There’s a sequel to The 50 Mile Bouquet and you will be able to hold it in your hands come February 1, 2013!

Above, you see the cover mock-up featuring my photo of a simple arrangement I created for a 2011 Northwest Flower & Garden Show demonstration. My green urn holds two types of locally grown tulips from Alm Hill Gardens in Whatcom County, as well as curly willow branches and camellia branches from my former garden. Simple and graphic. Gorgeous cover art designed by Holly Rosborough, St. Lynn Press’s art director.

Yes, the good news is that St. Lynn’s Press will publish SLOW FLOWERS: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm. The book features 52 weeks of seasonal floral arrangements created and photographed by Moi!

Here’s the book’s description:

The slow food movement (with its hundreds of thousands of members and supporters) has changed our relationship with the foods in our lives. Now the slow flower movement is changing the way we think about cut flowers: Yes, we’d all prefer fresh, fragrant flowers in our bouquets, not the chemical-laden “undead” blooms flown in from afar – but what to do in those seasons when not much is growing locally? Debra Prinzing challenged herself to create a beautiful, locally grown bouquet for each of 52 weeks of one year (going beyond flowers to include ornamental twigs, foliage, greenhouse plants, dried pods, and more), to demonstrate that all four seasons have their own botanical character to be celebrated. She provides extensive design tips, bouquet “recipes” and region-by-region floral ingredient lists that can be found in all climate zones through the year. Slow Flowers is written from a DIY floral designer’s point of view, to inspire anyone to go green and make a beautiful bouquet with what’s at hand, no matter the season.

More details to come, but you can help me out by pre-ordering a copy on Amazon. Yeah!!!

Here's how Sunset featured the interview, in its "Next in the West" section where Tara Kolla is hailed as a trailblazer for urban farmers. The photo of Tara was taken by Shelly Strazis/Sunset.

The editors at Sunset asked me to update the story about Tara Kolla, Los Angeles-based flower farmer, urban farming advocate and owner of Silver Lake Farms. In The 50 Mile Bouquet, she is profiled on pages 47-49 in a story called “Flower Patch Politics.”

It was great to have an opportunity to reconnect with Tara and learn about what she’s been up to since we visited her last November. It was no surprise to discover that Tara is up to her ears in beautiful blooms, selling them at farmer’s markets and fulfilling custom orders for regular clients who love her organic approach.

As these things go with magazines, my interview with Tara was completely rewritten into a narrative format. You can see the published piece it above, or on page 18 of the June 2012 issue, on newsstands now.

But there is a lot to learn from this talented woman. And so here, since space is not an issue, is our original Q&A:

ONE TO WATCH

Flower Patch Politics

In 2009, when Los Angeles officials shut down Tara Kolla’s backyard flower farm, citing a 1940s truck gardening ordinance that limited off-site sales of homegrown crops to vegetables, not blooms, she joined forces with fellow urban farmers to fight back. Passionate about sweet peas and the many other flowers she grows, Tara and her supporters successfully changed the city’s policy – and now the spunky owner of Silver Lake Farms has returned to the Hollywood Farmers’ Market where you can find her every Sunday selling bountiful, organic and seasonal bouquets. Her advice for other urban flower farmers:

What has been the response of your customers to your policy fight?

Some customers think I’m new because I’ve just returned to the market. Those aware of my struggle are delighted for me. It makes them feel good that L.A.’s politicians used common sense to change an antiquated law. Flower fans are now begging me to come to Santa Monica Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays – I hope that happens soon.

How might other would-be flower growers address their own community’s rules, if they face similar restrictions?

My issue was not about growing flowers, but about being prevented from selling them off-site! If someone’s facing similar opposition, I suggest creating a support group – we called ours Urban Farming Advocates. Request a meeting with local officials and be prepared with evidence as to why urban farming is advantageous for the community and why cities should support and encourage urban farmers.

Do you think the updated truck gardening ordinance means more floral variety at local L.A. farmers’ markets?

Eventually, but it is all dependent on land, time and money. I never thought I’d get rich doing this and I continue to run other facets of my gardening business to support myself, including a CSA and designing organic vegetable gardens.

