Thanksgiving weekend and the first frost of the season spell the end for her roadside garden stand and flower gardens, but Christmas markets and wreath-making workshops will keep her busy until a well-earned post-Christmas break.

About 25 per cent of her total flower crop is grown and dried for late season markets and workshops.

“You will rarely see any straw flowers in summer bouquets because they’re all for drying. Similar with statice. If I have extra pink and purple statice you might see them in bouquets, but all the white or the peach colours, those will all be dried,” says Raney.

Poppy seed heads and eryngium are well suited for post-growing season decorating as well and Raney says she’s still experimenting with other late season blooms. For example, her garden turned out some very large marigold heads this year, so she will see how they take to the drying process.

By the end of August early blooms have already been harvested, so her fall flower bed makeover schedule can begin. 

Gardens get some TLC with a few loads of manure before the snow flies. Raney’s minimum tillage approach means that all leftover plants and plant parts are left to break down over the winter which helps retain the snow for early spring moisture. She’ll also add beneficial loads of biomass, such as fall leaves, from her yard.

She will till her gardens in the spring and if the weeds in a particular section turn out to be especially challenging, she might have to till a second time. She also plans to add an additional 1,200-square feet of flower beds to the existing 3,600 square feet. 

Any unmanageable garden space (due to soil quality) is put into a cover crop or becomes an expansion of the pumpkin crop. Since she has been struggling with sandy and low-quality soil for a few years she says that well-growing pumpkin plants indicate healthy soil.

“When my soil health is not good, the pumpkins don’t spread nearly as much as they should. This year I think our soil health is getting there,” says Raney.

And beyond finishing out this season, Raney is already preparing and making decisions for next spring.

By late August, she’s already purchased half her seed for the next growing season. Since she orders her seeds from the U. S., she is competing with their schedule.

“All of the Americans in the southern states, they’d be putting their cool flowers in the ground right now, and they would be starting those seeds. They’re buying all those seeds from the seed companies that I tend to use as well. When I’ve typically ordered seeds, say in December, they’re sold out of a lot of things,” says Raney.

Early fall is also when Raney picks up new perennial varieties. Garden phlox is her new favourite, and she’s already bought some irises, lilies and burnet from local flower farmers looking to downsize. She will also get some plants from a farmer who specializes in native species and drought-resistant flowers.

Raney has been an avid seed saver over the years, and she’s realized that some flowers grow differently the second time around. For example, seeds from saved marigolds have a different shaped bloom. She cares for flowers differently if they are being used for seed rather than grown for cut flower orders.

After 25 weddings and 15 markets throughout the busy season (mostly during the summer, but there are still a few later in the fall and early winter), Raney will take some well-earned vacation time while her garden rests under the snow.

She says that intentionally giving herself “space and grace” — a winter break from Christmas to mid-February — has been an important part of her business plan. The end of the season means another year of growing flowers on the Saskatchewan prairie has come full circle for Shifting Blooms. 

If you missed previous instalments in this Summer Series, catch up here: part one, part two, part three, part four.

The post Space and grace from season to season appeared first on Country Guide.

July sun beats down on Kristen Raney as she works in her Clavet, Sask., flower garden. 

Weeding and watering are constant this time of year and so, from June to August, this flower farmer, blogger and writer maintains a strict routine to keep up with the demands of weddings, artisanal markets and the farm stand at the end of her driveway.

Monday and Tuesday

First thing Monday mornings, Raney looks through orders and figures out which wholesale retailers she’ll need to contact to fill any missing flowers she doesn’t have growing or ready in her gardens.

For instance, Raney monitored her forget-me-nots for days, waiting for them to be ready for a wedding order — only for them to bloom two days after she needed them. “That happens,” she says, and her brides are aware that the flowers they want may not be ready in time. In this case, she was able to supply delphiniums from another grower to match the bride’s colour requirement.

“I’ll let them know ahead of time the likelihood that I think those flowers will be available, but I do state really clearly … as much as I show you what was available last year around this date, every year is slightly different.”

Raney picks up replacement orders on Tuesdays or Thursdays since Friday is when she prepares her orders for pick up.

Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesdays and Thursdays are reserved for cutting flowers. Some blooms, however, will not last if they are cut too early, because of the fragile nature of the blooms or because the blooms perform better when cut closer to the big day.

For example, Raney says that even though some of the forget-me-nots from the order mentioned above looked ready, they would have appeared “floppy” if cut too soon, so there was nothing she could do except wait for the best time to cut them.

She says pastels and softer hues have been big sellers this year. Three of her wedding clients chose all-white flowers and Raney’s white cosmos have been the most popular choice. While her cosmo patch is normally small, she decided to plant triple her usual amount and has benefitted from the decision.

“I’m selling (another florist) all my cosmos on Friday, because she also has an all-cosmo wedding, which is funny, because I predicted this last year. I just knew cosmos were going to be big.”

She has a helper and babysitter on Thursdays so she can take time to organize her orders. She does her best to spread out flowers across orders, so everyone has a chance at the most beautiful blooms from her selection.

DIY buckets — literally a bucket of flowers that bridal parties arrange themselves — have also been very popular this year. An order of 300 stems is enough for a small wedding to make bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids, boutonnieres and centerpieces.

Raney recommends three flowers per vase and two or three vases per table. A modest wedding size of 10 tables of three vases per table and centerpieces will use approximately 90 stems of a DIY bucket.

Small additions can make a huge difference to any arrangement. Marigolds are not a big seller for bridal bouquets, but Raney’s patch of Tangerine Dream gem marigolds has a pronounced citrus scent that is a welcome, if surprising, addition to many bouquets.

“Nobody actively wants marigolds, but you just sneak it in a bouquet, and then they (the brides) are like, ‘Oh, it smells so amazing’,” she says.

Given the state of the economy, Raney says that she and other florists have noticed a change in wedding orders. Her clients fit in with the DIY aesthetic, she says, but economics do play a role as well.

Friday

Depending on what flowers are still required, and what needs to be or can be harvested, Raney will go for one last “Hail Mary Friday” cut on Fridays. 

“There are so many times where I felt like, ‘Oh no, I just don’t have what I need’ … It’ll often end up being a bucket or two. Surprisingly, what I need is there.”

Friday is for flower arranging and when pick-ups occur, for her bridal clients and for the farm stand at the end of her drive. It’s also the day she films her “100 Days, 100 Bouquets” series for her social media channels which is a huge part of her marketing strategy. 

And after the work is done on Friday, she can take the weekend off before starting all over again on Monday.

If you missed the first two instalments of this series, you can read them here and here. Stay tuned for future instalments throughout the summer as we follow Raney on her business decision trail.

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