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I received this book for free from Cools Springs Press in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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The Cut Flower Handbook by Lisa Mason Ziegler Published by Cool Springs Press on February 27, 2024
Genres: Crafts & Hobbies / Flower Arranging, Gardening / Flowers / Annuals, Gardening / Flowers / General, Gardening / Garden Design, Gardening / General, Gardening / Ornamental Plants, Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / General
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Source: Cools Springs Press
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The bouquet-growing bible gardeners have been waiting for! Learn the ins and outs of growing gorgeous blooms at home with professional flower farmer Lisa Mason Ziegler of @gardenersworkshopfarm.
Whether you’re cultivating fresh-cut bouquets for yourself, family, and friends or for others on a small commercial scale, you’ll go from sowing seeds to cutting armloads of colorful, long-lasting blooms with ease. Lisa’s unique approach and easy-to-follow advice on multi-season planting and harvesting uses the natural warm and cool weather cycles present in almost all growing regions to maximize cut flower production.
This logical and nature-driven method is also a signature hallmark of her super-successful online flower-farming courses, and it’s one that translates equally well to both small urban backyards and large rural flower farms.
Growing your own cut flowers means you can avoid bouquets laden with pesticides (who wants that on their wedding day?) and you can skip the trips to your local flower shop or grocery store to pay big bucks for a bouquet that has racked up more airline miles than you could ever hope to.
Included in this essential cut flower growing handbook are:
- 50 extensive flower profiles divided into their preferred season of growth. Cool-weather favorites include poppies, snapdragons, and bells of Ireland. Warm-season beauties include zinnias, sunflowers, and celosia.
- Planting tips for a succession of blooms that carry over from one growing season to the next without any additional work from you.
- Illustrations showing how to pinch plants for more blooms, how to make your cuts, how to erect support netting to keep your flowers straight and upright, how to dig a planting bed, and more.
- Over 200 photographs of the best cut flowers for home gardeners to grow, the most effective methods for their care, and the most productive ways to organize them in the garden.
- Advice on caring for a cutting garden, locating the best planting site, starting plants from seed, making the harvest, prolonging the life of your cut flowers, and so much more!
The Cut Flower Handbook is the perfect balance of inspiration and education for anyone interested in bringing more beauty into their lives by growing cut flowers at home.
Review: The Cut Flower Handbook by Lisa Ziegler
Full transparency: I started out as veggie gardener who didn’t see the point of planting flowers. I wanted all of the space for my veggies. But then I got educated in the nature of plants and ecosystems and I quickly changed my tune. Fast forward to present day and I am plotting out ways to add more flowers to my garden so that I can attract pollinators and have pretty bouquets for my kitchen table. The Cut Flower Handbook is definitely among the books I’m using to plan out my flower garden this winter.
So I felt that The Cut Flower Handbook arrived on my desk right on time. And I will remind newbie gardeners that now is the time to buy your seeds for your spring and summer gardens! Zinnias are my favorite garden flower, but I plan to expand! The first half of the book is dedicated to learning the basics of cut flowers and the second half is dedicated to the variety of flowers you can plant. This book has a chapter each for Cool Season Hardy Annuals and Warm-Season Tender Annuals that are also color coded. Each flower type has a detailed page dedicated to it. As a visual learner, I thought the photography was well done throughout the book and there were pictures of each flower as a reference.
5 Things I learned from this book:
- Flower garden planning is very similar to food garden planning. You have to divide your seeds into two main categories – warm and cool annuals. Then you have to map out your planting according to the last and first frosts.
- Traits to look for of cut flowers as well as how to appropriately harvest the for long life.
- The Flower Farmer Insider Tips throughout the book were super insightful and will be very helpful to anyone thinking about selling to florists at markets.
- How many times a week I would need to harvest to keep certain flowers blooming
- I was introduced to a ton of new flowers that outside of the popular varieties that I’m interested in trying out.
Are you into gardening? Check out some of my past gardening book reviews and stay tuned for future ones!
- New Gardening Books for the Creative Spirit
- New Book Provides Support for Gardeners Effected by Climate Change
- Review: The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food
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