What’s new for the 2025 season?
As Mark and I reflected on our first growing season, we can’t even express how much we’ve learned about growing flowers for their production value instead of to enhance the beauty of our own personal gardens. We were introduced to growing more plants, not just for their aesthetic nature, but also for their vase life, for our customers’ likes (and dislikes), for the USDA zone that we live in, for our type of soil…..the list is endless. We’ve also been introduced to new varieties of plants that we’d never heard of, let alone grown. So, this year, along with our tried and true stalwarts (dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers, ranunculus), we’re adding a lot of new types of flowers and greens to our farming repertoire. We’re excited to see what our customers think about these new varieties, and even more importantly, about what we’re able to grow and manage in our flower beds this year.
So, for 2025, we’re adding some fan favorites (tulips, anyone?), but also going to introduce a flower that takes an insane amount of patience to grow….the lisianthus, or lissie, for short. You’ll also see some new varieties of zinnias and we’re doubling the varieties we will plant in our beds this year, taking into account a lot of customer feedback on their favorite types and colors. We also gave up on a few plants we trialed last year, and that’s likely to be the case for us every year as we try and experiment with new things each year.
We’re also going to bring in some new varieties of chrysanthemums. These are NOT the same mums that we see each year at the local big box, do-it-yourself “hardware” stores that we frequent every weekend. These will look so completely different than what you’re used to that you’ll not even recognize that they are a mum! We can’t wait to see how well they grow in this Kansas clay and if we’re even able to overwinter them.
We’ve also got a dahlia tuber sale coming up that you won’t want to miss. If you want to try and grow the customer favorite “Kelvin Floodlight” dahlia that always got a lot of “ohhhhhs!” when people drove by the flower stand, you’ll have ample opportunity to grab a tuber in our online store when it opens. We’ll likely keep Kelvin around for all the years that Flowers in Summit is in business because I think it may have become synonymous with our brand the first year we were in operation. And, don’t worry….we’ll walk along with you as you try and grow Kelvin, or one of his other counterparts, in your own garden. Dahlias are surprising pretty easy to grow on a small scale and the reward when they bloom is so incredible. We definitely think you’ll agree! Pictured below, you’ll see a “Kelvin” bloom that really did grow to be the size of a dinnerplate. If you look closely, you’ll see that I set it on an all-white dinner plate for comparison.
So, if you’ve been with us from the beginning or you’ve just come along for the ride, you’re in for a treat at the flower stand in 2025. We think you’ll agree!