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Jennie Love and Erin Benzakein are the dynamic east-west floral duo behind The Seasonal Bouquet Project. This lovely poster was hand-illustrated by Shannon Collins 

Courtesy of The Seasonal Bouquet Project, a photo from one of Jennie and Erin’s workshops in October. Erin Benzakein is seen 3rd from left, back row; Jennie Love is seen 6th from left, back row. 

For the past few years, I’ve been interviewing and writing about a category of designer who I dub the “farmer-florist.”

These include a rare group of individuals in the flower world who are equally talented in the science of growing flowers and the art of designing them. 

Jennie Love, farmer-florist, and owner of Love ‘N Fresh Flowers, of Philadelphia

You’ll meet two of those talented people on today’s podcast, Jennie Love of Love ‘N Fresh Flowers in the Philadelphia area and Erin Benzakein of floret flowers in Washington’s Skagit Valley. 

Both Erin and Jennie have been in the business of creating stunning floral art with locally grown materials for several years now. Their west coast/east coast friendship prompted these flower friends to create THE SEASONAL BOUQUET PROJECT in early 2013. Their first post featured yummy, early spring flowers, posted on March 5th.

The Seasonal Bouquet Project emerged from a winter brainstorming session about “how to feed our souls’ fires during the hectic months of the growing season and how to further demonstrate the beauty of locally grown flowers to a wider audience.  And, to be completely candid, it’s a bit of a competitive double dog dare between two people who like to have some fun,” according to their website. 

Erin Benzakein, with her husband Chris and children Elora and Jasper. I took this photo last summer at floret flowers, their farm in Washington’s Skagit Valley.

All the materials used in the bouquets were grown within a 25 mile radius of the respective designer, the vast majority coming straight from their own flower fields.  

As they wrote on their website: “Since  we’re on opposite coasts growing in very different climates, this project is a showcase for what’s available through the seasons across the country.” People all across the country and around the globe, for that matter, followed along on the gorgeous journey. Erin and Jennie also invited readers to post photos of their own bouquets, as long as the ingredients were within that 25-mile radius. 

As you will hear in this interview with Jennie and Erin, which took place on October 25th via Skype, the friends cooked up a 2-day workshop to celebrate the “end” of their season. They planned “The Seasonal Bouquet Project LIVE” and scheduled the event to take place on Jennie’s flower farm in Philadelphia. Listen along to hear what happened next – and gain inspiration and insights into the life of a farmer-florist.

Photos to enjoy from Jennie Love and her farm:

Jennie farms on agricultural land that dates back to William Penn. Photo by Maria Mack Photography ©2012 http://mariamackphotography.com

A beautiful summer bouquet, grown & designed by Jennie Love Maria Mack Photography ©2012 http://mariamackphotography.com

Zinnias in July, designed by Jennie Love.

Photos to enjoy from Erin Benzakein and her farm:

Garden roses at floret flowers, August 2012. I took this shot during our photo shoot for Country Gardens magazine. 

Erin’s bouquet, designed for Country Gardens magazine.

Thanks for joining me in this episode of SLOW FLOWERS. Because of your support as a listener, we’ve had more than 2,200 downloads since July – and I thank you for taking the time to join to my conversations with flower farmers, florists and other notable floral experts.

If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

Until next week please join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. 

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about her work at hhcreates.net. 

TARNISHED AND TEXTURED

Super-popular tillandsias, especially this ghostly-white species, makes for an interesting fall centerpiece.

There’s a pleasing asymmetrical balance created by using this tillandsia on the right side of the design, as it echoes the urn’s curved handle on the left.

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My visit to Ft. Worth this month gave me a wonderful chance to reconnect with flower farmer Cynthia Alexander.

Cynthia Alexander, flower farmer and owner of Quarry Flower Farm.

You could call Cynthia Alexander, a “chapter two” flower farmer. A passionate gardener, Cynthia has spent the past several years reinventing herself from a real estate attorney into someone whose relationship with land is exemplified in a completely different way! 

