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How do you like that? English Grown SLOW FLOWERS, by Cook & Carlsson

Today’s podcast is actually NOT about American flowers, but about our gifted and inspiring kindred spirits across the Atlantic. They are a few of the many flower farmers and designers who are part of their own local flower movement in Britain.

During the past several months, I often noticed the hashtag #britishflowers pop upon Twitter. It was fun to read comments and re-tweets and click through to view beautiful photos of British designers, farmers, gardens and flowers.

One of the Twitter names that I started interacting with was Cook & Carlsson, and I soon learned that Lizzie Cook and Moa Carlsson are the two women behind that venture.

With the alluring tagline: “English Grown Flowers,” Cook & Carlsson is a London-based design studio combining the talents of Lizzie Cook, a photographer and artist, and Moa Carlsson, an architect who has worked most recently worked in landscape architecture.

Lizzie Cook (left) and Moa Carlsson (right), partners in the design studio Cook & Carlsson

They describe Cook & Carlsson as an “independent flower monger,” and you’ll hear in our conversation the charming explanation for their use of that term. Lizzie, who has the British accent, and Moa, whose accent reveals her Swedish heritage, have joined their mutual love of nature with a desire to create beauty using flowers they grow or forage, as well as flowers they source from other UK flower farmers. 

For an art commission, Cook & Carlsson supplied a large arrangement made entirely of scented herbs, wildflowers and flower – all local, seasonal and sustainable, of course!

Here’s more about Moa Carlsson, in her own words:

I grew up in the most northern part of Sweden, amongst aconitum, arctic bramble and Norwegian spruce, and in a family with a long tradition of growing food and flowers. My sister and both my mother and my grandparents kept large grounds living in tune with the seasons, which in their part of Sweden is rather harsh. (for example, you can’t grow apples there).

I studied and worked as an architect in Sweden, Austria, England and America. Right now I live in London, but I am a PhD student at MIT in Boston, where I am studying computational technologies to design and simulate the changing of landscapes.

In my free time I dig in my friends gardens and in the urban plots where we do guerilla gardening; I do hiking and mountaineering; I am a painter and I have a hunting license (mostly forest/mountain birds and hare).  

A seasonally-inspired autumn bouquet – nature’s gifts in a vase.

Here’s more about Lizzie Cook, in her own words:

I grew up in the Caribbean amongst the audacious vibrancy of hibiscus, frangipanis and flowers from the Flamboyant tree, all of which fired my senses as a child.  The fragrance and colours of the frangipani flower at the right time of day is pretty intoxicating!  When I went to Falmouth College of Arts in Cornwall to study photography, I fell in love with all of the tropical gardens, which reminded me of the flora and fauna of warmer climes.  I had a very free childhood, outside, rarely wearing shoes and in nature, noticing the changing seasons, being free to take it all in.  I love being near the water and I currently live on a narrowboat on a river in East London, still trying to hold onto that freedom and proximity to nature, especially in the City of London.  I like seeking out the quieter natural areas, but enjoy the diversity and pace of London.  It is a privileged thing to cycle home from the hectic city back to a peaceful boat on a river surrounded by nature reserves, and I feel very lucky! 

Cook & Carlsson’s stall at the Chatsworth Road Market in East London.

Cook & Carlsson on their philosophy: 

We live really close to one another, just on the outskirts of London, which means there are lots of small natural refuges where you can feel like you are still connected with the wider countryside.  It was in these places where our imaginations were fired and it’s really where we had the idea of using flowers and foliages that we saw around us, but which had been forgotten about or blocked out by the increasing urbanization.  We began looking and learning about the species that were around us and rediscovering their simple beauty; we began mixing them with other things, falling in love with the results. Doing so and by growing our own flowers, we try to bring back varieties that London shoppers rarely get a chance to buy.

For us, it’s about the lifestyle that comes along with the business. We are very lucky to visit lots of local gardens, growing sites, nurseries, meeting local growers and hanging out with people who are on the same page as far as our ethos is concerned. Then we collect all of our material and put it together, which we relish as it appeals to our strong creative sides, the combination of which seems to be magic! Many laughs and good biscuits make good arrangements, we have found. 

