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
CEU Categories: [PENDING]
About This Session
Armitage recorded his sixteen minutes from holiday in North Carolina with his camera off for most of it, and said yes to the invitation on the grounds that when people like Rich and Bethany are on your tail, you had better. He gave himself two jobs: say what the life of a cut flower grower actually is, and point the room at the resources that exist for it.
The first half is the unvarnished version. He reads a set of comments he collected from growers over the years, all kept anonymous, and none of them soften anything. There is nothing easy about this business. You will work harder than ever before. It is arduous work, long hours, times you want to throw the towel in, and forget about taking a holiday, because you will always be needed on the farm. Then the turn: those comments come from people who are doing just fine, thank you. He asks the veterans in the room to keep the comments handy for teaching others, because a grower who has been in the trenches is a teacher whether or not they signed up for it.
His own advice runs alongside the comments. Start small and expand slowly, which he says twice and calls the thing he cannot overemphasize, because the one pattern common to everybody who spoke with him was starting too big and having it get away from them quickly. Know your abilities and the time constraints of you and your staff, and he is blunt about who staff usually means: your husband or wife, your kid, your grandkids, or your grandmother on her hands and knees who cannot get up. The lovely patch of seedlings becomes a field, and it is easy to be overwhelmed. Learn equipment maintenance and structures, because it is a given that the heater will fail on the coldest night and the plastic tunnels will blow away, so know how to get the heater fixed and how to put the tunnels back. Get to know your bank manager, since farming costs money and you will likely be spending some quality time together. One of his growers put it at three years before you make any, and said the money will likely go right back into the farm.
He also answers the previous segment. Lanie Riner had talked about droughts taking a few growers out, and Armitage tells the room that cut flowers in America are doing just fine. There is a ton of cut flower growers, some in a backyard and some on 10 acres, and although a grower often feels like the only one in the area, they are not. He names the Three Porch Farm just outside Athens, Georgia as a place he visits.
The second half is the resource tour, and it is dense. He tells anybody serious about this to join the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he calls simply the best, and walks through what comes with it: useful material, listservs, sources for seeds and plugs, equipment, Cut Flowers of the Year, and farm visits, including one at the Three Porch Farm later on in the fall. Over 2,500 members, which is his evidence that a grower is not alone. The listserv is the piece he singles out. Post to ask who has some decent sunflowers or what the group recommends, and the answer is there. He does not want to hear about what it costs, because you are going to be investing money anyway.
Cut Flowers of the Year gets its own stretch. The lists run from 2026 back through 2000, they come out of trials rather than from somebody who happens to have seed for sale, and they are grouped as herbaceous, woody, bulb, and foliage. A geranium made the foliage category, he points out, because it is really a variegated foliage. He then names books by several authors, his own 1993 cut flower reference revised in 2003, out of print and expensive on Amazon and kept in print by him, an app called Armitage’s Great Garden Plants at $4.99 that he compares to the price of a bad hamburger, a newest book on specialty cut flowers written with a colleague, and a cut flower sowing calendar covering how and when to sow.
To show what a reference actually gives you, he walks a single perennial. Yarrow: harvest when the pollen is visible before cutting, which he calls really important because otherwise the stems have no shelf life. Useful selections including Moonshine and Coronation Gold. Spacing and the rest of it in the same entry. And the cold treatment, because you are not going to get yarrow to grow unless you put the plants through the winter. He built the book small and tough on purpose, something you throw in the back of your pickup.
He closes on the business. Your most profitable markets are early season and late season crops, because the market is much less in the summertime when everybody has summer flowers. There is no end to what can be grown and a finite number a grower can market, sell, and make a profit with, so do your homework before you plant a single plug or seed, then choose wisely. Talk to your farmer’s market, your florist, or your wholesaler way before you get into this thing too much. The last minute is not about plants at all. The plants are important and the information is valuable, he says, but it is really all about the people, and he names the staff, the family, and anybody else involved before handing the day back to the speakers who follow him.
