Flower Nursery Design Ideas

Starting your own backyard flower nursery isn't too difficult. It doesn't take a full-time effort or months to do it. In fact, you can start a backyard flower nursery in just a month. Soon you can be growing flowers for profit. Here's how:

First, you'll need to buy the plants, seeds or bulbs of the flowers you'd like to grow. Remember to pick varieties that do well in your local climate. No need to stick to one group either. Try a few out, and see what works best. Some flowers grow better in different climates. It might take a little trial and error, but you'll soon figure out what flowers are the best to grow.

You'll want to get some plug trays. These are the easiest way to grow hundreds of flowers in a small space. Once the flower seedlings are ready, you pop them out of the tray and put them in the garden or pot.

If you don't have a greenhouse, you can build an indoor growing rack for under $200, which should have enough room to grow 600 plants. Buy a shelving unit (Costco and Home Depot should carry one of these) that has at least four shelves, is 4' across and 18" deep. Next, buy 48" shop lights with full -spectrum bulbs and hang them from the bottom of each shelf (except for the lowest shelf), so that the light is 6" above the shelf below it. You want your plants to get 16 hours of light a day.

Next, you'll want a healthy soil mix. Only use organic materials. Don't use a chemical fertilizer. It might be tempting, but trust me, stick to an organic fertilizer. Organic fertilizers will help your plants grow at a steady rate without a lot of stress. Also, be sure to use compost and cover crops. You can make compost yourself or buy from another composter.

You want to control weed growth too. Put some mulch in your garden. Or you can do what many commercial growers do, and that is to use a polypropylene weed barrier fabric, which has holes cut where the flowers are growing. This does cost more than mulch, but it can be used over and over again for several years.

You'll also want to stop any pest problems that could come your way. There are many different products available, such as pyrethrums, insecticidal soaps and "sticky traps." And don't forget about the damage that wind can do. If your flowers are particularly exposed, such as there isn't a building or trees nearby, consider planting some tall shrubs that can act as a windbreak.

If you get your plants growing healthy, you'll soon start to see results. Just remember this checklist of things your plants must have:

Healthy soil
Sun exposure
Protection from wind, weeds and pests

It seems no matter where you go now days you can't escape the fact that things are changing in the environment. A lot of people appear to be constantly talking about global warming and the damage we are doing to the world by driving our cars or leaving a light on for longer than needed. For the most part, I agree. I personally haven't done anywhere near enough research of my own to come to a solid conclusion on where I stand on the issue. I don't completely understand some of the terms bounded around, and beside, science thought the world was flat not that long ago so I don't want to rely to strongly on it. This is complicated more by the amount of theories about the causes of global warming that seem to rely on the earth being millions of years old, when I personally believe in a young earth, but that's a whole other story. My lack of knowledge put aside, I think anything 'greener' or 'pollution-free' or 'recyclable' has got to be a good thing.

I got my first part time job when I was 16 at a Flower Nursery about 8 miles from where I lived, a medium sized company that buy/sell flowers in all ways you can imagine located in Cornwall. I remember a year or so back mentioning global warming to them and the fact that some of their flowers were imported, via either aeroplane or ship, often from places like Holland. I couldn't understand all the reasons why.