People ask what a flower farmer actually does all day in June. The honest answer: everything, twice.
Four a.m. is the blackbird’s, not mine, but by five I’m cutting — sweet peas first, before the sun gets into them, then campanula and the first brave dahlias. Cutting before breakfast isn’t romance; it’s chemistry. Cool stems drink, warm stems faint.
The middle hours
Midday belongs to weeding, staking and the compost heap, the unphotographed hours that make the photographed ones possible. By six the buckets are sorted for tomorrow’s bouquets, and the watering cans come out for the seedlings.
Dusk is for walking the beds with tea, deciding nothing, noticing everything. It’s the best hour of the day and the only one with no jobs in it.