pollen? There's two reasons why we choose to grow pollenless sunflowers. One, they just last longer in the vase. And secondly, they do not litter your tabletop or your customer's tabletop with pollen. And if you have allergies like I do, that can be a huge deterrent to ever having cut flower, sunflowers in your house. And so even when you grow pollenless sunflowers, they do in fact still generate or create nectar for bees. But of course, we're not growing these sunflowers primarily for the bees, but it is nice to know that that is an option. Then day length neutral means that they will grow and bloom and perform even in the short days of spring and the short days of fall, right? I never really had thought about that before I started growing flowers, how the length of daylight affects how plants grow. And so the ProCut series, which is the one that we basically go to because of all the colors there are to select from and they have these qualities that we're discussing. While they do set beautiful buds early in spring and in fall, because there is less growing time in a day, you can expect for them to be a little shorter and the blooms to be a little smaller than they are during the long days of summer. But some sunflowers that aren't day length neutral just won't even perform in early spring and fall. So that's why those three things are so important to us.

Speaker 2:
[08:37] Yes. So our favorite varieties tend to be single stem, day length neutral and pollenless. Of course, feel free to experiment and try whatever you like, but those are the ones we've had the best success with. The ProCut series is a great place to start. Like Lisa said, it just has every color you could possibly want and a sunflower is pretty much in that series. And we also do love Vincent's Fresh and Vincent's Choice. Those are two other really nice ones. And all of those that we've mentioned, they also have a fast days to maturity from seed, which is always an advantage, especially when you're talking about a single stem plant. And then I just also wanted to throw in a reminder that when we are talking about single stem plants, you do not want to pinch those ever.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] Yeah, that's a really good point.

Speaker 2:
[09:19] All right, now we're going to move on to our tip number two, and this is going to be to space your single stem plants close together. So like Lisa already alluded to previously, spacing is going to help control the bloom size as well as the thickness of the stem for our single stem plants. So can you talk about that, Lisa, and how you typically like to space your sunflower plants out in the field?

Speaker 1:
[09:41] Sure, and that's a good point, Layne, that I don't often mention. It's the size of the stem that becomes a really big problem sometimes when they're spaced too far apart. So, that whole single stem situation, right? If we plant those pro cuts, which we choose to plant them six inches apart in all directions, that typically grows a really nice three to four inch bloom size. If you spaced that same transplant 12 inches apart, it would grow so much bigger and get such a thicker stem, which that's okay if you're not making cut flowers, if it's just going to be a display. But for cut flowers, that's why, you know, if you're a flower farmer, I don't know if you've ever approached a florist and you say, oh, and I have sunflowers like, oh, we don't like to use sunflowers. And that's why it's because of the thick stems and the big heads, they're wonky, they're hard to use, they overpower. And that's why I think I was such a success. You know, sunflowers were the icing on my flower farm and cake, I say, because by adding those 1200 stems a week, which is what we succession planted each week, on top of all of our other offering, once I got all of our customers on board, whether it was farmers markets, supermarkets or florists, that was like the gravy edition, right? Because they had never experienced sunflowers spaced properly to grow these smaller, I say smaller, smaller compared to what you're used to seeing as they're projected in the, you know, as you see artwork and stuff, they're always really big sunflowers. So, spacing them close together, so we plant in a 30 inch wide bed, and in that 30 inch wide bed, we put five rows and then in the row, it's six inches apart. And so that creates six inches apart and it just grows the most spectacular sunflowers.

Speaker 2:
[11:50] It really does. And there are other things that can contribute to the head size as well, which we won't go into all of them, but one that I wanted to mention is day length. Can you talk about that, Lisa, and just a little trick people can do during those very long days of summer to try to manage those bloom sizes a little bit?

Speaker 1:
[12:09] Sure. So when we were talking earlier about why we like day length neutrals, because they'll set bud even on short days, but you will see that during those short days, the blooms are smaller. Well, the opposite of that happens in the longest days of summer, where the blooms, it's like you're doing everything exactly the same. You're spacing them the same, you're planting the same size plant, but all of a sudden, boom, your blooms get bigger. And that is because the days are longer. So a trick that we sometimes will practice planning for those long-day harvests is instead of putting one seed in a cell when we're starting them indoors, we put two and sometimes even three seeds in a cell. And what that does is tightens up, and I still plant them on the same spacing, one cell with two or three seedlings in it gets planted at that six-inch spacing, you're not breaking them apart. And by packing them in a little tighter during those long days, it kind of makes the blooms kind of do what you want them to do and stay small.