Flowers from the Farm, the UK’s nationwide network of cut flower growers

Through our exchanges, I learned that Cook & Carlsson is the first London-based member of the “Flowers from the Farm” organization, which was founded by Gillian Hodgson. Lizzie and Moa were sweet enough to connect Gill and me.

Part two of this interview is with a true kindred spirit. Gill is the Mother of the British Flowers movement. She grows flowers at her own farm, Fieldhouse Flowers in Yorkshore. Here is how Gill describes her flower endeavor: 

Field House Farm in Yorkshire, where Gillian Hodgson grows her beautiful British flowers.

“Fieldhouse lies in the Vale of York at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds and we have 200 acres of light sandy land.  We farm wheat, barley and carrots and I have my flowers on just one acre. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were here before us – and my great-great-grandfather farmed at the next-door farm.  John, my husband, and I have been here 25 years now.  The house was built around 1780; it’s draughty and takes a lot of upkeep – but it’s a great family house and we love it.” 

Gillian Hodgson of Fieldhouse Flowers and Flowers from the Farm, the #britishflowers organization.

As you will hear in our interview, Gill has been putting much of her energy into promoting British flowers through Flowers from the Farm. She and others came together in 2011 to launch this network of cut flower growers. Read more about the group’s origins here. 

“Our aim is to create a brand for British flowers as a World class product,” reads the organization’s web site. And the tag-line: “Putting British flowers back into every vase in the country,” sounds comfortably familiar with the way I conclude each of my podcasts.

I invite you to join all three of them on a Twitter chat any Monday. The #Britishflowers chat takes place at Noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern every Monday (and that means 8 p.m. GMT/Greenwich Mean Time). Please look for these inspiring leaders of the #britishgrown flower movement on Twitter and more. 

To follow up on Gill’s story about the “fake” British Valentine’s bouquet and how the UK flower farmers used social media, especially Twitter, to highlight the inaccuracies, follow this link to Flowers from the Farm’s media report. 

Farm gate sales of British flowers. 

A hands-on Flowers From the Farm workshop for new and established UK flower farmers, which took place in Harrogate. 

At the height of summer, Gill Hodgson’s flower farm explodes with a beautiful array of blooms. 

So many connections to make as together we promote our domestic cut flower farming industry and the floral designers who care about the origins of their design work.

Special thanks to Lizzie and Moa for permission to use the photographs they provided; and to Gill for permission to photos of her farm and the Flowers from the Farm participants.

My friend Kasey Cronquist started the hash-tag #originmatters. In the UK, Gill Hodgson calls the same idea #knownprovenance. Similar in their intent, both phrases highlight what is going on in both the U.S. and the U.K. Consumers want to know the sources of their flowers. And flower farmers are fully engaged in providing that information!

It has been my pleasure to share with you today’s podcast conversations. Apologies for the uneven audio quality in some places, which was subject to the idiosyncracies of doing interviews via Skype. In the second interview, my voice was quite garbled, while Gillian Hodgson’s came through very clear. So we had to re-record many of my questions and patch together the interview. I’m sure you’ll really enjoy these interviews, despite the minor tech problems. 

Because of the support from you and others, listeners have downloaded episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast more than 6,500 times! 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.  

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Hello again and thank you for listening to the newest episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast with Debra Prinzing. 

Breathtakingly beautiful roses from Rose Story Farm. American Grown and more fragrant and lovely than anything imported.

It’s February and that means Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. So I am devoting the next two weeks to talking about American-grown roses. Most people do not realize that of the 233 million rose stems sold during the Valentine’s season, only 3 to 6 percent are domestic. There is something truly wrong with this picture. American roses are being grown in Oregon and California! Next week I will introduce you to Peterkort Roses, located outside Portland . . . a fabulous source for domestic Valentine’s Day roses.

Great Rosarian of the World, and American cut rose grower, Danielle Hahn.