Over the past few years, Cynthia and her husband Bob have been transitioning from the city to the land. Quarry Flower Farm, their 120-acre farm, is located in Celina, Texas, about 40 minutes outside of the Dallas-Ft. Worth urban center. 

Earlier this month, I traveled to the Ft. Worth Garden Club to lecture about the “Slow Flowers” movement and to lead a workshop for members of the Garden Club’s floral design group. This was my second visit to the Dallas Ft-Worth area to talk about LOCAL flowers and in both cases, my “credibility” was enhanced thanks to Cynthia.

She is a native Texan whose goal is spreading beauty through organic agriculture and the practice of good land stewardship.  Her repertoire of ingredients is impressive!

At Quarry Flower Farm, Cynthia grows native Texas shrubs and trees, as well as perennials, annuals, grasses, bulbs, vines and herbs. Her fascination with botanical elements means she has an incredibly diverse list of ingredients for floral fans, everyone from hot floral designers to farm-to-table caterers.

The botanical bounty that came from Cynthia’s harvest was mind-boggling!

Here is the extensive list of flowers, foliage, herbs, branches and ornamental grasses she provided for the Ft. Worth workshop: 

Amaranthus ‘Red Hopi’

Artemisia 

Aster

Beautyberry

Black Bamboo

Bois D’Arc apples

Broomcorn

Cardoon

Celosia 

Chinaberry foliage, yellow berry

Cotinus

Cotton Bolls

Crepe Myrtle

Dianthus

Elm Winged branches

Garden Roses

Geranium scented

Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’

Hibiscus ‘Jamaican Red’

Juniper silver berry

Lambs ears

Lantana 

Liatris

Love In A Puff vine, pod

Magnolia

Marigold

Myrtle branches

Peppers

Perilla green

Persimmon branches

Pittosporum 

Poke

Privet 

Purple Hyacinth Bean pods

Pyracantha orange berry

Rattanvine

Rosehips

Rush

Sage

Salvia Leucantha

Sansieveria 

Sedum 

Sunflower Maximillian

Tritonia

Vinca 

Yellow wildflower

Zinnia 

 

Cynthia’s design talents were evident when we met in 2012 at a field-to-vase workshop I taught at the Dallas Arboretum.

Cynthia first came to my rescue in February 2012 when I taught an eco-floral design course at the Dallas Arboretum. I had contacted her through the ASCFG directory, asking for help. Cynthia showed up with a bevy of flowering bulb varieties and spring branches – much to the delight of the Dallas floral design students. After all, it was FEBRUARY, for goodness sake’s. She saved the day!

The same thing happened when I encouraged the Ft. Worth Garden Club to source LOCAL Texas leaves, branches and flowers from a real flower farmer. Cynthia is a gem. And you’ll find her personal story fascinating.

I mean really….how many people leave a successful, 30-year career as an attorney in order to dig in the dirt and grow cut flowers? For that reason alone, I adore this gifted woman. Enjoy our conversation and listen for all of Cynthia’s advice about her second career – as a cut flower farmer. 

The farmhouse at Quarry Flower Farm.

Cynthia hosts garden club tours, bridal parties and U-pick guests by appointment during the spring growing season. Check her web site for details.

Other Resources mentioned in our interview:

The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), by Lynn Byczynski 

Cynthia mentioned that her inspiration began by spending time with Pamela and Frank Arnosky, owners of Texas Specialty Cut Flowers. The Arnoskys have also written an important resource, as well, Local Color: Growing Specialty Cut Flowers.

Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers is a membership association of flower farmers in every state. The ASCFG has many wonderful resources for beginning and established flower farmers. 

Thanks for joining me in this episode of SLOW FLOWERS. Because of your support as a listener, we’ve reached nearly 2,000 downloads since July – and I thank you for taking the time to join to my conversations with flower farmers, florists and other notable floral experts.

If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

Until next week please join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. 

