The Cut Flower Handbook: Select, Plant, Grow, and Harvest Gorgeous Blooms

by Lisa Mason Ziegler, 240 pages, 8x10, hardcover. This book is for anyone who wants to grow cutflowers, whether your arrangements are for pleasure, for profit, or both. With decades of experience as a flower farmer and teacher, Zeigler is as efficient with words as she is with her farm tasks. Her book establishes key principles in simple terms and provides quick references for starting seeds, transplanting, maintenance and harvest. You’ll find profiles of more than 50 types of cutflowers, with specific tips from variety selection to conditioning after harvest, and photos showing each flower at ideal harvest stage. Though based in Virginia, Ziegler’s concepts will translate to other growing conditions. In her own words, “My strongest gifts are teaching and encouraging others, particularly those who think they can’t do it or that it is out of their reach.” At least two flower farmers on the Fedco staff have learned from her online courses. -RS