Let The Hens Out With Me, Why Growing Cut Flowers Is Just A Tiny Part of the Business & Confidence-Boosting Tips
Hello and welcome to Friday 10 October 2025. Today's episode starts bright and early on the plot this morning as you're joining me letting the hens out and serving breakfasts. Great news - my poorly hen Mo has made an incredible recovery and has now rejoined the plot.In this episode I talk about my thoughts on confidence (or lack of) and how I really would benefit from having a life coach and a business coach on permanent speed-dial (hey, a girl can dream!). How do you manage your confidence levels? Finally I share 5 tips (and a great bonus one) for boosting confidence levels, including mastering growing one flower to perfection and surrounding yourself with people who will reflect your best self (e.g. by joining a hub or a local group of growers). If you're in need of a boost, I hope these are useful.I do hope you'll come back and join me for the next episode on Tuesday when I'll have more news. I really hope that you can join me.Connect with meIf you like what you hear, please follow/subscribe to this podcast so that you're the first to hear new episodes when they become available every Tuesday and Friday. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review because it really does help more cut flower-lovers like you find the podcast. Follow me on instagram @henhillcutflowers for a behind-the-scenes look at life on my cut flower plot.Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then.
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24:35
Perennial Plugs Start To Arrive, Laying Homemade Compost, and Flirting With Retail: Getting Brave
Hello and welcome to Tuesday 7 October 2025. Good news: my dog now has super sparkly white teeth and my very poorly hen, Mo, has made a miraculous recovery after surgery. What a relief.Lots of activity on the plot including spreading some of my black-gold compost onto the newly prepared beds (compost is one thing I am actually really good at making) and this homemade compost will really help improve the soil. I've been busy making a new path to run down the centre of the plot so I don't have to keep brushing past plants and knocking into flowers.The first part of my latest 2026 order has arrived! I've been planting the (massive) plugs out temporarily until I can get them a proper home on the plot this autumn. They look excellent so I have high hopes for them. Finally I'm pondering selling to retail in 2026: if you're a regular listener you'll know that I've avoided this so far but I'm not sure I can avoid it any longer. The plot has to make more money to be viable and I'm not sure that doing exclusively wholesale is going to work. I shall be pondering this for a while...Please come back and join me for the next episode on Friday when I'll have more news about what's happening on the cut flower plot. I really hope that you can join me.Connect with meIf you like what you hear, please follow/subscribe to this podcast so that you're the first to hear new episodes when they become available every Tuesday and Friday. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review because it really does help more cut flower-lovers like you find the podcast. Follow me on instagram @henhillcutflowers for a behind-the-scenes look at life on my cut flower plot.Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then.
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16:41
Perennials, Shrubs & Roses I've Just Bought for 2026: All The Details, Plus Lost Keys On The Plot
Hello. It's a rainy and windy Friday 3 October 2025. You're joining me from a car park outside my vet where I'm waiting for my dog's teeth to be cleaned and for my little hen, Mo, to have some surgery. This week the podcast is celebrating 10k downloads which is amazing and very surprising. Thank you if you have contributed to this number - you're very welcome at every episode.I've been super busy tidying and weeding on the plot and yesterday I had a massive drama when I managed to lose my house and car keys somewhere amongst the cut flowers. All the laughs about this in today's episode plus how the situation (eventually) got resolved. You may wonder how I will ever get this business off the ground after this story! The second part of the episode is the concluding part of last week's episode where I talk you through the plants I've just bought for 2026 and beyond: it's a detailed breakdown of what I've bought and why. Perhaps you're already growing some of these and you know what I have to look forward to?!?I hope you have a great weekend: please come back and join me for the next episode on Tuesday.Connect with meIf you like what you hear, please follow/subscribe to this podcast so that you're the first to hear new episodes when they become available every Tuesday and Friday. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review because it really does help more cut flower-lovers like you find the podcast. Follow me on instagram @henhillcutflowers for a behind-the-scenes look at life on my cut flower plot.Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then.
