Well he spends about 4 hours daily watering and deadheading and feeding. Using a good feed is essential and they are done every 7 days. We cannot go away while all the flowers are out - it's a bit different asking someone to look after a few pot plants, but just imagine saying can you come and water our 200+ baskets and containers EVERY day (and it is metered water here). In fact even a day out has to be planned with the weather forecast for a dull or rainy day because of the flowers!
We have to site alot of the flowers in full or partial shade, because otherwise they would just give up. And there are periods in July and August when we have to water twice a day.
We are restricted like this from the sowing of seeds in late Feb/early March, because of course then we are having to watch temperatures for greenhouse heating. We are normally using heat overnight in the greenhouses until late April, and it is not exceptional to still have to heat during the day in March some years.
We take the trays out of the greenhouse daily from early May for about 4 weeks to acclimatise them, but they all go back in for night time.
But plants are his passion, quilting is mine, so musn't complain!
When we first came to France 20 years ago, for a few years we cultivated and sold the big exotic trailing fuchsias and had about 200 varieties. It was very successful but of course with taking cuttings ourselves, it was an 11 month job. We stopped about 11 years ago, only because it was taking us over, instead of just being a paying hobby.
I used to grow and sell annual plants too, but after we got the 3rd greenhouse we decided - enough!