Gabriela Salazar’s Cut Flower Garden in Valle de Bravo, Mexico: The Floral Designer Gives Us a Tour

Gabriela’s garden presently is 3/4 of an acre and it expands little by little. She started with a 1/3 of an acre (which was grass) and the landlord agreed to rent her more space over the time. Depending on the season, Gabriela grows mainly ranunculus and dahlias, but she also cultivates sweet peas, hellebores, poppies, phlox, cosmos, larkspur, and foxgloves. When dahlia season ends, she turns her attention to celosia and cosmos, and snapdragons and sunflowers, too. Gabriela has her eye on Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’, which she will try out soon.

Anyone who grows their own cut flowers knows just how rewarding, convenient, and cost-saving this process can be. On a practical level, Gabriela adds, “When you grow your own flowers you get to choose the best stage to cut them and you have flowers that actually last longer. You can also have curvy stems and not very standard stems. The flowers that you grow in the garden have more personality and so the arrangement will be more special.” On a more spiritual level, “growing flowers can really change the way you feel in life and can remind us that we are part of an amazing universe and an infinite intelligence that created all the beauty surrounding us to show us its love,” she says.

Of course successful home-grown flowers take experience, trial and error, and a bit of serendipity. For anyone who is intrigued about venturing into this self-sufficient world, Gabriela shares this tip: “Raised beds are always good, also amending the soil and having a drip irrigation system. But, more importantly, love and care for them every day. Flowers respond to our energy and care.”

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