When I first began selling the flowers I grow I used to be astonished by August. I’d be busily selling my flowers through spring and early summer: birthdays, weddings, parties, funerals… I wouldn't have to worry about selling tomorrow because I’d be so busy today. And then at midnight on 31st July something would happen. The phone would stop ringing. No emails pinged. Website visitor numbers plunged. The orders dried up. I used to wonder what I’d done wrong, how I could change my marketing to find those disappeared customers. Now I’ve learned to expect this quiet week or two at the beginning of August and make the most of the opportunity. This is the time to take a holiday if you’re a flower farmer. You can join the massed hoards travelling. Or just take the time to breathe. Water your seedlings. Harvest the diy wedding buckets which were ordered during the winter. Enjoy the quiet in the hot hours of the day when even the wood pigeons take a siesta.

This year we’ve had so much heat so early that the season feels almost autumnal: blackberries hang heavy in the hedgerows and I munch them as I march around the woods relishing their tart, just ripened flavour. There are plums so plentiful I must eat them quick before they break the branch on which they hang… perhaps jam making next week - imagine a blackberry and plum jam? My breakfast these days is made of figs and apples and blackberries and plums all from the garden - oh how happy my gut biome must be!

I’ve been carefully quiet for longer than this sudden muted calm. Each season I plan to slow down at the end of June. July is always mad busy with weddings, and to be fair this August is well booked up too. I stop teaching though, at the end of June. And I’ve stopped writing too. I’m giving my brain time to catch up with what we’ve done this year so far and now, the end of the first quiet, warm, sunny, fruitful week of August, now my brain is beginning to whirr again. It’s enjoyed the break.

At first my brain felt frazzled and exhausted and refused to stop whirring no matter how hard I tried to brake. And then a couple of weeks of just pleasure in getting a good day’s work done before a glass of wine in the evening, a visit from a friend, looking forward to a godson’s wedding. All good. Slow. Not so much thoughtful as actively thoughtless. And here I am now, in this muted week in August, and the rested brain is beginning to stir. I’m keeping it quiet for the moment. There’s time still before we launch ourselves into September. The stirring brain isn’t rushing into anything. It’s more yawning after a good sleep. It’s turning over for a bit more dozing in the sunshine. The wedding flower buckets are not onerous to harvest. Despite the heat we are lucky to grow on thick clay so I’ve not had to rush around panic watering. I can harvest, pause, wash buckets, listen to the Proms, harvest a bit more. Keep an eye on the biennial seedlings. Begin to clear annuals in a very relaxed way. There are three more weeks of August before we rev up into the busiest month of our growing flowers for sale year. I must make the most of them. I must get my training walks in. Drink coffee. Read books. Take one kid to the real life Proms. Not rush. I must relish the quiet time. I hope you do too.

Dates for your diary 

4th September - the Club live chat will be back on 4th September at 5pm, with a welcome back session. I’m finalising the list of live chats for the club, including some exciting guests and will publish that soon as I have it. I think we have ten live sessions scheduled for the autumn term and there will be three guests so do consider joining the club for all that it offers: around 30 live chats a year based around growing flowers for pleasure or profit, self care for small business owners and flower growers, running small businesses and we Clubbers do love a good book! During term time there’s plenty more written, recorded, and exclusive film content for club members here on Substack - all driven by this flower farmer’s actual year. And clubbers get a year round 10% discount on any website orders - so can easily pay for itself if you are doing demos and workshops with me. You can find out more and join the club here.

There will be club live chats throughout September (and beyond) so mark 11th, 18th, and 25th September in your diaries too. Full schedule to be confirmed shortly.

9th September - we have our dahlia hand tie demo (dahlias are heavy and sometimes difficult to use in floristry so it’s a useful demo if you love a dahlia but struggle to use them when you’ve cut them.)

13th September - I’ll be in Northumberland walking 26 miles in aid of Macmillan Cancer. Please do sponsor me here.

16th September - join me for our invaluable Pricing Cut Flowers for Sale workshop, which can easily pay for itself if you need help with charging a realistic price for your stems of flowers and foliage that you want to sell. This workshop is very much valued by flower farmers who have done it in the past:

“I attended Georgie's Pricing Cut Flowers To Sell workshop and can only say how fantastic it was. It really made me consider how to do flower farming profitably. Georgie has such a down to earth manner and a great way of stripping back a concept. Thank you Georgie for making a difference!”

“The Pricing your Flowers to Sell was so insightful. Completely turned what I thought I should be growing and how I should be selling on its head. A great course for anyone wondering whether they can actually make a go of selling cut flowers as a business or as a hobby.”

19th September - I’m giving talks and demos at the Yeo Valley Festival which should be fun.

23rd September - I’ll be sowing my sweet peas for spring 2026 around now so I always give a sweet pea sowing and growing demo at this time of year for anyone who’d like to grow for the first time, or have more success than they might have done before.

30th September - It’s a great time of year to hold a Foliage for Floristry demo so we schedule this session for the end of September to help inspire people to get creative with what’s in their garden, and consider ordering in a few new shrubs and trees to add to their collection to plant over the winter.

Enjoy the rest of the summer and hopefully I will see you somewhere online or in real life soon! Georgie x