Flower Farmer. Farmer Florist. Growers - what’s in a name?

Photo by Zoe Richardson on Unsplash

At Melbourne passport control last week, I got to the question on the immigration card that asked about my occupation. 

I've filled out a lot of those cards over the years. Manager. Consultant. Leadership coach. Flower grower. But this time, I paused - then wrote "Florist." 

For my business, The Pickery,  growing my own flowers is at the heart of what I do, but I can't grow enough flowers to make the kind of business I need to make a living. So I've been buying from other growers - beautiful, seasonal, locally grown flowers - and selling them alongside my own. 

I'm no longer a farmer who just sells her own flowers but a florist who sells farm-fresh flowers.

Owning the identity of a farmer florist isn’t just about what I call myself but was needed for our customers to recognise our distinctiveness as year-round flower sellers from the occasional flower vendors at our local farmers market.

We've talked about this before.

A few years ago we asked FBA members what they call themselves and published the answers. The list ran from "Cut Flower Grower" and "Regenerative Flower Farmer" all the way to "Stamen Shaman" and "Bloom Boss."

With so many perspectives, even the tongue-in-cheek fun ones, it highlighted that there was no single identity people gravitated towards. 

Unlike small-scale vegetable growers who associate themselves with shared identity as “market gardeners”, flower growers don’t yet have the equivalent yet. A term that carries professional standing, reflects the craft and art of our work, and importantly, provides our customers with identity they can associate with.

UK flower farmer, educator and author Georgie Newberry recently wrote about the tension between flower farming and gardening - between the scale and efficiency that profit requires, and the love of individual plants that brought most of us to this work. She openly embraces both identities and deliberately keeps her flower farming small.

Ultimately what you call yourself is a personal decision. Yet, as an industry there are tensions we must navigate between growing and productive gardening, farming and floristry, between small and micro scale businesses. These aren’t semantics - they reflect genuine gaps in our industry language that make it hard to operate confidently in the marketplace. 

There is nothing worse than being tongue-tied because you’re not quite sure how you should talk about yourself and your work. Unless we offer a clear identity to people they will make their own judgements - for example, florists have been known to use “backyard flower grower” as a derogatory term, as a less professional supplier than those that sell their flowers through the auction and wholesale systems.  

Similarly, people sometimes make a distinction between “commercial growers” and “flower farmers” with the implicit suggestion that flower farmers are hobbyists rather than professionals running a business.

Without a clear identity, we make it harder for customers to trust what we offer and for ourselves to hold our professional ground.

Other industries have been here before.

"Market gardener" wasn't handed to vegetable growers - it emerged from a community of producers who needed language that described their work accurately, and it stuck because it was useful and true. "Craft brewers" did the same thing. 

The term ‘flower farmer’ and 'farmer florist’ has garnered professional recognition from the slow flowers movement elsewhere in the world. It defines the artisanal nature of flower growing on a smaller scale and helped to create a distinctive category of flowers and floral business owners in the wider floral industry. 

Such terminology gave market gardeners, craft brewers and flower farmers mainstream recognition. Adopting such clear language came before recognition, not after.

At the moment it feels that small scale flower farmers in New Zealand and Australia are navigating a genuine identity gap - or simply we lack the shared language that would give us collective standing.

We could spend a great deal of time debating the merits of what are the right words to use. Finding the perfect name that reflects the diversity of our part of the industry. We could seek permission from other industry partners to use language that they are most comfortable in using. 

Or we could just get on with talking about our work. Choosing the identity that works best for you.

If your primary purpose as a business is growing then being known as a flower farmer or a flower grower could be a fit. You could add further definition e.g. regenerative or suburban that qualifies characteristics to your identity. 

For flower farmers and growers who offer a wider range of floristry services - farmer florist or simply florist - will give you the specificity you need. 

The important thing is that you claim the name that fits best and use it consistently and confidently. 

Such shared language gives us collective standing with our customers and colleagues. It helps them understand our work and lets us claim our role in the floral industry with greater confidence.

So if you had to pick one identity for yourself what would it be?

 Flower Farmer

 Flower Grower

 Farmer Florist

 Florist

None of these fit? - Tell us what does, and why, in the comments. Whatever you vote, we'd genuinely like to know why.

What does the term you chose actually mean for your business?

What does it make possible? What does it leave out?

If none of these fit - what's missing? 

What is it that you’re looking for in a name to feel confident in the floral industry?

Written by: Julie Treanor - Owner of The Pickery and co-creator of The Floral Business Activator.

Follow Julie on Instagram @thepickery