On the zoning front, what still needs to be done in L.A. to support local farmers?                                           

We need backyard beekeeping to be legalized — for ensuring that food crops have pollinators and for producing organic honey. We also need home-based farm stands, meaning you could sit outside your house at a table and chair and sell your garden’s extra oranges or avocados to passersby. Kids and their lemonade stands are legal, but a farm stand with flowers, fruits or vegetables is not.

Could you argue that L.A. hasn’t kept up with other cities in the west when it comes to nurturing urban farming?

No, I think L.A. does care, but it needs to get some codes sorted out. For example, I also grow micro greens. I can sell them to chefs who shop at the farmers’ market, but I can’t go direct to restaurants because then the health department has to get involved. This is new ground and we still have some archaic laws that don’t make sense for today. 

What flower variety do you think is going to be the next big thing at farmers’ markets?

In terms of a cut flower, I think it’s cotton. I first saw cotton in the flower markets in Paris. It’s not just white; you can find cotton in sea mist green or light tan – and they look great in mixed bouquets.

–Debra Prinzing

 

The 50 Mile Bouquet shares the stage with Lila B.'s charming mini-floral arrangements.

Promoting the Slow Flower movement means one may have to travel. I realize that’s a huge contradiction, but that’s life – a series of choices, right? I rationalize my airplane journeys by trying to cram as many events into one destination as possible. Not exactly logical, but it makes me feel more efficient and keeps me away from home for a shorter period of time.

Earlier this month, I headed to San Francisco for Mother’s Day weekend. It started when Flora Grubb and Susie Nadler, two of the superstars of The 50 Mile Bouquet, invited me to be part of the Mother’s Day events at Flora Grubb Gardens. It was the perfect excuse to combine a visit to meet my own mom (and dad) in San Francisco. And then Baylor Chapman of Lila B. Flowers, another superstar of our book, invited me to be part of her activities as part of the SF Made Week. We filled those 48 hours to the brim with flowers, friends and family. A special thanks to Sophia Markoulakis, food and garden writer, for featuring The 50 Mile Bouquet and the Mother’s Day book-signings in her article for the San Francisco Chronicle, ‘Slow-flower’ movement’s power sprouts with new book.

Here are some of the photos from the trip:

Hi Mom! Having fun with my own mom, Anita Prinzing, at the SF Conservatory of Flowers.

Spending time with floral artist Baylor Chapman is always a treat. We're at the Lila B. Flowers pop-up shop at the Stable Cafe on Folsom Street.

Sigh. Baylor's famous succulent-planted shutters. So beautiful!

At Flora Grubb's on Mother's Day, including (from left) Flora and her mom, Susie's mom, Susie, and me.

A chalkboard notice welcomes me.

Susie create a scrumptious local bouquet using ingredients from her own backyard, from local flower growers and - of course - from succulents at Flora Grubb Gardens.

Sometimes I place the vase inside a 5-gallon bucket or a large file box and stuff crumpled up newspaper around it. Occasionally, these ideas work out great. Then there are those times when I turn the corner and – oops – everything spills out.

I’m not saying the Vase Brace is perfect, but I sure think it’s a clever idea for transporting a vase, especially on the floor of the passenger’s side or behind the back seat.  Liz Griffin, a budding cut flower farmer from Auburn, brought along this nifty product to the workshop I taught at Seattle’s Dunn Garden on Saturday.

When the class was over, Liz simply placed the sturdy square base on the table and centered her vase on the top. Then she pulled on four bungee cords and snapped their hooks over the rim of her vase. The tension of the cords hold everything in place. No tipping allowed!

I was not the only person to ooh and aah at this clever product. In fact, I snapped a few photos of Liz’s beautiful arrangement secured for transport home in her car.

Today, she sent me the link to an online source called Arranged for you. Check it out – for just under $17, this simple product may make driving to a dinner party nearly stress-free! Thanks Liz!

Ingredients:

Vintage green fluted vase (flea market find)

Aromatic lilacs from Oregon Coastal Flowers (Tillamook, Oregon)

Very fragrant white sweet peas, velvety lamb’s ears and acid-green nicotiana – all from Janet Foss at J. Foss Garden Flowers.

