Simplifying Succession Planting for Cut Flowers
During the cold winter months, seed sowing is a great outlet and way for us to get our hands in some soil and see spouts of green against the bleak background. Then spring hits, and suddenly, the crops we sowed in winter are done blooming—gasp! We have a gap in our harvesting.
This is why more seasoned flower farmers succession sow varieties.
Succession planting seems more complicated than it is. Our aim today is to simplify this important step in crop planning!
By the end of this blog, you will better understand succession planting and its benefits, as well as how to plan, select, and create a simplified planting calendar.
Understanding Succession Planting
What is succession planting?
Succession planting is a sequence or chain of plantings, one after another, in appropriate intervals.
Benefits of succession planting
Succession planting provides a continuous harvest of crops all season long. Each variety of cut flowers has an optimal lifespan as production plants, and then they begin to tire or succumb to disease, pest pressure, smaller flower heads, and weak stems.
This technique will provide the most optimal and healthy crops to harvest by only having cut flowers in peak production. Even for smaller space growers, having crops at their peak will allow you to magnify the number of stems you sell.
Another huge benefit that has saved us time and time again is succession planting, which reduces the risk of crop failure. Crop failures happen to all of us: missed waterings, freezes, and nibbling critters happen. Succession sowing crops allows you to have backups in case an unfortunate event happens to your seedlings; in case that happens, you can replace the crops quickly without being set too far behind.
Types of Succession Planting
There are three types of succession planting; though we mainly practice the first type, there are times when the other two also come in handy, especially when working with minimal growing space:
1. Interval Planting
“Interval planting” is when we succession sows the same varieties of plants in staggered intervals. For example, starting our first sweet peas in January, followed by a second planting in February, is stagger planting.
The main intervals we use:
Cut and Come Again varieties: three to four-week intervals
Single Cut varieties: one to two-week intervals
Fall planting and spring planting: Fall planting cold-hardy crops give us a jumpstart on the growing season, and following it with an early winter planting allows us to extend the varieties by a few more weeks.
How often you seed sow will be determined not only by the plant's lifespan but also by the disease and insect pressure you have on your flower farm, along with whether or not you have the means to store cut flowers in a cooler.
With interval planting, we do not sow the same varieties for our growing season but sow the varieties to grow and bloom under their ideal conditions. Some varieties prefer cooler growing temperatures, and others need the summer heat to thrive.
For example, we start our poppies in the cooler months since they like warm, not hot, temperatures and are cold-hardy. Zinnias start in late spring since they are frost-sensitive and need summer heat. However, both poppies and zinnias come into peak production for about three to four weeks so that we will do interval plantings about three to four weeks apart.
That way, by the time the first round is not producing as quality, we can pull them from production in time for the next planting to be ready for harvest. This allows us to remove the finished plants and quickly replace them, keeping the rows at maximum production.
This is when our next method comes in.
2. Relay Planting
“Relay planting” is a strategic double planting where you plant a second crop as the first crop is just being finished harvesting or is on its way out.
With this type of succession planting, I would encourage being selective in which varieties to do this to avoid overcrowding and disease.
I have been using this technique more this season in our “wildflower” filler row. It allowed me to quickly plant my next varieties of filler flowers while I finish eeking the last couple weeks of harvesting from the first ones. For example, the Larkspur are still producing, but I also know they are quickly coming to their end, so I planted some Chinese-forget-me-nots with them. As I harvest from the Larkspur, the Chinese-forget-me-nots are getting nice and established.
This is nice for growers who have a partial row to replace or do not want to turn over a row completely.
Some crops that work well for relay planting are celosia, Agrostemma, baby’s breath, nigella, and violas—more shallow-rooted and smaller, one-cut varieties do well with relay planting. Try pairing together more drought-tolerant crops to ensure both plants have enough water.
This leads us to our last type of succession planting.
3. Interplanting
“Interplanting” is when you plant two crops together. It is similar to relay planting, but rather than having one crop mature followed by the second one, interplanted crops establish, grow, and mature together.
Interplanting is commonly used for companion planting and is often seen with vegetables and flowers paired together, such as interplanting French marigolds with tomatoes.
Interplanting can be a great technique for established perennial plants in the landscape, though we don’t typically practice it in our production rows since we plant intensely. However, some cut flowers can benefit others. For example, lavender helps repel aphids, and nasturtiums can act as a trap crop against unwanted hoverflies.