Today, though, we are celebrating Danielle Hahn, owner of Rose Story Farm in Carpinteria, California. Located just south of Santa Barbara, where truly magical growing conditions for all types of flowers seem to exist, Rose Story Farm is a family endeavor specializing in old English, heirloom and garden roses for the specialty cut flower trade.

These roses are field-grown and you’ll notice that many of the varieties listed on the farm’s web site are types of roses found in the home garden. Because of this, they do not bloom all that prolifically in February. That’s okay with Dani and her crew. Their core business serves wedding parties that take place between May and October. 

Situated on a former avocado and lemon farm, this visually enticing venue offers many useful lessons in the viability of old-fashioned farming practices in today’s modern agri-business world (the kind of practices that were natural to our great-grandparents, for example.). Yes, this is an organic flower farm where hundreds of varieties of old garden and English roses thrive. It’s also a beautiful agritourism destination that attracts rose lovers from around the world as it educates and inspires everyone who visits to grow and enjoy roses in their own environment.

The setting in this little valley near the Pacific Ocean is quite benign – and so perfect for roses.

There are no fussy hybrid teas here, although there are varieties bred with ancient parentage for cherished traits like their long-lasting perfume. You will find row upon beautiful row of floribundas and climbers, chosen for bloom color, petal arrangement, and most of all — FRAGRANCE (scents like anise, clove, spice, honey, baby powder, a juicy peach, citrus…fill one’s nostrils).

The rose shrubs are planted on gently sloping hills, arranged like a technicolor vineyard. Organic mulch from a nearby mushroom farm cushions and nourishes the soil over their roots.

Tens of thousands of luscious roses are lovingly cared for by a small crew of farmers who know exactly when to harvest them. Can you imagine an east coast bride who simply MUST have a romantic, voluptuous rose bouquet of say ‘Fair Bianca’? It’s possible for her floral designer to order armloads of this vintage rose from Rose Story Farm.

Stunning. Nothing more to say. Drink it in and imagine the awesome fragrance!  Rosa ‘Singin’ in the Rain’

Say her wedding is on a Saturday. On Thursday, the roses are picked, hydrated and conditioned, de-thorned and carefully gathered into bundles of 10 stems. The cut ends are packed in wet moss to keep the roses hydrated; the flower heads are gently nestled in tissue paper; each bunch is packed in an ice-filled box and shipped overnight (Fed-Ex; next morning delivery) to wedding and event florists coast to coast. Around the country, on Friday mornings, the boxes of these Carpinteria-grown roses show up at floral studios and flower shops, serving as an enduring gift of romance, nostalgia and sensory delight.

This is the famed ‘Julia Child’ rose, which Dani’s family friend Julia Child selected from plant trials at Rose Story Farm.

Last weekend, on February 1st, Dani was honored with the coveted “Great Rosarians of the World” award in a ceremony at the Huntington Botanical Garden in San Marino, near Pasadena.

This award recognizes major figures in the world of roses and honors their work in creating and promoting the flower. In the past 11 years, the Great Rosarians program has become a famous event in the world of rose growing, breeding, education and beyond. Dani is in excellent company, with past recipients including David Austin himself, Stephen Scanniello, Wilhelm Kordes III, Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, and many others. The GROW award will also bring Dani to New York City in June, where she will be hosted by the Manhattan Rose Society for a series of events and lectures. 

Click here to learn more about the American Garden Rose Selections, the organization of trial gardens and experts who evaluate new plant introductions for their superior qualities. 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0npPBezQOBg

Here is Dani’s full bio as it appeared in the Great Rosarians of the World’s press material:

The old horse stables at Rose Story Farm are now the headquarters for this thriving specialty cut flower business.

Danielle Hahn is the owner of Rose Story Farms in Carpinteria, California, a boutique rose farm for cut roses. Because of her skills and dedication to the rose, she has been able to develop a business model that combines growing roses and education. 

