Growing flowers to sell at the local Farmer's market started out as a part-time hobby for Linda Tobey. In just four years, her hobby has blossomed into a full-time summer business, with one helper and an acre of flowers in her town's first U-Pick flower patch. Linda grows lilies, daisies, zinnias, static, snapdragons, salvia, dahlias and cosmos for sale.

According to Linda, "Flowers are a perfect cash crop, because they are easy to grow, produce quickly, and supply an income throughout the season. In addition, the startup costs can be low, because you only have to buy seeds and supply labor."

Her advice to would-be flower growers, " Plan your garden for sales. Make it easy for your customers to cut their own flowers, and they will come back often. Keep prices reasonable. For every plant in the garden, we try for a yield of two dollars per square foot."

Virginia flower grower Lisa Ziegler sells her flowers at a local Farmer's Market, where her sunflower and hydrangea blossoms bring as much as five dollars a stem! Lisa sticks to proven cut flower varieties, such as snapdragons, larkspur, peonies, sunflowers and zinnias. During the growing season, through October, she sells three or four thousand stems each week. Says Lisa, "For those who love being in the garden and watching the flowers grow, there is nothing else like my business."

Californian Sally Gardner may have created the ultimate floral business. She works one day a week, every flower is pre-sold, and her business will take in about one-half million dollars each year from her unique idea. There's room for a similar flower business in almost every town, large or small, suppying fresh cut flowers to offices and homes. You can learn all about this fascinating business in our new guide.

Dried flowers, also called "everlastings" because of their lifespan, are an ideal crop for the backyard grower. As a group, everlastings are a forgiving lot, easy to grow and easy to dry. Once the flowers are dried, they will keep indefinitely, unlike fresh-cut flowers.

According to growers, you can expect a return of as much as $8 per square foot from everlastings. One Illinois grower is putting her kids through college with a quarter-acre backyard full or artemesia, baby's breath, celosia, statice and strawflowers. She reports great success selling to craft shops, antique shops, and selling dried flower arrangements to flower shops and restaurants.

If you love to grow plants, and wondered how to turn your green thumb into a spare-time income, flower growing could be just the ticket for you. You'll learn about the best floral money-makers, including:

• Cut flowers
• Everlastings
• Woody Ornamentals
• Flower bulbs

You'll also learn how to grow and market your floral crops.

• The best markets for your flower, both wholesale and retail.
• The varieties in demand from buyers and consumers.
• Value-added products you can make to double your profits.
• Wholesale sources for seeds, transplants, growing supplies, and equipment.

You'll find it all in  Growing and Selling Flowers for Profit, chapter two of Profitable Plants.