Now that you understand succession planting and its different types let’s get to the fun part: crop planning!
Planning Your Succession Planting
In order to stay up on succession plantings, you need a plan—a crop plan, that is. First things first, we need to know what we’re working with!
Assess Your Grow Space
When assessing your grow space, consider factors such as the land you have to grow in, shade/sun, and slopes. To learn more, read our blog on how to lay out your cut flower farm.
The great part about growing cut flowers is you can fit a lot of plants in a small amount of space. When we first started growing for production, we had 1500 square feet. We are currently working with about half an acre. How much land you want to put into production depends on how much time and labor you are willing to commit. I recommend starting with less than a 1/4 acre of annual cut flowers for first-year flower farmers, especially if using intensive production practices.
Once you have your growing beds figured out, it’s time to focus. It is important to evaluate your soil and microclimate.
Understanding your soil is also important; the first step is getting a soil test done. Home kits are available, but the best option is to go through a lab. We use A & L Western Lab or a lab through your local extension office. A successful flower farm starts with the soil. Depending on where you are starting from in terms of the soil condition, it may take a few seasons to get it suitable; it is important to know what you are starting with before you start amending, tilling, or installing irrigation. Soil tests are best done in the fall or spring. Most cut flowers thrive with well-draining soil.
Your USDA hardiness zone will tell you what you can overwinter in your climate, and your average frost dates will tell you the length of your season. Your average last (spring) frost date will tell you when to start seeds and plant your transplants. Your average first (fall) frost will tell you when to sow your last plantings and fall plant crops. To learn more about seed starting with frost dates, read our blog Demystifying When to Seed Start for the Flower Farmer.
Variety Selection
| LESS IS MORE |
Our cut flower season begins with fancy daffodils and ends with the last dahlias and zinnias in the fall. In between, we have a lot of fun varieties! Some we grow exclusively for our designs, and others we grow extras to offer wholesale.
Through trial and error, we have found which varieties are worth growing in our climate and which are not or are shelved until we have better infrastructure and systems in place.
For newer growers, simplicity is better. It is better to have more volume of a handful of varieties than a stem of many varieties here and there. This is a restraint I wish I had in the beginning. By lessening the number of varieties we grow, we can better focus on growing and delivering a better product without completely overwhelming ourselves.
Before jumping in and growing every pretty flower you adore, you will want to consider what flowers are currently popular and are in demand in your market. What colors are desirable? If you want to sell cut flowers to florists, they typically prefer more neutral colors and pastels, such as white and blush, over bright canary reds. If you are offering farmstand blooms, the colors might not matter as much. We tend to select colors and forms of flowers that aren’t readily sold in garden centers.
Start with a handful of varieties to grow for each month of the growing season. If you are looking to provide mixed bouquets or designs, choose one to two varieties of the following for each month to harvest:
To learn more about the different components of flowers, read our blog here.
| CHOOSE EASY-TO-GROW & AFFORDABLE VARIETIES |
You should also consider which varieties you can grow successfully with your means and skill level. For example, I would not recommend a grower working with square feet grow lisianthus since I consider them to be “bed hogs,” meaning they take up space all season long with limited production, are patient-trying to grow from seeds, and purchasing plugs is an expensive investment if you are unsure you can sell them profitably.
Varieties such as cosmos, zinnias, and branching sunflowers are quick growers and produce many stems! There are many budget-friendly varieties to grow from seed to choose from that also require less labor, making them more profitable! Remember, the more upfront cost you put into a crop, the harder it will be to turn a profit unless you have a steady sales outlet.
To learn more about some of our favorite seed-starting supplies and seed suppliers, we share all that in this blog.
Create a Planting Calendar
A planting calendar is also called a “master crop plan.” Each farmer has their approach and method to creating their crop plan. It can get more complex when you start growing cut flowers for target week dates. If you are looking to learn how to create a more specific crop plan, read our blog on how to do that here.
For newer growers, that complex crop plan can be puzzling. The good news is that you can start with a simpler, more broad, and easier-to-create planting calendar. Initially, mapping out your crop plan with pencil and paper can help you better grasp the concept.
| CUSTOMIZING YOUR PLANTING CALENDAR |
Select the varieties you want to grow.
Begin mapping out planting dates based on each variety's frost tolerance. You can find your frost date by following this link and inputting your zip code.
Figure out your first planting by counting back from the average frost date to determine the seed sow date based on the variety’s instructions on the seed packet. Then, count back one to two additional weeks to accommodate germination and transplant shock.