Danielle has maintained a hands-on approach to satisfy her market and has given this segment of the rose industry a successful working model, which encompasses the small boutique rose nursery and small organic farmer, for others to follow.  Her farm is a prime model for the future of small family farms to specialize into niche areas and succeed.  She has expanded her business to include the valuable component of educational tours which help inform and inspire her audience with the knowledge to grow healthy roses successfully. 

Growing from a lifelong love of flowers and gardening, Rose Story Farm has become the focal point of a wonderful mixture of business and life.  From the first day the mission was to produce beautiful, fragrant, romantic garden roses in exquisite shapes and colors. Now more than 120 varieties are scattered over the 15-acre farm. 

A gathering of blooms during one of the personalized rose farm tours.

Tours are led by Danielle twice weekly, and a variety of seminars focused on garden design, rose cultivation and flower arranging are given throughout the year.  A major theme of the educational effort is to demystify the process of growing and caring for roses.  “Roses are magical and forgiving–they repay any effort on their behalf ten-fold,” says Dani. “We named the farm ‘Rose Story Farm’ because the roses are central to some of our most enchanting and memorable experiences. We encourage clients, visitors, and friends to exchange their rose stories with us, and in this way to share what we find romantic, passionate, joyful and sustaining.”  

Born in Santa Barbara, California, Dani attended local schools until she entered Stanford University.  She graduated three years later with honors with a BA in psychology and a minor in Italian.  Having played on the Stanford Tennis Team for three years, and being a ranked national junior tennis player, her first job out of college was managing an exclusive tennis club in Manhattan.  Returning to Santa Barbara in 1978, she opened a series of retail stores over the next 10 years in Southern California.  At the same time she was the founder and managing partner of an innovative gift business that designed, manufactured, packaged and ultimately delivered gifts for entertainment corporations.  With the birth of Geoffrey, her second son, in 1993, she backed away from the majority of her business responsibilities to focus on her family.       

Here’s a glimpse of the larger setting at Rose Story Farm. I took this photo last July when attending an industry luncheon in the garden.

Her extensive experiences proved invaluable in 1998 when Danielle and her husband, Bill decided to expand the family avocado farm into a boutique rose business with the addition of 1,000 bushes, all of them garden roses. 

The farm now has over 25,000 bushes and since that time Danielle has overseen the steady growth and development to the point where thousands of roses are cut each day and shipped throughout the United States. 

Currently she manages all employees and makes the day-to-day decisions for the business, markets the products, selects the roses for production, designs rose gardens for clients worldwide, designs and maintains the farm’s gardens used for weddings and special events, oversees the rose boutique and leads the way on product development–a rose based perfume and body care line are currently in the works. 

The display in front of the rose boutique. . . what can I say? It’s so enticing!

Dani is an active member of the Santa Barbara Rose Society, the American Rose Society, and the Garden Club of America in Santa Barbara. She is the founder and sustaining patron of the Carpinteria Community Service Toy Fund, a non-profit organization that raises money each year for the families of disadvantaged field workers in the Carpinteria Valley. 

The excitement and beauty of this enterprise and of Danielle herself has been featured in Santa Barbara Magazine, Wine Country Living, Sunset, Victoria Magazine, Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Veranda, and the Wall Street Journal. 

She has had articles published in the 2012 American Rose Society Annual on both flower arranging and garden design.  Television coverage of Rose Story Farm has been presented on “California Heartland,” a PBS special, and on NBC’s Today show.  Most recently,  Martha Stewart Living media filmed a segment on the farm for their online American Made series (see above).  In addition to her weekly tours at the farm, Danielle is a frequent featured speaker at events that are focused on the beauty of the garden, and the special role of roses in our daily lives. 

The lemon rose cake. It is quite delicious!

Rose lovers are invited to visit to Rose Story Farm on a Wednesday or Saturday and spend $38-$45 for a small group tour, which is followed by a delicious garden luncheon.

A gift shop filled with rose-themed and garden-inspired ware from Europe and beyond (including a few antiques) is worth a visit.