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about her work at hhcreates.net.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Orange-glazed vintage McCoy sets the color palette for this autumn arrangement.

Two vases, same vintage; different styles. Ready for the festive autumn holidays.

Ingredients:

 

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Meet Lane DeVries, CEO of The Sun Valley Group, America’s largest cut flower farm, and Chairman of the California Cut Flower Commission.

American Flower Farming Update with Lane DeVries, Chairman of the California Cut Flower Commission (Episode 112)

Today’s interview is with Lane DeVries, a fourth generation flower farmer who grew up in his family’s business in Holland until he came to the US in 1983, at the age of 23.

I’ve gotten to know Lane in the past few years while partnering with him on projects for the California Cut Flower Commission, the advocacy agency that promotes that state’s 225 flower farms. His farm, The Sun Valley Group, based in Arcata and Oxnard, is the state’s largest (in fact, it’s the country’s largest).

Lane and I recently met in Portland, at the Field-to-Vase Dinner, a very special gathering of flower farmers, florists, flower retailers and wholesalers and the media, held on October 8th.

I co-hosted the event with the CCFC and our goal was to convene floral industry leaders to discuss new initiatives in the American Grown Flower Movement.

The underlying message: partnering with your would-be competitors is a good idea when it comes to changing how consumers connect with domestic flowers.

Lane takes time to meet flower consumers as often as possible. He recently made an appearance at New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.

My podcast interview with Lane took place via Skype, a few days after that dinner. Please enjoy our conversation and meet a man who lives and breathes cut flowers. I love that Lane, in spite of all of his professional success, continues to eagerly seek out the next new thing. He sees old flowers in a new way and improves on customer favorites with new hybridizing methods.

He is a visionary and I credit Lane with his amazing leadership moving his own flower farming community into an important dialogue about American grown flowers.

The next time you see a blue-and-yellow license plate-style CA-Grown label on a bouquet of flowers at the supermarket, you’ll have people like Lane DeVries to thank.

Highlights of Lane’s long career in the U.S. cut flower industry are chronicled in Amy Stewart’s 2007 book, Flower Confidential: The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful – and you can read an excerpt of that story here, courtesy of Amy and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (c) 2007 and 2008. All Rights Reserved. 

(Photos (c) Linda Blue, courtesy of the California Cut Flower Commission)

MARKET FRESH

The season for dahlias is almost over, but these vivid selections are a reminder of how much we LOVE this amazing flower.

Vase:

CLUSTERS OF PINK

Autumn hydrangeas, pink snowberries, luscious dahlias harvested just before late October frost and ball-shaped gomphrena add up to something quite charming. 

Group for impact: Tiny flowers can disappear when they are added to a bouquet with mostly larger blooms. One of the ways to give them more impact is to group three or five into a mini-bouquet, tied with bind wire or string. When added to the bouquet, the small cluster reads as a color block that’s more noticeable in the overall composition. Here, I wired together several sets of the clover-like globe amaranth flowers and inserted them between the much-larger hydrangea and dahlia blooms.

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CORRECTED AUDIO INCLUDED HERE~

Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua, is a Brooklyn floral designer who has planted her own flower farm (Episode 110)

Saipua means “soap” in Finnish, reflecting Sarah’s family heritage.

Nicolette Owen (left) and Sarah Ryhanen (right), collaborators in The Little Flower School of Brooklyn.

I first learned about Sarah Ryhanen when I read an article about The Little Flower School of Brooklyn, a venture she had created with fellow floral designer Nicolette Owen of Nicolette Camille Floral. The article was in none other than the New York Times, in which the writer proclaimed the renaissance of old-fashioned floral design for modern-era crafters. 

Reading that article was like a huge floral flag being waved in front of my eyes.

Right on! The floral world I was so fascinated with documenting for The 50 Mile Bouquet was in good hands with these young, passionate, talented, urban designers. 

All the supplies, beautiful, simple and ready for the flower arranging students at The Little Flower School of Brooklyn.