Plan successive plantings.
Psst… does all this seem a little confusing?
Download our FREE Succession Planting Guide & Weekly Calendar for Cut Flowers PDF to get you started!
| SIMPLIFYING THE PROCESS |
In conjunction with being selective on how many and which varieties of cut flowers to grow, here are some other ways to simplify succession planting for your flower farm:
Use Transplants and Direct Seeding
Transplants are a great way to get a head start on the season. For example, starting our zinnias in trays in early April allows us a six-week head start while we wait for our temperatures to be warm enough in the field for them. Transplants are also beneficial for starting fall planting; they can grow while awaiting their turn in the growing beds.
Some crops do best when direct sown, but direct sowing also saves time for the flower farmer. Fast-growing crops such as sunflowers are easy to direct-sow in prepared growing beds. Direct sowing also saves on labor since the less you need to fuss over a crop, the more profitable it becomes, and it also saves on seed-starting substrate and trays.
Especially for our heat-loving varieties, we prefer to mix out successions with transplants followed by direct sowings.
Plant Similar Varieties Together
Especially growers working with limited space to grow in, most likely you will be growing different varieties in a growing bed rather than having a dedicated row to one variety. We do this, especially with heavy producers of filler flowers that we don’t need as much volume from, such as bachelor buttons and ammi. When doing this, we try to grow varieties with a similar blooming window. This allows us to turn the row over for the next crops or to pull the spent plants and replant just in those spots in the growing bed.
When this doesn’t work out (aka when I get impatient), I’ll also utilize the relay planting method, planting varieties in with the ones that are finishing up. These are typically less sensitive, smaller varieties that can handle the competition. This is not a method I recommend for crops you depend on or are regularly harvesting from, such as ranunculus and dahlias.
| THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING YOUR HISTORICAL DATA |
For our flower farm, we have nearly a decade’s worth of experience to build our crop plan off of. We are accustomed to preparing for late spring frosts and early fall ones. We have learned the limitations of the many crops we grow in relation to our arid climate and big temperature fluctuations.
All this information isn’t readily available on Google. We learned all of this by taking notes on planting, weather (especially documenting frosts/freezes), and peak harvest times. If you’re not one for writing notes, even taking quick photos on your phone can act as an invaluable resource to look back on.
Take a Hard Look at Your Season
Towards the end of the season, after recuperating from the work of peak season and while the season’s occurrences are still fresh, we review the successes and challenges we faced. This is when we start selecting sales outlets and varieties and restructuring the needed areas.
Even if you are not ready to start a new crop plan, take notes to revisit during winter to readjust your crop plan.
Succession planting is invaluable for all flower farmers who want continuous blooms for their customers. Keep your crop plan simple and build upon it as you gain experience in flower farming over the seasons.
If you’re ready to dive into more advanced techniques of succession planting for your flower farm, read our blog here.
Until next time, we are looking forward to helping you hand blooms soon!
- Jessica & Graham
FAQs for Succession Planting of Cut Flowers
| Q |What is succession planting and why is it important for flower farming?
| A | Succession planting is a strategy growers use to ensure a continuous harvest throughout the growing season. This is an important practice for flower farming because it maximizes yield, optimizes space, and ensures a steady supply of fresh flowers.
| Q |How do I choose the right flowers for succession planting?
| A |Fast-growing annual flowers for cut flowers are usually suitable for interval planting. Growing cultivars with different bloom windows within a variety, such as with snapdragons, can also provide continuous blooms with one planting. Mixing spring cultivars and heat-loving ones will keep you harvesting all season long!
| Q |What are some common mistakes to avoid in succession planting?
| A |
Overcrowding plants
Not staggering planting dates at proper intervals
Ignoring soil health
Not taking notes of seed sowing dates, planting dates, weather and results to build historical data
| Q | How often should I plant new batches in succession planting?
| A |For interval planting, succession sow cut and come again varieties every 3-4 weeks and single cut varieties every 7-14 days.
| Q | How can I simplify the process of succession planting?
| A| Start with a few key varieties, use transplants for a head start, and take notes throughout the season to track progress and adjust your next season’s crop plan. Also, break down your interval planting into months rather than days or weeks.
| Q | Can I utilize succession planting in a small garden?
| A | Yes! In fact, succession planting techniques are highly beneficial to the small-scale flower farmer, maximizing production. To learn more, read our blog here.
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