It’s the time of year when seed and bulb catalogues are dropping through our postboxes. This photo of catalogues taken just before Christmas is now out of date as the new ones stack up. But as flower farmers and florists how should we be choosing what we grow?

Is what we like a good enough reason?

It’s probably a good place to start, but if we don’t take into account

our customers
our soil and situation
and how profitable we can be growing each item

then we’re not flower farmers, we’re just gardeners.