Open Flower Network
Starting Up and Scaling
The specialty cut flower sector in Canada is expanding rapidly, and a large portion of growers are just getting started in their journeys. If you’re still exploring the sector’s potential or are looking to take your business to the next level, you’re in good company!
Small-scale, early-stage flower farmers are often enthusiastic and optimistic about their futures, but they need the right guidance and resources to succeed. That’s why we’ve compiled a set of tools and information to help you transition from experimentation to long-term success.
Setting business goals
Running a successful flower farm isn’t just about growing beautiful flowers; it requires setting clear, achievable goals to drive your business forward. That’s where SMART goal setting comes in. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound–a framework that helps you articulate strong goals, stay focused, and track your progress. With the video and downloadable templates below, you can take the first steps towards setting—and achieving—effective goals for your business .
understanding flower pricing
Pricing is a crucial aspect of running any successful business. It’s also a tricky one for many flower farmers, who have told us they struggle to determine the right price for products. To give specialty cut flower growers an overview of the sector, and a starting point for their own pricing, we analyzed pricing information for 140 flower products sold through 7 online marketplaces (or ‘flower hubs’) on the OFN platform in 2024. We compiled this information into a downloadable spreadsheet that includes minimum, maximum and average prices. We can’t tell you what to charge. But this spreadsheet, accompanying video and blog post provide a structured way to start thinking about fair and competitive pricing for your business.
What’s inside
- Downloadable spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel format
- Pooled pricing data for 140 flower products with min, max and average prices
- Total and percentage sold for each product to see relative popularity
building sustainability and soil health
For many local specialty cut flower farmers, ecological growing practices are core to both their belief system and their business model. While the defiintion of ‘sustainable flowers’ is debatable, soil health, non-chemical weed management, and integrated pest management can be considered key elements.
This video and PDF series offers information and guidance to help flower growers build sustainable and earth-friendly businesses.
Join Theresa Schumilas of Garden Party Flower Farms as she discusses how to define sustainable flowers in an authentic way, and walks you through an audit of sustainable practices on her own farm.
reflecting on the season
A structured reflection on the past season can help you plan better for the following season, saving work, stress, and making your farm more profitable. In this presentation, Theresa walks you through a season end reflection and chats with other flower farmers about their successes, lessons learned, and changes they’re planning for the next year.
Expanding your knowledge
From books to podcasts to member associations, there are countless resources available for specialty cut flower farmers. So many it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. That’s why we’ve worked with experienced flower farmers to put together a list of some favourites. If you’re starting to build your own resource library, using the off-season to catch up on learning, or looking for a great gift for a fellow flower farmer (or yourself), start here! Watch our panel of experts in a light-hearted discussion of favourite resources, or download the pdf for the complete list.
Financial support was provided under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