To satisfy my current made-in-the-USA obsession, I picked up a cast-aluminum, rose-bloom-shaped bundt pan so I could bake the Rose Story Farm lemon cake. 

A small vignette of just-picked roses, spotted on my tour of the flower fields.

This rose caught my eye, dazzling against the blue Carpinteria sky.

Another beautiful floral arrangement at our summer luncheon.

It has been my pleasure to share my podcast conversation with Dani Hahn with you. All photos are (c) Debra Prinzing, except for the portrait of Dani Hahn, courtesy of Rose Story Farm.

Because of the support from you and others, listeners have downloaded episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast more than 6,000 times! 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.  

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I took this photo of Steve and Gretel Adams in August 2012. They’re amazing – and I’m so happy to share their conversation with you today! (c) Debra Prinzing 

In the workshop . . . (c) Debra Prinzing

Gretel and Steve Adams of Sunny Meadows Flower Farm in Columbus, Ohio, are young flower farmers whose creativity and determination to earn a living from their land is truly inspiring.

This young couple didn’t grow up in the agricultural world; so naturally, they consider themselves serendipitous farmers. A food-farming apprenticeship sparked Steve’s passion for farming. And Gretel was blessed to inherit a 10-acre lot outside Columbus that her father bought in the 1980s.

My friend Rich Pomerantz, a fellow member of the Garden Writers Association, has taken some beautiful photographs of Gretel and Steve for his series about Young Farmers. Enjoy his post here.

As children, they both loved to be outside playing in the dirt and connecting with nature. As young adults, Steve and Gretel’s farming skills continue to flourish with their involvement in the U.S. cut flower industry. They are trying to live life as sustainably as possible using organic practices, composting to make soil amendments, and heating their house with wood, growing their own food and making natural soaps, among other things. 

Gretel, touring me through the growing fields. (c) Debra Prinzing

Sunny Meadow Flower Farm is filled with fields of beautiful flowers and four greenhouse structures help Steve and Gretel extend the growing season in Ohio.  

This farm-based business is established on a 10-acre parcel just inside the Columbus city limits. 

They recently told me about the way their acreage is used:  

“This coming season, our field space will include about 4 acres in production — plus 1 acre for our perennial and greenhouse space, making for a total of 5 acres.  The remainder of the tillable land will be rotated with cover crop to maintain soil health.”

Sunny Meadows’ flowers are sold at three seasonal farmers’ markets in Columbus and through Whole Foods stores in the region. Gretel is also a talented floral designer and the farm has added wedding floral design services, which is one of the most successful sources of income for the farm. 

Please enjoy our conversation – I know you will be impressed with Gretel and Steve, and you’ll find their passion contagious.

In the podcast, we discussed the upcoming Cut Flower Growers’ School, a program of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers that is scheduled for March 3-4, 2014 in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Steve and Gretel will be teaching a workshop called: “What to Grow and Why,” addressing how to choose which perennials to grow & which annual varieties are the best producers? 

And thanks to Sunny Meadows Flower Farm for providing these wonderful images that you can enjoy here:

A Sunny Meadows Flower Farm wedding, with bride Pilar and groom Matt – and their beautiful seasonal & local Ohio-grown flowers

A gorgeous boutonniere using Sunny Meadows’ awesome lisianthus — for another local wedding – with bride Genevieve & groom Todd. 

On the farm . . . 

Gretel (right) and friend – showing off their floral crowns. 

A sense of the beauty of this farm – as seen in one section planted with salvia. 

What an organized place – rows of field-grown flowers and well-appointed greenhouses.

A Sunny Meadows Flower Farm bouquet

Be still, my heart~ A beautiful bouquet by Gretel, using flowers she and Steve grew.

Grown & designed by Gretel Adams, Sunny Meadows Flower Farm.

Another lovely bridal bouquet from Sunny Meadows Flower Farm.

A sublime color palette for a gorgeous bouquet last July.

