Allan Armitage collected comments from cut flower growers over the years and read them out, all anonymous, none of them softened. There is nothing easy about this business. You will work harder than ever before. Forget about taking a holiday, because you will always be needed on the farm.
The people who said those things are doing just fine, and that is his point. Armitage (Professor Emeritus of Horticulture, University of Georgia, author of 17 books) opens the 2026 Cut Flower Symposium with sixteen minutes on what flower farming actually asks of you and where to go for help. Start small and expand slowly, which he says he cannot overemphasize, because the growers who got into trouble started too big. Know the time constraints of whoever is helping, whether that is a spouse, a kid, a grandkid, or a grandmother on her hands and knees. Count on the heater failing on the coldest night and the plastic tunnels blowing away. Get to know your bank manager, because one of his growers put the payback at three years.
The second half is the resource tour: the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers and its listserv, seeds and plugs, equipment, farm visits, and Cut Flowers of the Year lists that run back to 2000 and come out of trials rather than somebody’s seed inventory. Books, an app, a sowing calendar, and one perennial walked entry by entry to show what a reference gives you. He closes on markets and on people.
Recorded July 23, 2026 at the second annual Cut Flower Symposium, hosted by the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture with the Georgia Green Industry Association. Segment 2 of 8. Runtime 16:37. CEU Categories: [PENDING].
Chapters
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
Questions Answered
What is the one thing he says he cannot overemphasize?
Start small and expand slowly. If one thing was true for everybody who talked to him, it was that some started too big and it got away from them very quickly.
How long before a flower farm makes money?
One of his growers told him at least three years, and that the money will likely go right back into the farm. Farming costs money: a greenhouse that stands up in winter, and the refrigerator every cut flower grower needs for flowers harvested but not yet delivered.
Which association does he tell serious growers to join?
The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he calls simply the best. Membership brings 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. Over 2,500 members, which is his answer to growers who feel like the only one in their area. He does not want to hear about the cost.
When do you cut yarrow, and what does it need over the winter?
Harvest when the pollen is visible. He calls that really important, because otherwise the stems have no shelf life. Yarrow also needs a cold treatment: you are not going to get it to grow unless you put the plants through the winter. Moonshine and Coronation Gold are among the selections he names.
When are the most profitable markets?
Early season and late season. The market is much less in the summertime, when summer flowers are everywhere. Before you plant a single plug or seed, do your homework and choose wisely, and talk to your farmer’s market, florist, or wholesaler way before you get into this thing too much.
Resources
Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, ascfg.org: listserv, seed and plug sources, farm visits, and Cut Flowers of the Year back to 2000
Armitage’s Great Garden Plants: phone app, $4.99, built for growers, gardeners, and landscapers
His 1993 cut flower reference, revised 2003: out of print, kept in print by him
Cut flower sowing calendar: about ten dollars, delivered to your email
His website, allanarmitage.net, with discount code walkabout for free shipping
Cut Flower Symposium · UGA Center for Urban Agriculture · Georgia Green Industry Association
Platform Note (not part of the pasted description)
Length. Everything from the opening line through the footer above measures 4,551 characters, inside YouTube’s roughly 5,000-character description field. Re-check the count after any edit.
All 14 chapter markers are kept. Each one was verified against a block start time in the corrected transcript at Stage 2, and the marker list is the reason a viewer can scrub a sixteen-minute talk to the yarrow entry or the association pitch. The budget was found in the prose and in the Q&A instead.
Seven of the twelve Q&A pairs were cut. Five carry over. What went, and why:
| Cut pair | Reason |
|---|---|
| What the working life is actually like | The grower comments are the lede. Running them again as a Q&A pair duplicates the top of the description. |
| Whose time constraints you plan around | Same ground as “start small,” which is the pair he himself calls the one thing he cannot overemphasize. |
| Which equipment failures he treats as certainties | Strong material, and the heater and the tunnels are already in the lede paragraph. |
| Is the cut flower business in trouble | The answer is a reply to Lanie Riner’s segment. Without segment 01 alongside it, the exchange loses its footing in a standalone description. |
| What is Cut Flowers of the Year | Folded into the association pair and the resource list, which is where a viewer would look for it. |
| What he says about GGIA | Attribution-sensitive, see below. Kept whole in the website version rather than shortened here. |
| Beyond the association, what reference tools | Split: the app, the 1993 reference, and the sowing calendar moved to the resource list; the author names stayed out. |
All twelve pairs are in the website version.
Block 148 governs attribution and the condensing did not disturb it. No association benefit is credited to GGIA anywhere in this file. The listserv, the seeds and plugs, the equipment, the farm visits, Cut Flowers of the Year, and the 2,500 members all sit under the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which Armitage names outright at 8:14. GGIA appears in one chapter title, built from the 1:43 passage where the referent is not in question. The audio sweep of 2026-08-08 confirmed that he did say GGIA at 8:04, so it is a slip of the tongue rather than an engine error, and the attribution above stands unchanged.
Both web addresses are printed. Armitage reads his own site aloud twice and the association’s once, and none of the three transcribed cleanly. All three were confirmed against the recording in the audio verification sweep of 2026-08-08: his site is allanarmitage.net and the association is ascfg.org. The discount code walkabout was stable across all three source transcriptions from the start. Nothing in this file now needs adding by hand before publishing.
Yarrow flower colour is left alone, and it turns out there was nothing to settle. He says at 12:00 that the yellow forms are much better 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 and two different selection subsets, so both statements are true. The condensed yarrow answer covers harvest timing and the cold requirement and does not touch colour, which leaves it correct either way.
Timestamp format is M:SS and MM:SS throughout, since the segment runs under an hour.