The setting: my garden. I perched the arrangement on my wonderful weathered garden chair.

A sensory, springtime bouquet in a gentle palette of white, green and lilac.

Eco-conscious flower farmer and floral designer Kelly Sullivan of Seattle’s Botanique Flowers arrived with this gorgeous bouquet at a lunch I hosted last week. I had to share it!

Kelly Sullivan's evocative spring bouquet

Here’s what she included in the diminutive urn:

From her own garden: purple-blue grape hyacinths (Muscari); pale pink and purple flowers from a groundcover called Pulmonaria; geranium foliage; and variegated foliage/scented pale-pink flowers from a shrub called Daphne odora.

From the garden center: It was too early to harvest these from her own backyard, so Kelly bought potted anemone plants and clipped several of their romantic black-centered flowers in indigo and dark pink to add to the bouquet.

Everything is stablized with a small piece of chicken wire inside the vase, which allowed the designer to get the full, cascading effect she wanted. I was smitten!

So, when we had a talk and book-signing at Ravenna Gardens on Sunday, I brought along her vase to add to the book display. It’s simply sublime!

Kelly's bouquet looks pretty dazzling with our book display.

THANK YOU, Kelly!!!

Michael Tortorello, a gifted writer whose work regularly appears in the NYT Home section, set up a phone interview with me last week. Due to time zone differences, his travel and my own travel schedule, it turned out that between the two of us, we could only find one hour that worked for a phoner! I was literally seated in Stephanie Clevenger’s SUV, which was parked in front of The Red Barn – the gathering place for Yakima Master Gardeners. The minute Michael and I finished up the Q&A, which he recorded, I dashed into the barn and gave a Container Design presentation to about 75 MGs . Whew.

I immediately thought of the brilliantly beautiful Pike Place Market stall operated by Alm Hill Gardens (Gretchen Hoyt and Ben Craft, owners). This is the single best place in Seattle for organic tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, lilies, and other amazing crops that come later in the year – like lilacs and peonies. Their farm is located in Everson, Wash., close to the Canadian border, and Alm Hill is a gold-standard flower fixture at the Market. My go-to source! Plus, since we have a 2-page spread on Gretchen and Alm Hill in The 50 Mile Bouquet, it seemed fitting to take the photo there.

I met freelance photographer Kevin Casey at the stall on Monday afternoon. My flower-seller pal Max Clement was working, as he does most Mondays, and he indulged us by stashing Kevin’s gear and my stuff while we did the photography. It was certainly less painful that I thought it would be, thanks to Kevin’s easygoing style and also the way he let me know what “worked” and what didn’t. Do I smile? Do I look serious? Ugh!

But I had a chance to turn the tables on Kevin, too. I asked him to pose with me for a photo that Max shot with my Iphone. We look goofy, but who cares? It was way fun and an unforgettable experience. Turns out, Kevin is an old newspaper staffer like me, so we compared notes about editors and writers with whom we’ve both worked in the past. It really is a small world.

Last evening, I received an email from Mary Robson telling me that she’d seen the story on the NYT’s web site. It’s also fitting that I first heard from Mary, a dear friend to so many gardeners and readers from her days as a popular columnist with The Seattle Times, and as King Co.’s Extension Agent who trained hundreds of Master Gardeners over the years. Mary and I co-authored The Washington-Oregon Gardener’s Guide in 2004 (and Lola was our publicist then – see what a small world it is?). What a treat to hear it first from her – the best co-author a girl could ever have.

This morning, the “real” print edition arrived in our driveway. Bruce went out to get it first and used the edge of the Home section to tickle my face and wake me up at about 6:30 a.m. Later in the day, friends texted and emailed their own photos taken of the story in the print edition and Ipad version.

I know that the 24-hour high is about to wind down, but then again, maybe not. There is something called an after-life for stories. I know because when my own articles are posted online I’m always surprised to see that they have an extended shelf life, sometimes for years.

For now, I’m just grateful and happy to have been part of the experience. Something great is coming from the combined creative efforts of two people who adore and admire flower farmers and floral designers. So as my friend, the late Linda Plato, would have said: “It’s all good.”

My friend Bill called me yesterday to tell me that Seattle Met magazine included me in their “Perfect Party” feature for April.