So like probably everyone else in the country, I started stalking Sarah through her web site and blog, and following Nicolette’s work through her web site and the lovely floral arrangements she created for Bringing Nature Home (Rizzoli, 2012), a book by photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo.

Welcome to Saipua + Flower School.

When I spent a few days in New York City last August, I contacted them to ask whether I could sit in on one of their workshops. The class was sold-out, of course, so I was just an observer. It was amazing to me that 12 persons (11 women and 1 man) gathered on a sweltering Saturday morning to create bowls of flowers in an un-airconditioned warehouse-studio in Brooklyn. There was so much excitement in the room, with a combination of newcomers and repeat students. People soaked up every word, concept and idea Sarah and Nicolette offered – and they were unabashedly proud of their own creations. 

Every detail was attended to in advance, as you can see by the photos I took that day. Sarah and Nicolette shared about their own design processes, about the way they select floral ingredients, and how they prefer to use materials like pin frogs and chicken wire (rather than foam). 

Seasonal, locally-grown late summer flowers.

As the designs took shape, I had a bird’s eye view, perched in the tiny loft above the workshop. After students finished their arrangements, the women served them champagne and appetizers, like a fancy party. It’s no wonder these creative gatherings are so popular! It’s like going on an art retreat in the midst of your crazy, busy life. A moment in time that prompts anyone to feel more creative, more experimental, more artisitc.

When we met, one of the things Nicolette and Sarah and I discussed was the challenge of finding the flowers and botanicals they wanted and needed for special events, from weddings to workshops. Sarah told me that she and her partner Eric Famisan had recently purchased farmland in upstate New York, where they were in the early stages of planting a flower farm. 

A creative explosion of floral expression – enjoy this bird’s eye view.

A still-life of the beautiful arrangements created by students of The Little Flower School of Brooklyn, August 2012.

Since then, I’ve watched as The Farm at World’s End has evolved, through Sarah and Eric’s wonderfully-photographed blog and honest, heartfelt text. 

Under a heading called “The Idea,” here’s what Sarah writes:

When the economy took a dive in 2008 we started to see a major loss in the NYC flower market. Loss of interesting product. The unusual, weedy, wild stuff that I was so into and that made my work unique. The trouble was that wholesalers had to be safe – the floral industry is one of the first to feel the blow of a weak economy. So wholesalers on the flower block of 28th street stuck to what they knew would sell; your South American hot house roses, ranunculus, lilies, peonies. Here’s a perfect example  — pre 2008 you could buy Garden Valley Roses (fragile, exquisite but expensive heirloom roses) on the block. 

Around that time I was starting to explore other outlets for material. We found local farms to supplement our market purchases (River Garden, Lebak, Added Value), and also started ordering product direct from the west coast – the promised land of flowers. 

Still there was always something I could not locate. Auricula, campanula “pantaloons”, black hellebores, unusual bearded iris…at Saipua we now spend hours and hours searching for the highest quality, most unusual flowers. Visiting flower farms and talking to growers is the best part of my job. You meet these crazy, passionate people and let me tell you – it’s contagious. Eventually you got to try growing yourself. So here we are.

On the flower block back in the city, the guys joke – when are you going to start selling us flowers? I try to explain to them (and to everyone who has not yet been to Worlds End) that it’s a slow process. That we’re years away from producing the opulent abundance that people envision when they hear “Flower Farm”. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not about quantity. I’m not in the business of hustling anymore. None of our work at Saipua will ever require thousands of stems.  It will however require a brown iris. And by god, I’m going to grow it.

Fortunately for listeners of The Slow Flowers Podcast, I had a quick 36-hour layover in New York a few weeks ago, en route to my Italian writing retreat. It coincided with a late afternoon opportunity to sit at the kitchen table in Sarah’s Brooklyn apartment, just around the corner from Saipua’s studio. We talked about farming, flowers and collaboration. Please enjoy the conversation.