I’m so pleased to have been able to introduce you to Gretel and Steve. On their web site, they write:

“Our mission is to educate the public about the quality and vase life of local flowers. Although you can get flowers for dirt cheap flown in from the Equator, the workers there do not have the same rights and protections and there are fewer restrictions on chemical use. So who knows what you are really buying? As a farm specializing in all naturally-grown fresh cut flowers, we are trying to show people just how important supporting your local flower farm really is.”

Follow SUNNY MEADOWS FLOWER FARM on Facebook here

To add your name to the Sunny Meadows Flower Farm, email Gretel & Steve at: SunnyMeadowsFlowerFarm@gmail.com

Because of your support as a listener, listeners have downloaded this podcast nearly 6,000 times! 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. 

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(c) Paige Green

I’m so pleased to introduce listeners to Baylor Chapman, creator and owner of Lila B. Design, a San Francisco-based floral and plant studio. Baylor’s story is well documented in The 50 Mile Bouquet and in many newspaper, magazine and blog articles.

I first met Baylor in the fall of 2010, on a trip to SF where I was scheduled to give a lecture for the Garden Conservancy.

Serendipitously, Susan Morrison, a friend who I’d known through the Garden Writers Association, learned I was coming to her backyard and called to say, “You need to meet my friend Baylor when you’re in town. She’s into locally-grown flowers just like you are.”

That led to a wonderful visit to tour Baylor’s former “loading dock” studio in San Francisco’s Mission District. Susan and Rebecca Sweet, another fellow garden designer and blogger, met me at Baylor’s. The three of us had lots of fun drooling over Baylor’s floral creations and learning more about her design philosophy based on seasonal and locally-grown floral elements. Here’s a blog post about that adventure. 

How cool is this? Coffee, brunch or lunch at Stable Cafe, amidst the lovely living garden created by Lila B. Design. (c) Sophie de Lignerolles photo

Today you can find Baylor and her team working in the welcoming open-air courtyard that’s part of Stable Cafe, the community-minded restaurant owned by her friend Thomas Lackey.

Thomas and Baylor have both been operating businesses on Folsom Street, and when Baylor lost her loading-dock studio this past June, it was Thomas who said: “Move over to our courtyard.”

He “gets” the idea of creating connections with neighbors, artists, fellow small-business owners and others who want to keep jobs and culture alive and well in San Francisco’s vibrant neighborhoods.

Plus, Stable Cafe’s kitchen makes delicious, healthy, seasonal & organic food! Now if you’re in SF, you can visit Lila B. Design, shop for flowers, plants and beautiful garden products, while also eating scrumptious food at the Stable Cafe! What’s not to love?

Baylor graciously shared these photos of her recent work for you to enjoy. Please notice the specific photo credit with each.

The new Lila B. Design studio at Stable Cafe, a plant-centric place for garden and flower lovers alike. (c) Sophie de Lignerolles photo 

One of the event, classroom and workshop spaces at Stable Cafe, featuring a wood-burning pizza oven, a massive trestle table, and Lila B.’s garland of local flowers. (c) Sophie de Lignerolles photo

Pitcher plants (Sarracenia sp.) in a glass vessel.  (c) Holly Stewart photo 

A Lila B. Design tablescape, featuring living plants. (c) Milou + Olin photo 

One of Baylor’s lovely arrangements that combines locally-grown flowers, including Cafe au Lait dahlias, from Lila B.’s garden. (c) Page Bertelson photo 

Another arrangement with begonia foliage, clipped from a living plant. (c) Page Bertelson photo 

Stunning! (c) Page Bertelson photo 

Lila B. Design’s new plant hanger – a SF-designed and fabricated product. (c) Sophie de Lignerolles photo 

Details, details. . . a garland in the making. (c) Sophie de Lignerolles photo 

A stunning centerpiece featuring living plants in a date palm frond, created by Lila B. Design. (c) Milou + Olin photo 

The Plant Recipe Book, out in April 2014.

 Baylor has so many good things going on in her career, but the newest is The Plant Recipe Book: 100 Living Arrangements for Any Home in Any Season (Artisan Books, 2014), which will be published on April 8, 2014. This idea-filled book was photographed by Paige Green. 

