Why I’m Transitioning My Flower Farm
Over the last few seasons, I’ve found myself making a big shift in the way I grow and work with flowers. What began as a flower farm centred around fresh seasonal blooms and adding dried flowers to extend the season because that’s what we ‘should’ do as flower farmers, is now evolving into something a little different, a business that specialises in flowers that dry beautifully, allow my creativity to expand, and provide you the customer with beautiful everlasting joy from the flowers. It hasn’t been a decision I’ve made lightly, but it has been shaped by experience, necessity, and a growing love (maybe borderline obsession now) for what dried flowers can offer.
The truth is, Mother Nature has played a huge hand in this decision, and we all know we can’t argue with her curve balls each season. In recent years, growing flowers has become increasingly challenging and unpredictable for growers all across the world. In the UK droughts, extreme heatwaves, and unusual seasonal shifts (a frost in mid May excuse me 2026?) have had a real impact on what the farm can produce successfully and financial and emotional tolls on the Flower Farmer. Due to the heat and droughts flowers have been blooming weeks ahead of schedule, often on really short stems and with a much shorter bloom window. All creating their own challenges to work with.
Because of this there have been many, many times when I’ve had no choice but to buy in flowers from other growers just to fulfil large wedding orders and create the beautiful arrangements my couples deserve. While I’ve always been grateful to do whatever it takes, and grateful to the other growers, that approach eats into profits and adds stress to a part of the business that should feel joyful and sustainable. Growing and nurturing flowers from seed for a wedding to then not be able to use them for those weddings always feels rather rubbish, and is a huge loss in time and resources.
Moving into specialising in dried flowers feels like a natural answer for me. Instead of constantly battling the timing limitations of a fresh flower season that is becoming harder to predict, I can focus on growing varieties that dry well and hold their beauty long after harvest. Dried flowers bring longevity, flexibility, are dependable, create exciting design options (as we don’t need to worry about water), without the same extreme pressure around wilting, timing, and harvest windows, for weddings I can now dig into my dried flower stock and pull out the flowers I need for each wedding when the time comes, reducing the need to buy in extra stems from other growers hugely, and honestly reducing a huge amount of worry and stress of will they wont they flower at the right time.
One of the biggest joys in committing to this transition has been the creative freedom dried flowers give me. They allow me to use my creative mind and design pieces that simply aren’t possible in the same way with fresh flowers. I can create work that is more detailed, more lasting, and often more artistic, the kind of work that invites me to slow down and really play with texture, shape, colour and form. My flower frame designs have completely captured my heart, I’ve fallen in love with creating them, and they’ve quickly become one of the parts of my work that excites me the most, a design which customers seem to thankfully love too! Along with the new cake design I have been dabbling with, I’m excited to tweak this design and begin offering it to a wider audience!
I’ve also noticed a really positive shift in the way couples are viewing dried flowers for their weddings. More and more, they’re loving the idea of choosing flowers they can keep afterwards as a lasting reminder of such a special day. Once I’ve shown them just how beautifully dried flowers can be done, many have completely fallen in love with the idea. It feels so encouraging to see couples embrace something that is not only beautiful and unique, but also meaningful and lasting. Dried flowers seem to becoming an all year round choice for weddings now too, before focusing more on autumn and winter weddings or events couples getting married in the peak of summer are also considering them as they realise the chances of a heat wave for their wedding is increasingly likely as the years go on, and having dried flowers gives them one less thing to worry about if it ended up being scorching on their wedding day, dried flowers will look perfect for you all day long.
Originally my plan for this transition was to continue to offer fresh bouquets and weddings in july and august, when there is usually an abundance of flowers blooming at the field, however with three heat waves under our belts and it being only mid july and no rain forecast still for weeks I have decided to go full in and commit to focusing on dried. This weather sadly hasn’t given me the confidence or blooms that I would need to be able to successfully offer fresh too. If you are reading this as a couple of have a fresh wedding booked in with me, please don’t worry I have you covered and this transition won’t affect your flowers at all :).
What This Shift Will Make Possible
One of the biggest benefits of this transition is that it should give me more time to focus on my retail offerings and educational resources as in theory my growing season will be shorter, intense, but shorter.
In particular, I’m hoping to: restock my online shop more regularly, open an Etsy shop to reach a wider audience, develop downloadable tutorials, create my dried flower bible, bring back in-person workshops
Over the summer, I’ll be filming videos and taking photographs to create a beautiful guide to harvesting and drying flowers well. When I first shared the idea earlier this year, the response was fantastic, but I didn’t yet have the photos and videos needed to do it justice. I know learning to edit online tutorials will be a challenge for me, especially as I’m not naturally tech-savvy, but I’m excited to build those skills so I can share my knowledge and help others create beautiful dried flower pieces too.
Although this shift has come from very real challenges, it has also opened the door to something exciting. Transitioning my flower farm into a dried flower specialist business means working with the realities of the seasons instead of constantly pushing against them. dry spells are perfect for harvesting dried flowers daily, and thankfully a lot of flowers which make excellent dries are reasonably drought tolerant. It’s about building a business that feels more resilient, more creative, and more in tune with how I want to grow the field, the flowers and myself in the years ahead.
Most of all, it feels deeply aligned with my skills and the work I love most, dried flowers! I feel incredibly grateful that this path has become a viable option for me, and now that the doubt of if it is the right decision has lifted, I know in my heart it is the right decision for me, Wild at Dawn Flowers, and my customers. Whilst I’m a little sad to no longer offer gift bouquets to my lovely customers I am excited to `see what possibilities and opportunities arise.
Seeing where this re direction will take this little flowery business is both scary and wonderful, I recently attended the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026, after being asked to create my dried flower cake design for trade stand display there (I still can’t believe that I can say that!). Having never been to Chelsea before I fell in love with it, and it lit a fire within me to one day have my own trade stand there full of my dried flower creations !! It’s a big dream, but you never know !!
I hope this short, and likely a little babblings blog has explained my transition to you and that you will enjoy following along my little dried flower dream and see where it takes us :).
Wild at Dawn Flowers, Dried Flower Specialist (eek!!).
Farmer Florist,
Rose