Webinar Date: July 23, 2026
Speaker: Allan Armitage, Professor Emeritus of Horticulture, University of Georgia
Recorded introduction: Narrated by Bethany Harris
Moderator: Bethany Harris
Duration: 16:37
Segment: 02 of 08, 8:45 slot
Series: Cut Flower Symposium
Credit at a Glance
| CEU Categories | [PENDING] |
| Live attendance | CEU was offered at the live symposium on July 23, 2026. |
| Archive viewing | No credit is attached to this recording. |
Read the pending status literally. The categories offered at the live symposium were never supplied to the archive team, so this file cannot tell an agent which Georgia applicator categories, if any, this segment would sit under. That is a missing input, not an oversight in the file, and it holds across every Cut Flower Symposium segment processed so far. If you need a category before using this with a licensed audience, ask the symposium organizers and the field gets back-filled here.
Plan on this being a non-applicator program. The Cut Flower Symposium is aimed at commercial and beginning cut flower growers, florists, and county agents rather than licensed pesticide applicators. Armitage names no pesticide, no active ingredient, and no control recommendation in these sixteen minutes. Even once the category field is filled, this particular segment is business and resource content, and it should be framed that way.
Who This Is For
Use this one with anybody who has told you they are thinking about growing flowers for market. It is the honest conversation before the enthusiasm, delivered by someone with the standing to give it: sixteen minutes of what the work actually costs, followed by where to go for help. Armitage reads comments he collected from growers over the years, all anonymous, and they do the discouraging for him, which is a far better instrument than an agent talking a new grower down.
It is equally useful with growers already two or three years in. The pattern he names, starting too big and having it get away from you quickly, is the one people recognize in themselves after the fact, and the resource half gives an established grower somewhere to go that is not a search engine.
At 16:37 it fits a meeting slot with time left for discussion, and it needs no prior session to make sense.
What the Session Covers
Armitage recorded from holiday in North Carolina with his camera off for most of it. He set himself two jobs: say what the life of a cut flower grower actually is, and point the room at the resources for it.
The first half is the working life. The anonymous comments run first: nothing easy about this business, you will work harder than ever before, arduous work and long hours and times you want to throw the towel in, and forget about a holiday because you will always be needed on the farm. He follows them with the correction that matters, which is that those growers are doing just fine. His own advice sits alongside. Start small and expand slowly, the thing he says he cannot overemphasize. Know the time constraints of you and your staff, and he is blunt that staff on a flower farm usually means a spouse, a kid, a grandkid, or a grandmother on her hands and knees. Learn equipment maintenance and structures, because the heater failing on the coldest night and the tunnels blowing away are givens rather than risks. Get to know your bank manager, since a greenhouse that stands up in winter and a refrigerator for harvested flowers both cost money, and one of his growers put the payback at three years.
He also replies to the segment before his. Lanie Riner had mentioned droughts taking a few growers out, and Armitage tells the room that cut flowers in America are doing just fine, that there is a ton of growers working anywhere from a backyard to 10 acres, and that a grower who feels like the only one in the area is not.
The second half is a resource tour with about twenty named items. The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers and what membership brings: useful material, listservs, seed and plug sources, equipment, Cut Flowers of the Year, farm visits including one at the Three Porch Farm in the fall, and over 2,500 members. Cut Flowers of the Year lists back to 2000, built from trials rather than from somebody’s seed inventory, in herbaceous, woody, bulb, and foliage groups. Books by several authors, his own 1993 cut flower reference revised in 2003, an app at $4.99, a newest book with a colleague, and a cut flower sowing calendar. He walks yarrow entry by entry to show what a reference gives you, then closes on markets, on doing your homework before planting a single plug, and on people rather than plants.
Viewing Notes for Asynchronous Use
- Total runtime is 16:37 and it splits at 7:40. Everything before that is the working life of a flower farmer. Everything after is the resource tour. The two halves stand alone and can be shown separately.
- The recorded introduction plays twice. Blocks 1 through 12 of the transcript carry the same 30-second bio, once from the top and once from 0:30. Armitage’s own content starts at 1:00. Warn a room, or start playback at 1:00.
- His camera is off for most of the segment. The audio carries the talk and there are slides, but do not expect a talking head. It plays fine as audio in a vehicle.
- For a first meeting with a prospective grower, use 2:38 to 7:40. Five minutes: the anonymous comments, start small, the time constraints of your staff, the heater and the tunnels, and the bank manager. It is the strongest single stretch in the segment for that audience.
- For a grower who wants somewhere to go next, use 7:40 to 12:50. The association, the listserv, Cut Flowers of the Year, the books, and the app.
