Our Devon Flower Farm: The February edit of growing seasonal flowers from our garden at Holly Bee Flowers
Hello from Devon, and a flower farm that is mainly mud currently. Gosh what a tough start to the year for many reasons, but as the days start to get longer, it’s feeling so much more hopeful. There has even been a glimpse of sun this week… Sustainable, eco-friendly flowers take work and forward planning; lots of beautiful thing to grow and nurture! Here’s what’s going on this month.
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Pruning Roses- be tough, and they’ll reward you with beautiful blooms all summer long
Now that it’s not really, really cold, or really wet, we’re starting the task of pruning our many, many (200+) rose bushes.Big shout out to top pruner Bea, who has been doing an amazing job so far. As we grow them for cutting, we grow slightly differently compared to growing them in a border. They’re planted quite close together, and we prune hard once a year. We also, once pruned, mulch around their bases with well-rotted manure. Roses are hungry workers, so the manure helps feed them. It also helps suppress weeds- win, win. They are my favourite flower, I just adore them so much.
2. Planting our Ranunculus (finally)
Our main bulk of ranunculus crop gets planted now (much later than other people do). It works better for us, growing them outside where they can get maximum ventilation. Our first crop flower is anemones; we concentrate on these as our first flower, then moving onto ranunculus a little later. Having pre- spouted in January, they are now growing healthy strong roots, and begin to shoot. It’s always lovely to see, and planting in the soil again feels good- we know in a couple of months’ time we’ll have a month or so of flowers and constant picking.
3. Planting new shrubs- changes are afoot…
I’m fickle, my taste changes. Also, a load of broom shrubs gave up on life, so now we’re digging up old, not healthy shrubs and looking to replace in the next week or so. Top of my list are some more spireas, hydrangea and Amelanchier.
4. Planting another (our last of the year) crop of sweet peas
With our early flowering spring sweet peas sown in September and planted out in the polytunnel in January… It’s now time to sow our Spencer sweet peas. These are for flowering in June. I know people succession sow sweet peas after this time too, but this never works for me. It’s too hot, and I find the later you sow/ get flowers, the more prone they are to pest and disease. So I do my two sowings, one for the polytunnel, and one for outside. Then I say farewell to sweet peas for another year.
5. Creating some new no dig beds- super exciting for a soil geek like me
NEW PLANTING SPACE. We’ve been busy creating 3 new beds for lots of annuals this year and opdcndlvcbdflhvbdflkvb!!!!!! No dig is our favourite method of growing. It’s easy, and kindest to the soil. First a layer of cardboard, then manure, then compost and hey presto- new beds. I have my eye on them for stocks, poppies and lots and lots of celosia.
February has seen a shift, and it’s been pretty positive. With the news of weddings this year it’s time to look ahead, and make sure we’re stocked and ready this year for beautiful and unusual natural flowers, for lots of Devon weddings. Until then we’re upping our bouquet game and doing local deliveries (which looks like it’s here to stay), and just generally nurturing our space, and making sure this year is great, whatever happens.
Holly x