It contains detailed planting instructions for centerpieces and arrangements that give living plants a “starring role” in all sorts of creative vessels. A follow up to last year’s title by Jill Rizzo and Alethea Harampolis, “The Flower Recpie Book,” this new inspiring book offers more than 100 projects will blow your mind and prompt you to bring more living plants into your own design work. 

If you live in or will be visiting the Bay Area, you can get a sneak peek and first dibs on a signed copy of this lovely tome. Come and hear Baylor speak at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, where she will demonstrate some of the book’s fun projects using living plants as floral design elements. Details here.

As I mentioned above, as soon as we met, I knew that Baylor needed to be featured in The 50 Mile Bouquet. Please enjoy the entire story:

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The Zweifel Family enjoys the nearby Oregon Coast, From left, daughter Nina, and Monika and Patrick Zweifel.

In the fall, there’s a pretty fun Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze at Oregon Coastal. Here, Patrick poses with his daughter Nina.

Patrick Zweifel’s Oregon Coastal Flowers – his 64-acre, Tillamook, Oregon-based farm – has been well received by florists who shop at the Portland Flower Market, the Los Angeles Flower Market District and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market where you can find permanent stalls filled with his gorgeous hydrangeas, calla lilies and Oregon forest products.

Feast your eyes on the Hydrangea Fields at Oregon Coastal Flowers. Field-grown, true-blue hydrangeas! You can’t get it any better!

Here’s that awesome new Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Pistachio’ that Patrick talked about in our interview. 

Here’s an arial view of Oregon Coastal Flowers where you can spot the full-size competitive race track amidst the fields. 

Check out the Crocosmia borders! 

Patrick’s message is that if you can find your niche and be the very best in that niche, you *might* succeed. Being the best means producing excellent, high-quality botanical and floral elements. It also means the type of customer service you provide and the relationships you build with customers.

But no matter how beautiful or fresh the bloom, domestic farmers face competition on price, especially from importers who buy from low-wage countries, Patrick says. “I was the first person in the U.S. to sell colored calla lilies in a big way. I couldn’t have bought my farm without them. Then the South Americans started selling callas for 30-cents-per-stem against my $1-per-stem product. And they had added incentives, like buy one box, get a second one for free.  I just can’t compete with South America on callas, even if my quality is great.” Patrick describes how cheap imports nearly ruined his core business – colored calla lilies. By 2008, he was faced with devastating losses of 85% of his total revenue and Patrick was driven to save his company.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t see that he had a choice. With a mortgage on his farm and family and employees to support, Patrick searched for a way to diversify Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The wedding pavilion at Hydrangea Ranch, a gorgeous event space at Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The romantic Alder arbors created at Oregon Coastal Farms from alder poles harvested on local forest land.

Hear the optimistic story of how he’s survived and moved beyond that episode to become even more solid in knowing his niche. This is a story of never giving up – and being smart and resourceful enough to find a solution that satisfies your customers, to provide products that meet a need in the floral marketplace, and to find new marketplaces for those products. 

Mossy branches – a signature product offering.

Here are those little log “cake plates” that Patrick has popularized among the floral, wedding & event world.

Oh, wow, those Alder logs!

All kinds of goodies from the Oregon forest: mosses, ferns, gnarly surprises!

Patrick credits his ability to quickly change direction for saving his business. He noticed a few years ago that floral designers were snatching up his offerings of Northwest forest products, such as lichen-clad branches, soft green mosses, cone-laden conifer boughs and other woodland items, infusing their bouquets with a naturalistic feel. In the past three years, Oregon Coastal Flowers has increased the variety of specialty forest items, while at the same time shrinking its acreage devoted to calla lily production. With forest service permits that allow him to legally harvest everything from birch saplings to decaying tree trunks, Patrick has seen his sales double from 2010 to 2011.

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Greetings and Happy New Year! This is the first Slow Flowers Podcast episode of 2014 and I have devoted it to an essay about the state of the American floral industry and the critical changes that need to take place in order to save it.  

