One of the trickiest things to learn as a flower farmer is knowing the harvest stage for cut flowers.  Which, in my opinion, is different then knowing at what stage to sell to your customer.

For designers and florists who do more event work, they typically want a flower that will be will be fully open day of event.  This means you need to know how long it takes from harvest to their event date for that.  Some flowers could take a while to open like a sunflower or liatris (star blazer) because we typically cut them when the petals/florets are just starting to open.  But we also know heat can make them open faster.  But your designer/florist is working in A/C and then puts their arrangements in a cooler until day of event.  They usually want to have everything done the day before, having worked on it for 3-4 days before.

Harvest stage for cut flowers for someone wanting a farmer’s market bouquet is definitely at its earliest stage possible, giving the customer the most amount of vase life in their home.  One of the challenges with this is if your bouquet is full of flowers that are harvested when barely open, the customer tends to pass it up.  I like to include enough flowers that are cut at the fully open stage with these.

Locally grown!

Locally grown flowers may be processed different than flowers that are flown in (about 80% by the way!).  Many designers and florists haven’t designed with locally grown flowers because of the way the industry is set up.  However, Covid helped change some of that.  When most of the import/export of containers was shut down, florists had to find locally grown flowers for their events.  Locally grown flower farms exploded after that.

Flower farmers can learn the harvest stage for cut flowers and then also educate their customers on usability/vase life.  Below is a list I created, along with some photos, of most cut flowers.  It’s not an exhaustive list, but a good start.

Distribution or re-use of this article is welcomed. Please acknowledge the author and source: Ingadi Flower Farm – https://ingadiflowerfarm.com/harvest-stage-for-cut-flowers/