Speaker 2:
[13:24] All right, now we're going to move on to tip number three, and this is a big one. This is going to be to harvest before the flowers are fully open. I think a lot of people, especially if they're first starting out, they just wait till they fully open out there in the field or garden, and that's when they think they're supposed to cut it, but actually you're going to maximize your vase life and minimize damage from pests and the elements by harvesting quite a bit earlier than that. Will you talk about that, Lisa?

Speaker 1:
[13:51] And here's our white sunflowers. This is one of my most favorite images. Don't you just love it? So harvesting, this is true for all flowers, but sunflowers are one of the flowers that really show our tardiness if we don't take care of business. So in this image, this is really a great image. The back row of sunflowers are all basically in the really perfect stage to harvest. You can see that the petals are beginning to lift off of the center disc. That's the center of the sunflowers. That's when you want to cut them. Before the petals are like open, and when they open, not only are they getting aged and dried out by the wind and the hot sun, but that's when bugs like to eat them. And you know what else bugs do on flower petals, and that's poop and pee. And that's what spots are on bugs. I mean, it's like, let's get down to the facts here. They're not in there, rooting around typically on unopened sunflowers. It's when they're fully open and it's a beautiful, I mean, it's like them going to the beach. They're just laying up there hanging out. So harvesting on time, looking for those first petals to open. And I will tell you, like right now is just such a great example. So it's not for sunflowers, but I'm experiencing this with our snapdragons. We had a really hot day yesterday. Yesterday morning, I thought we cut the snapdragons more than thoroughly enough. If you saw my snapdragon patch right now, you would think, I could think, cut those for a week. The very same thing happens with sunflowers. You feel like you cut them, like cut all the ones that are at the right stage. Then you take your dog for a walk around the garden that evening. It's like, oh my goodness, look how many have moved on. So you have to find the ebb and flow of your garden. And you know what, we didn't have time to go cut sunflowers every day. And that's just a waste of time. We learned to cut sunflowers earlier and earlier and earlier through the years to help prevent that problem because the damages sustained when they open in the garden is just heartbreaking.

Speaker 2:
[16:10] And that's even more important for light colored sunflowers like the ones we're looking at on the screen if you're watching this over on YouTube, just because they do show the damage so much easier.

Speaker 1:
[16:21] That's such a great point. And you know, I love growing the white and the yellow. It's lemon yellow. I mean, it's like really, I call it baby yellow. Those light colors, I tend to grow in early in the season and late in the season when the pest pressure isn't quite so active. I mean, we have like such a beetle party on this farm on summer, you know, cucumber beetles and grasshoppers eating the petals. So the light colors, that's kind of what we do is grow the lighter colors early and late to help avoid that. Even when you cut them on time, you can have troubles.

Speaker 2:
[16:59] Okay, now we're going to move on to our last tip, which might be the most important. And this is going to be to plant successions every week during your growing season. Lisa, can you tell us how long your sunflower planting season usually is and why it's so important to keep on a regular schedule of planting every week?

Speaker 1:
[17:18] So it really depends on what you're doing. If you're a home gardener, what you may do may look really different than a flower farmer. If you're a flower farmer, Dave Dowling and I, you know, Dave, he's quite a famous cut flower farmer that's a dear friend, and he and I often speak and teach together back in the day. And we, people would always ask us, what is the newest, latest, greatest flower that I can grow to boost my business? And Dave and I wholeheartedly agree that if you're a flower farmer and you are not planting sunflowers every single week as a cash crop, you are missing the boat. It's high return, low investment and it's consistent quality. And so what I learned is that once you get people addicted to your sunflowers, you need to produce them every week. And we do that by planting them every single week. And I have learned to push the envelope. We even do a practice that's called early bird sunflowers, where we plant them earlier than what most people think you can plant them, providing some protection to them. And so literally we plant sunflowers for here where I live for about 30 weeks. And that is a huge contribution to a flower farm. Now if you're a home gardener, most home gardeners that are into gardening would absolutely love to have sunflowers all summer long. I find that people think, oh, you just get those in summer and you just are so sad when they're gone. That is not the case, friends. You can have them. We have sunflowers for Mother's Day, about the week before Mother's Day actually, right up until the last frost. You can do that by planting every single week or as a home gardener, maybe you don't want to plant that often. Although I will tell you that as a home gardener, especially if you soil block, we would use the two-inch blocker to start sunflowers because big seed, to start eight sunflower seeds every single week and have your garden ready and waiting. I tell you, this is a great tip to be able to do it, where to put them. That's always the challenge of people, like I'm not sure where to put them. I would make, if I was a home gardener, I would make a three by 10 or 12 or 20-foot bed, whatever your number of sunflowers you're going to start every week. I would prepare the bed and then I would either completely mulch it deeply or I would put a silage tarp on it. Silage tarp is heavy duty agricultural plastic that blocks the sun and water from getting to the bed while you're waiting for a planting time to come up. You put your silage tarp down and each week you just roll it up a couple of rolls to plant your next two rows. And there's just so many ways you can enjoy this.