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Busy, Busy, Busy: The Studio Is Nearly Finished, The New Beds Are Nearly Ready & What I've Just Bought To Grow in 2026
Hello. It's Tuesday 30 September 2025. Welcome to the episode!Lots of activity on the plot to share with you: weeding beds 3 & 4, adding bark to bed 1, more cutting back and weeding, and mulching some of the perennials. Many of the zinnias have been cleared away because they've gone really mouldy, even though some of the flowers are ok.With some invaluable help I've finally finished my studio, aka 'Kylie's Room' and I'm really pleased with it. I now have lots of storage in the form of an old wardrobe and some chests of drawers, plus lots of hooks on the walls for all the dried flowers I've been collecting. I'm really looking forward to having a dedicated space for working in and hosting florists next year.I've been reflecting on my reconciliation report that I talked about in the last episode and I received an excellent question from a listener after the episode about what the findings might mean for what I grow next year, so I talk about this and what I decided (somewhat on the spur of the moment). I'll go into more details of what I've ordered in the next episode on Friday so I do hope that you'll join me for that.Connect with meIf you like what you hear, please follow/subscribe to this podcast so that you're the first to hear new episodes when they become available every Tuesday and Friday. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review because it really does help more cut flower-lovers like you find the podcast. Follow me on instagram @henhillcutflowers for a behind-the-scenes look at life on my cut flower plot.Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then.
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21:55
Number Crunching: Data Reconciliation Results Are Here, Most Profitable Cut Flowers Revealed & an Incredible (Improbable?) Net Profit Margin
Hello and welcome to tonight's episode on Friday 26 September 2025. It's spreadsheet time! I simply couldn't wait to do a reconciliation with all the data I've been collecting in 2025 so I've done an interim report this week and I'm excited to share my findings with you in this episode. I'm afraid I'm quite geeky so I took great pleasure in creating lots of tabs in my spreadsheets and then sorting all the data to work out my most profitable cut flowers. If you're interested in my findings then this is the episode for you!Other news from the plot includes another vet visit for one of the hens with tummy troubles, my soil blocker arrived (I can't wait to try it out and report back to you), plus bed prepping and seed harvesting continues. Hopefully the weather stays dry this weekend so more prep can be done for 2026. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!Please do join me for the next episode on either Tuesday or Friday every week and you're always very welcome. Connect with meIf you like what you hear, please follow/subscribe to this podcast so that you're the first to hear new episodes when they become available every Tuesday and Friday. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a minute to leave a review because it really does help more cut flower-lovers like you find the podcast. Follow me on instagram @henhillcutflowers for a behind-the-scenes look at life on my cut flower plot.Join me on my journey through a year of growing and selling cut flowers in England. I'm giving you the low-down on what it's really like, how I'm getting started, what you do and don't need, what I do when and why, the successes and failures, and just about everything in between. All in real time. With guest appearances from my chickens every now and then.
Join new cut flower grower Lydia for a behind-the-scenes look at how she's starting to grow and sell cut flowers in the south of England. Over the course of 2025 she'll be sharing everything she's doing to get her cut flower business up and running, from the planning stages all the way through to harvesting flowers, by way of highs and lows, hints and tips, lessons she's learning along the way (often the hard way) to the production and selling of beautiful cut flowers. If you're thinking of starting your own cut flower business or you'd just like the low-down on what it's really like, this is the podcast for you. Lydia talks very honestly about everything she's doing and she would love you to join her on this journey.Lydia is a professional gardener and garden consultant who is establishing a cut flower business in 2025. She records this bi-weekly podcast as well as writing monthly articles for The Country Smallholder magazine.Follow the Show & Stay Connected✅ Find Lydia on instagram @henhillcutflowers ✅ For more information visit her website www.lydiathegardener.co.uk ✅ Follow the podcast so that you don’t miss an episode✅ Please support the podcast by leaving a review or some kind words and consider sharing this podcast with someone who loves flowers - thank you.
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