When I planted my row of Limelight hydrangeas, I thought I was being smart.

At an industry conference I’d attended the winter before, a speaker had said, “If I could do it all over again, I’d plant a whole row of Limelights — wedding florists can’t get enough of them.”

So I did. I skipped the baby shrubs and went straight for the mature ones — ten big, beautiful plants from a wholesale nursery. They were an investment, but it felt strategic, like the kind of bold, business-minded move a serious flower farmer would make.

Within a few seasons, that corner of my field was a wall of creamy-white blooms. They were beautiful. But they were also useless to my actual business.

*The Limelight hydrangeas at the north entrance to our farm are beautiful, but they serve as a painful reminder of one of my biggest flower farming mistakes.*

It was one of those “learn the hard way” moments every grower faces sooner or later — the moment when you realize that beautiful crops don’t automatically make a profitable business. That painful lesson eventually became the seed for something new: a framework I wish had existed when I started out.

That framework is called Choosing Successful Revenue Streams: The Flower Farmer’s Compass to Profitable Sales Channels — a complete system to help flower farmers identify the sales channels that truly fit their strengths, resources, and goals.

Here’s how a wall of Limelight hydrangeas became one of my most expensive teachers—and how it led to the creation of The Flower Farmer’s Compass to Profitable Sales Channels.

When the (Limelight) Blooms Don’t Pay the Bills

I’d assumed weddings would be my biggest source of revenue. But my reality was different. I had a demanding off-farm job and it limited my time for wedding work. I could only take on a handful of full-service wedding clients each season, which meant I could never reach the economies of scale that make event florals truly profitable.

And while I loved generating design ideas and then implementing them, I dreaded the administrative side of weddings: proposals, contracts, and payment schedules.

Meanwhile, my actual farming income was coming from farmers markets and subscription bouquets — and Limelight blooms were far too large for those. We sold some of the Limelight stems at the farmers market as singles, and trimmed others down to fit into mixed bouquets, but most of the flowers stayed on the plant. The space between them turned into a thistle nursery, and those weeds seemed to mock me every time I walked past the row.

While smaller side-shoots of Limelight hydrangeas find their way into some of our market bouquets (like those above), the large-scale blooms that the plant is best known for are far too big to be used in the mixed bouquets that became the staple of my business.

It’s a tough realization to come to — that something you thought was a smart, strategic move turns out to be a mismatch for the business you’re actually building.

And it’s exactly the kind of costly misstep that a thoughtful planning process can help you avoid. But when I was making decisions about whether to plant Limelights, and make all kinds of other investments, there weren’t any tools available.

So I decided to create one, because I knew it could help other flower farmers — or those hoping to become a flower farmer — avoid the high cost of getting it wrong. I know of far too many flower farmers these days who have quit because the reality of their farm didn’t align with their dreams or ambitions. To ensure we have more locally grown flowers going out into the world, we need to reverse this trend.

From Tech to Tulips: How My Other Career Planted the Seed

Before I was a full-time flower farmer, I spent more than two decades in the technology industry — part scientist, part strategist, always working to solve complex problems and turn big ideas into systems that actually work.

My day job taught me how to analyze patterns, build frameworks, and think in terms of both structure and outcomes. So when I started flower farming, that way of thinking came with me — even if I didn’t realize it right away.

In my corporate life, I had participated in countless SWOT analyses — those structured frameworks that help organizations assess their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats before making big decisions. When done well, those sessions could reveal insights that changed the course of a project — or even an entire company.

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SWOT analyses are a standard business practice, but even in the corporate context, doing them well requires experience and expert facilitation. Starting from a blank sheet of paper and trying to apply the methodology to flower farming can be especially daunting.

Flower farmers face the same challenge: we’re making big, high-stakes decisions about where to spend our time, energy, and money, but without the clarity or structure that the corporate world has easy access to.

We don’t have strategy teams or whiteboards. We have weather, weeds, and limited daylight.

And we’re not choosing between corporate initiatives; we’re choosing between farmers markets, wholesale accounts, subscriptions, workshops, weddings, and so on — decisions that determine not just our income, but the rhythm of our lives.

So I took the logic of the SWOT and reshaped it into something simple, practical, and relevant to our world — the Field Factors Self-Assessment. A way for farmers to take an honest inventory of their strengths, challenges, and resources — not in abstract terms, but in the context of what really determines success on a flower farm. That self-assessment is the foundation of The Revenue Streams Compass: The Flower Farmer’s Guide To Choosing Profitable Sales Channels

And this time, I wasn’t just the strategist — I was also the one doing the coding. (Painful, yes. But worth it.) Beneath the Compass’s friendly design is genuine analytical horsepower that quietly translates your inputs into clear insights — helping flower farmers see which revenue streams truly fit their strengths and resources.

When Dreams Meet Dirt

But there’s another side to the story — because the best business decisions for each of us aren’t just about constraints; they’re about our dreams, too.

So I created a second tool that complements the reality-check of the Field Factors Self-Assessment with a way to uncover your most important values, dreams, and non-negotiables related to your flower farming vision.

Together with a comprehensive guide to every flower farming revenue stream — 18 in total — these three tools became the foundation of the Revenue Streams Compass, an online course that helps flower farmers identify which revenue streams fit them best, so they can grow profitable, joyful, sustainable businesses.

The beauty of flower farming is that there’s no single right way to do it — but there is a right way for you ⬇️

Do It Differently Than I Did

If you’re just getting started, the Compass will help you plan with clarity.

If you’ve been at this for years and you’re feeling tired, spread thin, or unsure where to go, the Compass can help you figure out why — and what the fix might be.

Wherever you are in your flower farming journey, this tool was built for you. It helps you reconnect your vision, your resources, and your path forward — so the business you’re building finally feels like it fits your life.

Because my passion — the thing that keeps me doing this work — is seeing other flower farmers succeed.

That’s the only way we get more locally grown flowers into the world.