The Flower Farming Intensive workshop is a three day workshop, delivered by flower farmer Georgie Newbery at Common Farm Flowers between Bruton and Wincanton in Somerset, which ultimately aims to help you grow your flower farming business.
Members of our Club receive a 10% booking on all website bookings. Find out more about the club here.
Here's what to expect on each day of this workshop.
Day one: land management and growing practice for a flower and foliage crop you can rely on
After a little time spent getting to know one another we will set off out into the fields here at Common Farm Flowers and analyse what is good and bad about the layout and bed management. In considering the ‘why’ of our operations here we can understand the ‘how’ and apply the principles to your growing space. We look at costs, time management, soil health, biodiversity, and see how all of these contribute to flower and foliage growth and therefore possible sales.
When growing flowers for sale, your physical time spent in the fields, and the costs of growing flowers, both have a huge impact on potential sales and ultimate profit. This is a day which can be transformational to both the quantity and quality of the crop you grow, but also dramatically cut the time you spend in the field and so make it possible for you to sell more.
Day two: business planning and marketing
We'll consider business plans, cashflow forecasts, an efficiently planned year, a clever collaboration between your website and your social media. This day will help increase the kinds of sales you want to make.
It is easy to be so flat-out busy flower farming that you feel you don’t have time to make sure you are financially optimising the time you spend growing and harvesting flowers.
Being busy is no accolade. Making a good living, and still having the time and energy to think about a little extra for fun is the way to keep yourself interested and amused as a flower farmer. This second day of our intensive three day session is when you focus on being honest about identifying where the profit is in your flower farming business, the cost of administrating each sale, and why posting strategically on your social media can be transforming. This is the day when we look at the sums and the opportunity cost of being too busy to strategise.
Day three: cutting and conditioning your crop, and floristry
We'll consider everything about cutting flowers, conditioning them, floristry and packaging. A flower farmer grows the best quality flowers, which must be treated when being cut and used in creations as the best quality product – because they are!
On this third day of our Flower Farming Intensive course we will harvest from the fields here at Common Farm Flowers, and consider the principles of making the best of the product we’ve grown, while putting ourselves for the day in the shoes of our clients.
We may be flower farmers, but it’s important, even if we never do any floristry ourselves, that we understand how our customers will work with our product, and therefore how cutting, conditioning, wrapping, and delivering can transform our relationship with our customer base so that they will order from us again and again.
Of course we focus on sustainable practise – no greenwashing here at Common Farm Flowers! And we look at how our customers really appreciate working with us so that their desire for cut flowers does not cost the earth as well as their wallet.
You may want to spend the day developing your floristry skills for your business, or you may want to understand more about how your customer will arrange your flowers, and in both cases you may want to know more about sustainable floristry mechanics and packaging. This day will answer your floristry questions and give you the opportunity to work with my flowers in order to improve the product you offer with yours.
This workshop comes highly recommended by our previous customers.
Suitable for:
People who’ve some experience of growing flowers for sale, but who want to refine their processes, strategise to optimise their time and their crop growing, make more of their land, and make sure they are taking advantage of many different possibilities for earning which flower farming offers.
Here's what some recent students had to say about this workshop:
"Just completed the Flower Farming Intensive Workshop. Georgie's wealth of knowledge and experience made the workshop invaluable. I am beginning my flower farming journey, but my fellow 'learners' have developed businesses and Georgie encompassed our, very diverse, knowledge with consummate aplomb. I left feeling empowered with much food for thought... onwards and upwards!!"
"Brilliant 3 days at the farm with the team visiting and revisiting the nuts & bolts of running a real flower farming and artisan floristry business. Good pace, enormous amounts of practical information shared and the right amount of ‘doing’ to bring home key points on organisation & budgeting of both time and resources. Plenty of individual inspiration & support. Excellent number of students in group & what a lovely bunch! Delicious no faff lunches from a local farm shop. Not my first workshop and likely not my last."
Paying for a 3 day workshop:
Generally a place is only secured on one of our workshops when full payment is made, but we appreciate that for some people they may prefer to budget for this 3 day session. Therefore we are happy to arrange for you to pay by instalments if you prefer, as set out here:
- If you wish to book a 3 day workshop more than 3 months ahead of it taking place we are able to take a non refundable deposit of £300 at the time of booking. The next instalment of £300 will be payable 3 months prior to the workshop. The remainder of the workshop cost will be payable no later than one month prior to the workshop taking place.
- If you are booking a place within 3 months of the workshop taking place, an initial payment of £600 is required (£300 of this is a non refundable deposit). The final instalment of £300 is required 1 month from the date of the workshop.
If you would like to arrange to pay in instalments please email nicola@commonfarmflowers.com
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