You know how many stems you need — for a wedding, a CSA, a market table. The harder question is how many plants to put in the ground to get them. Enter your stem goal for each variety below and this calculator returns the planting count, using real stems-per-plant yields for the crops flower farmers actually grow.
For each variety, enter the stems you want this season. Yields are per plant, per season — edit by adding/removing rows.
Across 0 varieties.
Want this planting list + a free stems-per-plant yield guide? We'll email it over.
This tool tells you what to plant. Stemwise takes it the next step: it projects what your beds will actually cut each week, lines that up against everything you've promised across weddings, CSA and market, and hands you the shortfall to buy in and the surplus to push. That's the Sunday-night math the spreadsheets miss.
The first 30 farms get lifetime Grower + Studio access for one payment of $149. No recurring bill, founding price locked forever.
Become a founding grower →It's the question every cut-flower grower runs into the first time they take a real order: how many plants do I need to get the stems I've promised? A florist asks for 150 stems of dahlias for a September wedding; a CSA needs 30 bouquets a week for 16 weeks. Stem goals are easy to write down — translating them into rows of plants and trays of seedlings is where most planting plans go wrong.
The math is simple once you know each crop's yield per plant: plants = stems needed ÷ stems per plant. The catch is that yield is a range, not a number — a dahlia might give you 8 stems in a cool, short season or 20+ in a long, warm one. This calculator plans to the low end of each range, so you don't come up short when the weather doesn't cooperate. A good season simply leaves you with surplus to sell at market.
These are realistic field yields for healthy, well-tended plants picked regularly through their productive window. Cut-and-come-again annuals are the workhorses; single-stem crops like tulips and single-stem sunflowers give one cut and are succession-planted instead.
| Variety | Stems / plant / season |
|---|---|
| Sweet pea | 30–50+ |
| Scabiosa | 15–25 |
| Gomphrena | 15–25 |
| Cosmos | 12–20 |
| Strawflower | 12–20 |
| Dahlia | 8–20+ |
| Anemone | 10–20 |
| Calendula | 10–20 |
| Yarrow | 10–20 |
| Eucalyptus (foliage) | 10–30+ |
| Zinnia | 8–15 |
| Ranunculus | 8–12 |
| Rudbeckia | 8–12 |
| Celosia | 6–12 |
| Snapdragon | 5–8 |
| Peony (mature) | 5–10 |
| Sunflower (branching) | 4–8 |
| Lisianthus | 4–8 |
| Amaranth | 4–8 |
| Sunflower (single-stem) | 1 (succession) |
| Tulip | 1 (succession) |
| Stock | 1 (succession) |
Want the full reference with productive windows and grower notes for 30+ crops? See our cut-flower yield-per-plant guide.
Under-planting is the expensive mistake. If you plan to the optimistic yield and the season runs cool, short, or buggy, you're suddenly buying in stems at wholesale to cover an order you already priced — wiping out the margin. Planning to the conservative yield costs you a little extra seed and bed space, and the downside is the best kind: surplus you can sell. That's why this calculator divides your stem goal by the low end of each plant's range.
Two things this calculator doesn't do for you. First, succession: single-stem crops (tulips, single-stem sunflowers, stock) give one cut, so you don't grow more plants — you replant every 1–2 weeks to spread the harvest. The plant count for those is really a per-succession count. Second, spacing: once you know plant counts, multiply by your in-row spacing to get bed feet (most cut-flower annuals go in at a 9" grid, roughly 4 plants per square foot of bed). Both are exactly the kind of supply-side planning that feeds the weekly reconciliation in Stemwise.
Dahlias yield roughly 8–20+ stems per plant per season. If a wedding needs 150 dahlia stems, plan for about 19 plants at the conservative low yield (150 ÷ 8), or as few as 8 in a long, warm season. Because dahlias are tubers you keep year to year, planning to the high side once pays off for seasons.
A well-pinched, regularly-cut zinnia gives about 8–15 stems per plant over the season. For 200 stems, plan around 25 plants (200 ÷ 8). Zinnias are the classic cut-and-come-again workhorse — the more you cut, the more they branch.
Divide the stems you need by each crop's stems-per-plant yield, using the low end of the range so a slow season still covers you. Add succession plantings for single-stem crops, then multiply by spacing to get bed feet. That's the whole supply side of a flower-farm plan.
That's the reconciliation problem, and it's where a planting calculator stops. Stemwise projects what each variety will actually cut week by week and lines it up against everything you've promised, so you see the shortfall to buy in and the surplus to sell before the week starts.