Chapters (Video Timestamps)
0:00 Recorded Introduction: Allan Armitage
1:00 Opening Remarks from North Carolina
1:43 Lanie Riner, GGIA, and Showing Up
2:38 The Idyllic Life of Flower Farming
4:49 Anonymous Comments from Cut Flower Growers
6:09 Equipment, Structures, and Your Bank Manager
7:40 Where to Find Resources
8:14 The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers
9:47 Books, and the 1993 Cut Flower Reference
10:34 An App, and the Newest Book
11:27 Yarrow, One Reference Entry Walked Through
12:50 A Sowing Calendar, and What Comes Next
13:45 Do Your Homework Before You Plant
14:53 It Is All About the People
Fourteen markers across 16:37, about one every 71 seconds. The talk is denser than the usual one-marker-every-few-minutes rule fits, because the second half changes subject about once a minute. Markers sit on real transitions rather than on a clock.
Questions and Answers
Nobody asks Armitage a question on the recording. Every pair below is built from his own remarks.
Q: What does Armitage say the working life of a cut flower grower is actually like?
A: He reads comments he collected from growers over the years, kept anonymous. There is nothing easy about this business, you will work harder than ever before, it is arduous work with long hours and times you want to throw the towel in, and you should forget about taking a holiday because you will always be needed on the farm. He adds that these comments come from people who are doing just fine, and asks growers who have been in the trenches to use them when teaching others.
Q: What is the one piece of advice he says he cannot overemphasize?
A: Start small and expand slowly. He says that if there was one thing true for everybody who spoke to him, it was that some of them started too big and it got away from them very quickly. He repeats the point later in the talk when he tells growers they cannot grow everything.
Q: Whose time constraints does he say you have to plan around?
A: Your own and your staff’s, and he is direct about who staff usually means on a flower farm. It might be your husband or wife, your kid, your grandkids, or your grandmother on her hands and knees who cannot get up. The reason to know the constraints is that the lovely patch of seedlings you put out becomes a field, and it is easy to be overwhelmed.
Q: Which equipment failures does he treat as certainties rather than risks?
A: Two. It is a given that the heater will fail on the coldest night, and it is a given that the plastic tunnels will be blown away with the wind. That is why he tells growers to learn about equipment maintenance and structures. Make sure you know how to get the heater fixed and how to put the tunnels back in, because that is farming.
Q: Why does he tell growers to get to know their bank manager?
A: Because farming costs money and you will likely be spending some quality time together. He gives the examples of a greenhouse that actually stands up during the winter and the refrigerator every cut flower grower should have for flowers that are harvested but not yet delivered. One of his growers told him it takes at least three years before you actually make any money, and that money will likely go right back to the farm.
Q: Is the cut flower business in trouble?
A: He says it is not. Responding to Lanie Riner’s remarks about droughts taking a few growers out, he says cut flowers in America are doing just fine, thank you. There is a ton of cut flower growers, and although growers often feel like the only one in their area, they are not. He describes people doing this in a backyard and people doing it on 10 acres, and names the Three Porch Farm just outside Athens, Georgia as a place he visits.
Q: Which association does he tell serious growers to join, and what comes with membership?
A: The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he calls the best resource for serious growers and simply the best. He lists useful material, listservs, sources for seeds and plugs, equipment, Cut Flowers of the Year, and farm visits, with one at the Three Porch Farm later on in the fall. It has over 2,500 members, which is his point that a grower is not alone. The listserv is the part he singles out: post to ask who has some decent sunflowers, or what the group recommends, and the answer is there. He says he does not want to hear about how much it costs, because you are going to be investing money.
Q: What is Cut Flowers of the Year, and why does he say to trust it?
A: It is a set of annual selections that runs from 2026 back through 2025 and 2024 all the way to 2000. He says these are based on trials, not just somebody who happens to have some seed for sale. The selections are grouped as herbaceous, woody, bulb, and foliage, and he points out that a geranium made the foliage category because it is really a variegated foliage.
Q: What does he say about GGIA?
A: He backs Lanie Riner’s pitch. When Lanie says GGIA, he says, it is a fabulous organization, and he cannot imagine why a person in the industry would not be part of it. He calls it a no brainer and says it does not matter whether you are a cut flower grower or you have a greenhouse, just get there. He also says plainly that he is not making any money from recommending it.
Q: Beyond the association, what reference tools does he point growers to?