- For a business-planning session, use 13:45 to 14:53. Early and late season crops as the profitable markets, the finite number of crops a grower can actually sell, do your homework before planting a single plug, and talk to your farmer’s market, florist, or wholesaler first.
- There is no live Q&A on the recording. Nobody asks Armitage a question. Bethany Harris closes by noting that his website and the promo code were posted in the chat. Budget your own discussion time accordingly.
- The full chapter list and all twelve questions and answers are in the website archive version for this segment.
Pull These for Discussion
- “Start small and expand slowly.” He says he cannot overemphasize it, and gives the reason: the one thing true for everybody who talked to him was that some started too big and it got away from them very quickly. The single most useful line for a beginning grower.
- Your staff is your family. A husband or wife, a kid, grandkids, or a grandmother on her hands and knees who cannot get up. Knowing their time constraints is the point, because the lovely patch of seedlings becomes a field.
- The heater and the tunnels are givens, not risks. It is a given that the heater fails on the coldest night and a given that the plastic tunnels blow away. Learn how to fix one and how to put the other back. Good opener for a structures or maintenance conversation.
- Three years before you make any money. One of his growers told him that, and that the money will likely go right back into the farm. Pair it with the greenhouse and the refrigerator as the two capital items he names.
- Over 2,500 members, so you are not alone. The membership count is his answer to the grower who feels like the only one in the county. The listserv is the piece he singles out: ask who has decent sunflowers, and the answer is there.
- Cut Flowers of the Year comes from trials. Not from somebody who happens to have seed for sale. That distinction is worth making to any grower choosing cultivars from a catalog.
- Harvest yarrow when the pollen is visible. Otherwise the stems have no shelf life. He also says yarrow needs a cold treatment, since it will not grow unless you put the plants through the winter. The one concrete production item in the segment.
- Early and late season are the profitable markets. The market is much less in the summertime, when everybody has summer flowers. Follow it with his instruction to talk to buyers way before you get into this thing too much.
- “It’s really all about the people.” His closing minute is about staff, family, and the people who support a grower, not about plants. It works as the takeaway slide for a general audience.
Resources to Share
- Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers,
ascfg.org. Listservs, seed and plug sources, equipment, farm visits, and Cut Flowers of the Year. Armitage reads the address aloud at 8:55. It did not transcribe cleanly and was confirmed against the recording in the audio verification sweep of 2026-08-08, so it is safe for a handout. - Cut Flowers of the Year, 2000 through 2026, grouped as herbaceous, woody, bulb, and foliage.
- A farm visit at the Three Porch Farm, which he places later on in the fall.
- Books. Four authors on one slide: John Dole, Lisa Mason-Ziegler, Lennie Larkin, and Lynn Byczynski. The last two did not transcribe reliably and were confirmed against the recording on 2026-08-08.
- His 1993 cut flower reference, revised 2003. Out of print, expensive on Amazon, kept in print by him.
- Armitage’s Great Garden Plants, a phone app at $4.99, built for growers, gardeners, and landscapers.
- A cut flower sowing calendar, about ten dollars, delivered by email.
- His website,
allanarmitage.net, with the discount codewalkaboutfor free shipping. The code was stable across all three source transcriptions and the address was confirmed against the recording on 2026-08-08. Bethany Harris posted both in the live chat.
Two Things Once Not to Assert, Both Now Settled
Association benefits belong to the association he names, and this is now confirmed rather than assumed. At 8:04 Armitage says GGIA in a sentence whose surrounding content describes the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he names ten seconds later. The audio sweep of 2026-08-08 confirms he did say GGIA, so it is a slip of the tongue by the speaker. The guidance is unchanged: if you are describing membership benefits to a group, credit the association he names at 8:14. His GGIA remarks at 1:43 are separate and unambiguous, and he is enthusiastic about it there.
Yarrow flower colour is settled, and both halves are true. He says at 12:00 that the yellow forms are much better than the coloured ones and at 12:41 that the coloured ones are some of the best for cuts. The audio sweep of 2026-08-08 watched both passes: two different slides, two different selection subsets, no reversal. You can use either statement, as long as you say which selections he was looking at.
Processed for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / Cut Flower Symposium Archives
Source: Stage 2 Archive Package, GTBOP_Archive_Summary_2026-07-23_ArmitageCutFlowerIntro.md
Chain of custody: corrected SRT (Stage 1), GTBOP_Transcript_2026-07-23_ArmitageCutFlowerIntro.srt (333 blocks), verified against Allan.mp4 at 997.418 s