“WHAT????” I asked. Clearly, this happened without my knowledge – but it’s quite exciting. And amusing! I’ve never before been illustrated! I wonder who put them up to this?

Here’s the story:

March 20th is just around the corner – thankfully! And blooms are everywhere – under our noses, poking through the soil, erupting from branches, and filling our vases. Hurrah!

Here are some of the hints of spring that have come my way:

Kay's flowering quince branches and the delicate hellebores make for a stunning, early spring bouquet!

1. A DIY designer gets inspired by her own garden’s bounty. Earlier this week, an email with this charming photo appeared in my in-box from Kay Christie, who attended one of my demonstrations at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show last month. Thanks so much for sharing, Kay! And for the kind words. Keep designing!

I wanted to show you an arrangement I just made with cuttings from my garden. I really loved your demo at the flower and garden show. It gave me the idea for this. I also used chicken wire inside to hold the stems. Thanks do much for the inspirational talk.

A silver pitcher contains a sublime bouquet in a pink-and-gold palette, by Peggy Shelley.

2. A talented gardener clips goodies from her backyard for a special arrangement. Like Kay, Woodinville, Wash., gardener Peggy Shelley harvests beautiful floral ingredients from her landscape. I visited Peggy and her husband Al Shelley (also a gifted gardener) earlier this month to interview them for an upcoming Better Homes & Gardens article about their garden (the feature will appear in the August 2012 edition). There was a gorgeous bouquet on the kitchen counter and of course, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It included pink-flowering Japanese pieris, bi-colored pink-and-green euphorbia stems, golden thread branch cypress sprigs and lemon-yellow privet foliage. Peggy told me something quite inspiring – and I’m going to remind myself of her passion every time I head into my own garden:

The biggest satisfaction of my garden comes from making a bouquet and giving it to a friend.

Lynn Fosbender of Pollen, an eco-friendly floral designer in Chicago, with her beautiful bouquet of local spring tulips.

3. Local flowers arrive just in time for a Chicago designer. Last Sunday, I was in Chicago to speak at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show (thanks, Bill Aldrich, for inviting me!). I called Lynn Fosbender, who owns Pollen, a sweet, ec0-conscious floral studio, and asked if she could bring a bouquet to my talk and also pass out her business cards. I wanted to showcase Lynn as a home-town resource for Chicago area floral customers, and let them know about her intentional design philosophy of using local flowers whenever possible. “I’d love to come,” she said. “But March 11th is still pretty early. I probably won’t be able to find local flowers from my sources.”

Then, to my delight, Lynn showed up with a vase of the most stunning vibrant orange-and-green parrot tulips I’d ever seen! “Spring has been mild here – and one of my local growers called me on Friday to let me know his tulips were ready to harvest,” Lynn said. What a wonderful treat. I wrote a post about Lynn when I first met her in 2012. Here’s a link to that story. I was so impressed with her vision for her business:

For several years I thought I would like to own a full-service flower shop that was eco-friendly. I knew if anyone should do it, it should be me.

Spring's yellow and lime floral gifts collected in a green vase.

4. See what my own garden yielded this week. I’ve been making a local and seasonally-inspired floral arrangement every single week for the past 20 weeks (since the first week of November). It’s part of my plan to create a book or blog called 52-Weeks-of-Local-Flowers. It’s been fun, creative, and very educational to discover what I can source from local growers, local farmers’ markets, and of course, my own backyard.

Yellow and green are the theme of this week! I used two types of euphorbia (dipping the cut stems in boiling water helped “seal” the ends so the milky white sap didn’t drain into the vase); two types of daffodils that the prior owners of our home planted on the parking strip along the street; lots of bright-yellow-flowering forsythia; and some lovely variegated foliage from the scented geranium plant I’ve been babysitting in my garage under the shop lights. Everything came together nicely in a small green-glazed vase and a vintage flower frog held the stems in place.

Today, strangely, it’s snowing in Seattle. I soaked my sweet pea seeds in water last night and I plan to plant them in flats in the garage today. I had wanted to weed and prep the beds, but really? I think I’ll wait and see if it warms up a bit! Happy Almost-Spring!