🌷 The Super Bowl of Flower Farming: Behind the Scenes of Mother's Day + Tulip Talk
🌷 The Super Bowl of Flower Farming: Behind the Scenes of Mother's Day + Tulip Talk
If you've ever wondered what it’s like to be a flower farmer in April/May, imagine this: tulips that don’t wait for your schedule, sunrise harvests, late-night bouquet-making in the basement, coordinating CSA deliveries, keeping seedlings alive, prepping the beds for summer annuals—and all while managing a toddler, a blended family calendar, and oh yeah… fighting off a sinus infection for over a month.
Mother’s Day isn’t just a holiday—it’s the Super Bowl of flower farming. And let me tell you, it’s no joke.
🌸 It’s Been a Whirlwind
From harvesting tulips 2–4 times a day (they open FAST), to washing, wrapping, and storing them in the cooler… from seeding and hardening off our summer blooms, to planting out thousands of seedlings, plugs, and hundreds of ranunculus, to weeding, watering, prepping soil, building raised beds, planting 20+ new roses, and assembling orders for our CSA subscribers—this season has been an all-out sprint.
The days start at sunrise and often don’t end until dusk… after a full workday, parenting, and a few minutes of “basement time” to wrap tulips and prep inventory. It’s labor-intensive, yes—but it’s also full of love.
And now, I’m so excited to invite you to our Mother’s Day Pop-Up Event, where you’ll get to enjoy the literal fruits (flowers!) of all that behind-the-scenes labor.
🌼 Mother’s Day Pop-Up Event Details
At Bedes Blooms, Mother's Day is one of our favorite times of the year. The spring flowers are singing, the fields are bursting with color, and we get the joy of sharing all that beauty with you—and the special mothers in your life.
This year, our pre-orders have officially SOLD OUT (thank you!), but don’t worry—we’re not done celebrating. Join us for our Mother’s Day Pop-Up Event, where we’ll have a beautiful selection of locally-grown, hand-crafted floral gifts ready to grab and go.
🌷 Wrapped tulip + spring mixed bouquets in various sizes and price points
🏺 Bud vases and mason jar arrangements (ready to gift!)
🧼 Small-batch botanical soaps
🌸 Handmade floral frogs for arranging at home
🌿 Bloom Bath Teas (a relaxing, herbal floral soak!) made with our very own dried botanicals
💐 A curated selection of floral gifts, ready to celebrate someone special
📍 Location: Centennial Farm Antiques 4410 W. Howe Rd., DeWitt, MI 48820
🕒 Date + Time: Saturday, May 10th & Sunday, May 11th, 2025 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
💳 Payments Accepted: Venmo, Cash App, cash, or credit card
🌷 Let's Talk Tulips
Tulips are magical—and extremely misunderstood. Most people know them as cheerful landscape flowers that return every spring. But here’s the reality for flower farmers: tulips are a one-and-done crop.
⚠️ Wait… You Don’t Replant the Bulbs?
Nope. When I harvest tulips, I pull them with the bulb attached—that’s how we get the longest, cleanest stem possible for arranging. My sister (a talented designer who does all my branding—huge shoutout to Mandee Maroulitsas Design!) was visiting recently and asked:
“But you replant those bulbs after, right?”
It made me realize how little-known this fact is. The answer is no—those bulbs go in the compost.
Here’s why:
In a landscape bed, tulips stay put. The leaves gather energy after blooming and recharge the bulb for next year.
On a flower farm, we harvest every single stem, taking the flower, stem, and leaves—the plant's entire energy source. That bulb can’t recover or regenerate.
For quality and consistency, we plant new bulbs every fall. Every. Single. Year.
Yes, it’s controversial (and expensive), but it’s the only way to produce reliable, healthy blooms that customers can count on.
Tulips post harvest — sorted, inventoried and then wrapped in butcher paper to be stored in the cooler
🌱 Why We Pull the Whole Bulb
🌿 For Stem Length: Pulling the bulb gives us the longest stems possible—especially important for peony tulips, which naturally have shorter stems.
🧊 For Storage: Tulips store beautifully in a cooler (35–38°F) for weeks if the bulb is attached. We rinse the bulbs, wrap the flowers in butcher paper, and store them until we’re ready to arrange.
🌷 For Quality: We only source our bulbs from trusted, high-reputation growers. Cheap, big-box bulbs? No thanks. They often carry diseases that can wreck your soil for up to 5 years. Tulip fire, fusarium, basal rot… these are real risks.
I even placed my 2026 bulb order this past April—before this year’s tulips had even bloomed. That’s how far in advance we plan. It’s a major financial investment, and yet even with careful planning, we had beds where hundreds of bulbs produced no blooms. This wasn’t a disease issue—it was a production failure from last year’s crop, which growers are still recovering from.
🌍 The Bottom Line: It’s Hard Work… and It’s Worth It
Tulips are fussy, high-maintenance, and risky. They require significant labor and upfront cost with no guarantees. But when they bloom? They stop you in your tracks.
They’re fleeting, and maybe that’s part of their magic.
So when you grab a bouquet from us this Mother’s Day, know that you’re holding something incredibly special—grown with intention, harvested with care, and rooted in love.
Thank you for being part of our journey. Your support—whether it’s a kind word, a comment, a message, or a purchase—truly means the world to us. We’re so grateful to have you along for the ride.
We can’t wait to see you at the pop-up!
—
With gratitude and flowers,
Alex
Farmer-Florist, Bede’s Blooms & Co.
🙌 Special Thanks to Mandee Maroulitsas Design
All of the branding you see at Bede’s Blooms—from our logo to our beautiful signage—is the work of my incredibly talented sister, Mandee Maroulitsas. She’s a graphic designer and brand manager with a real gift for bringing your business identity to life visually. If you’re a small business owner in need of a branding refresh, logo, or complete identity kit, I highly recommend her work.