A: Books by several authors he names, his own cut flower reference from 1993 and revised in 2003, which is out of print, expensive on Amazon, and which he keeps in print himself; an app called Armitage’s Great Garden Plants at $4.99, which he compares to the price of a bad hamburger and says works for growers, gardeners, and landscapers alike; a newest book on specialty cut flowers written with a colleague; and a cut flower sowing calendar covering how and when to sow, sold for about ten dollars and delivered to your email.
Q: When should yarrow be harvested, and what does it need over the winter?
A: Harvest when the pollen is visible before cutting, which he calls really important because otherwise the stems have no shelf life. Yarrow also needs a cold treatment. You are not going to get yarrow to grow, he says, unless you put them through the winter. He names Moonshine and Coronation Gold among useful selections and says spacing and similar details are covered in the same reference.
Q: When are the most profitable markets, and what should a grower settle before planting?
A: Early season and late season crops are the most profitable, because the market is much less in the summertime when summer flowers are everywhere. Before planting a single plug or seed, do your homework and choose wisely, since there is no end to what can be grown but a finite number a grower can market, sell, and make a profit with. He also says to talk to your buyers first, whether that is a farmer’s market, a florist, or a wholesaler, way before you get into this thing too much.
Resources Named on Camera
- Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers,
ascfg.org. He names the organization at 8:14 and reads the address aloud at 8:55. Confirmed against the recording in the audio verification sweep of 2026-08-08. - Cut Flowers of the Year, annual trial-based selections from 2000 through 2026, in herbaceous, woody, bulb, and foliage categories.
- A farm visit at the Three Porch Farm, which he places later on in the fall.
- Books. He names four authors worth reading: John Dole, Lisa Mason-Ziegler, Lennie Larkin, and Lynn Byczynski. The last two did not transcribe reliably and were confirmed against the recording in the audio sweep of 2026-08-08.
- His 1993 cut flower reference, revised 2003. Out of print, available on Amazon at a price he calls very expensive, and kept in print by him.
- Armitage’s Great Garden Plants, a phone app at $4.99, built for cut flower growers, gardeners, and landscapers alike.
- A newest book on specialty cut flowers written with his colleague Kelly Garcia, whom he names again at 15:27 as the co-author.
- A cut flower sowing calendar, about ten dollars, delivered by email.
- His website,
allanarmitage.net, with the discount codewalkaboutfor free shipping. He reads the address aloud at 11:12 and again at 13:07. It transcribed four different ways and was confirmed against the recording in the audio sweep of 2026-08-08. - His email address, which he offers to the audience and does not speak on the recording.
Bethany Harris closes the segment by saying his website and the promo code walkabout were dropped into the chat.
Publication Notes
Two places where the transcript could not settle a question, both settled by the recording on 2026-08-08. Neither settlement changed a word of the page above.
At 8:04 Armitage says GGIA in a sentence whose following twenty blocks describe the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he names outright ten seconds later. The recording confirms he said GGIA, so it is a slip of the tongue rather than a transcription error. Every association benefit on this page belongs to the association he names, which is the same handling as before. The GGIA question above is built only on the passage at 1:43, where the referent is not in doubt.
On yarrow flower colour, he says at 12:00 that the yellow forms are much better than the coloured forms, then at 12:41 that the coloured ones down the bottom are some of the best for cuts. The recording shows two different slides and two different selection subsets, so both statements are true and there is no reversal. The yarrow answer above covers harvest timing and the cold requirement and leaves colour alone, which stays correct.
One line to read as expectation rather than record. At 13:18 Armitage previews what the rest of the day will cover: disease management, heat, drought, and lisianthus, with Katie named for the last one. The first three match the segments that followed. The lisianthus talk was not delivered by anyone at the symposium, so that line describes what Armitage expected of the day, not what happened.
All flagged terms are now resolved. Eighteen items in the corrected transcript were marked for audio verification when this page was built, most of them cultivar names, author names, and the two web addresses. All eighteen were closed against the recording on 2026-08-08 and removed from the transcript. No chapter title and no answer on this page was ever built on a flagged token, so nothing above needed rewriting. The resource list now prints the two addresses and the three names that were previously described rather than given.
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, 3,086 words), verified against Allan.mp4 at 997.418 s