I can tell you from years of experience, fresh flowers sell for 3 times as much as drieds. I have been in the dried buisness for 10 years and fresh for 5. Fresh is the way to go. If you don't sell it fresh then dry it make arrangements, wreaths and shadow boxes. Good luck. Bryan

Thanks Bryan.....I have five 100ft raised beds ready to go when the snow melts. I'm thinking of 75% dried flowers and 25% cut variety. I figure what does not sell as cut, could be dried for arrangements. Interested in learning drying techniques and suppliers for everything. Thanks for your help.

Have you tried posting on the professonal gardener page?? There are quite a few in there who do EVERYTHING related to grass, flowers, shrubs, trees, you name it, someone knows how to do it. As for me I dry my lavender, chinese lanterns, roses, babys breath, and all my other drying ones on an indoor clothes rack, or set it in a sheltered area outside in summer. I find it easier to expect to sell 50% dried, and 50% fresh. I originally tried to sell more dried, but most went to compost pile. =(
Hope this helps.

Have you read, "The Flower Farmer"? It is a good book and covers some on drying.

Steph

thanks for the advice...can anyone tell me what the three or four most favorite dried flowers are? i'll be selling them in clusters as well as in bouquets. i'm growing about 20 varieties of flowers......don't know if thats too much to start.

Our customers go for statice, gomphrena (especially Strawberry Fields) and then mixed bouquets built around dried hollyhocks, pretty much in that order.

I think they go for the statice because they're used to it -- you see it a lot in grocery store bunches. They refer to the gomphrena as "clover."

Strawflowers -- helichrysums -- do well, also, usually bouquets of mixed colors.

These aren't necessarily our favorites, either to grow or aestheically. We love dried peonies, odd mixtures with baptisia pods, a lot of veronicas and veronicastrums, salvias and so on. These sell all right, too, and get a lot of attention, but you can probably get a good start with annual statice, helichrysums and gomphrenas, especially Gomphrena hageanna -- Straberry Fields and Carmine.