Speaker 2:
[20:11] And because they are a single stem crop, once you cut that flower, there are no more coming, so that's it. So that is why it's so important to keep planting for consistency. And I will put links below to some of our other sunflower episodes, including the early bird sunflowers, which we have a couple of episodes on that Lisa referenced. And I just also wanted to say, this is just such an easy thing to plug in wherever you have holes. So for example, my husband and I have a little garden plot in our community garden, and sometimes there are voles in there. So we will just randomly get plants taken out by a vole. And it's just such an easy thing to go plug in, oh, let me just plug in a sunflower there, because they don't require a lot of space and they're just a fast crop.

Speaker 1:
[20:50] What a pleasant surprise, right? When they grow up.

Speaker 2:
[20:54] It's true. And one other little tip I wanted to mention here, Lisa, is for the best consistency, if you are a flower farmer, for example, to plant some of the same varieties every week as well.

Speaker 1:
[21:04] That is really the look, you like the equation to the success of this. So we stick to ProCuts. We know that once I start planting, they'll be like clockwork, blooming every week because they're the same from seed to bloom, 55 to 60 days. If in the middle of my, you know, three weeks in, if all of a sudden I shifted to a different variety that was 75 to 90 days, all of a sudden I'd have a whole of no blooms. And there is nothing sadder than that once you get used to having them. So yes, sticking with at least one variety, you know, as a home gardener, and even as a small farmer, you can plant different colors of Pro-Cuts. There might be a day or two of bloom difference, but in general they come true.

Speaker 2:
[21:50] Alright, well that is going to wrap it up for this episode. I just wanted to remind you, don't forget about our brand new course, Warm Flowers from Seed to Harvest, and we cover everything we just talked about in this episode for sunflowers, plus a lot more with a bunch of demonstrations, so sowing and harvesting demonstrations, a detailed variety comparison walkthrough by Lisa, an in-depth session about early bird sunflowers, and we even have information about night interruption lighting, which is a very interesting topic if you don't know anything about that. That comes along with a dozen of our other favorite warm season tender annuals, so be sure to check that out. Again, you can visit the website or the link in the show notes, and you can watch the Salosha Plume session entirely for free, whether or not you end up purchasing the course. We really hope you check that out and that you enjoy it.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] You know, Layne, we did not mention one of the best pieces of courses for me, our courses, is that they're keyword searchable. So that means you are starting Sunflowers and you cannot remember something. You can go into the course and hit the search button, put in Sunflowers, and it brings up everywhere that Sunflowers are actually mentioned to find what you're looking for quickly instead of what did they say on that podcast or what where, which one was it in. I mean, do you know how much time back when I started Flower Farming? Y'all, how old am I? I'm 65 now. When I started Flower Farming, we didn't barely even have the Internet. I had to literally, there was only a couple of books, there were three or four magazine articles that led me in the beginning. I would literally have to sit down and page through pages like, where did I see that? I know I saw how much time I wasted. And so that's another piece of all of our online courses that they're keyword searchable. But this course is so organized, it's even easy to find it when you just go in and look.

Speaker 2:
[23:45] And we did spend a lot of time on the organization and just using the night interruption lighting, for example, you could just search interruption and it will pull up the exact session and it will tell you the timestamp of where we start talking about that. So that's a great feature, Lisa, good point.

Speaker 1:
[24:00] Yes, and also I also want to add that, you know, friends, if you're wondering about it, we know you're going to love this course. And that's what led me years ago to begin our seven day, no questions, money back guarantee on all of our online courses. That means if you buy any course from us, within seven days of purchase, you reach out to us via email and say, you know what, this isn't what I thought. Can I have my money back? We'll refund your money and not even ask you why. And so that means you have no risk. And we do, I know that you're gonna love the course. I mean, we just know that that is going to deliver and cannot wait to hear what y'all have to say about it. All right, my friends, thanks for joining us here today. Ciao.

Speaker 2:
[24:49] Bye.