Ranunculus & Anemone
Beautiful early summer blooms
Ranunculus begin blooming late May on our flower farm.
The seasons are tipping from spring into summer (despite the continued frost advisories!) and our flowers are shifting too.
Our season began at a sprint with our first tulips blooming two weeks ahead of schedule. We harvested thousands of tulips in the cold, in the rain and in the hot sun. It was exhausting, but utterly rewarding. The first flowers of the season are magical and I am sad to see the tulips go (I have one bouquet on my table and I am soaking them up while they are still here!)
Now we are welcoming the next crops to the farm - ranunculus and anemone!
Ranunculus and anemone are ‘goldilocks’ crops. This means, they don’t like it too cold or too hot. They don’t want temperatures under 25 or over 65 - which is a hard ask even in Vermont!
We plan for these blooms back in October. We get local composted manure from a local oxen farm and add it to the soil. We then prepare the beds and lay the irrigation so it will be easy to water them come spring.
We start them from corms in January. We soaked the corms and pre-sprouted them in our cooler. After a few weeks, we planted them into our unheated tunnel. Since then we’ve been babying them as they grew and developed strong roots and healthy green growth. We cover them with layers of cozy frost cloth when it gets cold and uncover them when it gets too hot.
Our efforts have finally paid off and this week, we welcomed our first fluffy ranunculus blooms!
Harvesting these flowers is pure joy. The tunnel explodes into color - pinks, pastels, pinks, magenta - and when I harvest, it feels like I am in a beautiful fairly land.
Both ranunculus and anemone are long-lasting cut flowers - but ranunculus is the star of the show - often lasting well over a week in the vase. Anemone are close on their heels and stretch and grow beautifully over time.
It’s hard to choose a favorite between the two - but I am a little partial to anemone (gasp!) because I love the way they open during the day and close at night. They dance a little like tulips in the vase.
Ranunculus are hard to beat, though, with their petals that look like a chiffon ballet tutu. They are truly exquisite.
Remember at the start of this letter when I called these flowers a ‘goldilocks’ crop? That means that their happiest window to bloom is very short - just over 3 weeks usually. What that also means is that they are only available for a limited time. That’s the beauty of super fresh, local flowers. You embrace the best of the best while it’s here (like strawberries in June and tomatoes in August)
If you love these early summer beauties, you can find them at our Flower Stand or the Norwich Market over the next few weeks. We love to offer them as straight bunches, but it’s also super fun when we can start to mix them with other flowers (my all-time favorite combo is ranunculus + peonies a few weeks into June!)
We hope that you’ll stop by and scoop up a bunch of these stunning, long-lasting flowers and embrace the best the season has to offer!
With lots of fluffy, ruffly, flowery joy -
Heather
