Primrose Creations | Flower Farm

As promised, I’m breaking down how I plan my gardens! I apply the same method to my vegetable garden but this can be applied to any farm planning. I do roughly 80% of it through my laptop and the remaining 20% in a notebook.

Preparing to plan

Before I plan where any plants are going, I take the time to either purchase or decide which seeds I need. I honestly purchase seeds based on what gets my attention rather than holding myself to certain amounts of certain varieties. Believe it or not, it makes the placement of each plant in the garden a lot easier.

I tend to use four notebooks and my laptop for planning. Each one serves a different purpose so I know exactly where to look for any information I may need.

• Monthly/Weekly/Daily Planner – I use this to schedule when seeds need to be started indoors, transplanted outside, or directly sown.
• General Notebook (Green) – I always have a generic notebook when I’m working on projects. It gives me a space to jot down any notes, tips, or reminders all in one place for quick reference
• Business Planning Notebook (Pink) – This one I use a bit less. I have it on hand just in case I have an epiphany of topics I’d like to cover on the blog, how I’d like to market my products, etc.
• Flower Info Notebook – This notebook is the holy grail of all things flowers that I currently own. In it, I have flowers that are best for cutting broken down into specific data points:
  • Seed starting process (direct, transplant, stratify, etc)
  • Plant spacing
  • Flowering period
  • Annual/Perennial
  • Single/Branching

I invested my time upfront into researching every single flower variety I was attracted to from several catalogs and wrote it in the important Blue notebook. From there, I narrowed down what I wanted to purchase (and from where). This research has made the rest of the planning process easier because I can get all of the information I need in one place rather than searching through different books and websites.

Planning design around plant spacing

After deciding which flowers to grow, each flower bed is designed based on the spacing requirements of each variety.

At first glance, this may look overwhelming but it’s actually quite the opposite. I use Excel for this part, but Google Sheets will work just as well. The smaller squares represent 6 square inches. The middle squares are 12 square inches, and the largest squares are 18 square inches. The colors represent the placement of each flower variety, allowing me to have a better visualization of what is being planted and where. Next comes the fun yet not-so-fun part! This next step isn’t completely necessary but I like the visual.

After figuring out how where flowers such as the Zinnia’s will be planted, I took images from the varieties and added them to each square. The reason I do this is to see how much of each color or each plant I plan on growing. It’s easier to make a change here rather than in the field!

Planning to succeed

Finally, I start at least double the number of seeds I’d need to account for poor germination and disease. The intention is to sell the remaining seedlings in the spring. I keep track of start dates, the number of seeds started, and potential sell-offs.

I am a firm believer in streamlining processes so there is zero guesswork. Some may call it OCD, I say I’m just a typical Taurus! So there you have it, my crazy organized way of planning our gardens. Don’t know where to begin your flower search? In need of inspiration? These posts have you covered:

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• Keep the growing season going by planting these flowers in August
• Planting these flowers in July is worth the investment. Learn why!
• Fall cutting garden: add these varieties for lasting color
• Annual Flowers to plant in June for a colorful summer and fall
• Flowers in Bloom: What Native Flowers to See In April
• Flowers for a colorful summer. Start these varieties in May