Here are some highlights of my thoughts and ideas:

1. In early 2014, as promised for months, I will launch SLOWFLOWERS.com, a free nationwide online directory to florists, shops and studios who design with American Grown Flowers and the family farms who sell direct to the consumer. Please take a moment to sign up for more details – including the Beta Launch later this month. 

2. Without the kind of valuable information shared by the amazing guests of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast and without proper country-of-origin labeling on all flowers at the marketplace, American consumers simply do not know where their flowers come from. They do not know WHO grew those flowers. They do not know WHERE those flowers were grown and what SUSTAINABLE practices were used. *Infographic, courtesy of California Cut Flower Commission.

3. Above you will find two types of confusing labeling seen in the marketplace, used by retailers who are trying to ride the wave of American grown. These labels appeared on mixed bouquets of imported flowers. So the implication is that they are “local,” when all that’s local about those bunches was the fact that they were “assembled” with a twistie-tie or a rubber band in some nearby warehouse. It’s disheartening to see lack of leadership in flower retailing. Unless people like you and me object and insist on accurate product information, we will continue to witness this sort of dishonesty at the cash register.

 4. Above you will find GREAT labeling from my friends Gretel and Steve Adams, flower farmers at Sunny Meadows Flower Farm in Columbus, Ohio, who promise “Local-Sustainable-Fresh” on all their bouquets and bunches. This is the precise type of information that helps consumers make an informed choice about the flowers they buy. It’s easy for their customers to log onto the farm’s web site and see photos of luscious, abundant fields and greenhouses of flowers growing in their own community.

5. The graph above begin in 1989, just prior the the Andean Trade Preference Agreement. You can see the dramatic trajectory of imports and how the U.S. government’s preferential treatment for South American flower producers has devastated domestic U.S. flower production. *Infographic, courtesy of California Cut Flower Commission. Let’s reverse this trend in 2014!

6. Today is January 1st and you may have seen the Pasadena Rose Parade broadcast on television. Tragically, only one out of 45 floats was created with all California-grown flowers. Read more about the status of Rose Floats that use imported flowers in yesterday’s Huffington Post column by Bill Prescott here. Read more about the Cal Poly All-American Float here.  *”We want more California-grown floats,’ an article from Dec. 28, 2013 Santa Barbara Free-Press.

7. Please be conscious of your FLOWER MILE as much as you are of your FOOD MILE. *Infographic, courtesy of California Cut Flower Commission.

8. Take the AMERICAN FLOWERS Pledge in 2014! I look forward to sharing more inspiring flower stories from the farms who grow American flowers and the studios/designers/florists who sell and create beauty with American flowers in the coming year!

Thank you  for joining me in this episode of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast with Debra Prinzing.

Listeners have downloaded more than 4,500 episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast since I launched it in July 2013. 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. 

 FRESH PICKED AND EVERGREEN

Local Washington tulips fill one of my favorite pedestal vases. The greenery and branches are all from my garden.

Here we are at the final week of the year. And I want to share with you a final look at my year-long project to create, photograph and write about 52 consecutive weeks of local and seasonal floral arrangements.

It was a fabulous ride – and one that rewarded me with so many gifts, friendships and experiences.

Today, I’m sharing a bonus bouquet – created during my one-year odyssey. It didn’t make it into Slow Flowers, but I’m not sure why. I truly love this arrangement, which was created with downed confier branches and bare twigs from my vine maple tree — all free for the taking! They’re paired with two small bunches of white and creamy-yellow tulips grown by Alm Hill Gardens and purchased at Seattle’s Pike Place Market just after Christmas.

The chicken wire is somewhat inelegant, but you’d never know it by looking at the finished bouquet above.

This is just the sort of shallow vase into which a conventional florist would stick a chunk of foam before arranging the branches and stems. But if you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know I am a big hater of foam.

A simple square of chicken wire, formed into a mushroom-cap shape and inserted into the opening of the vase, is the perfect alternative. I use this wire over and over again, rarely throwing it into the recycling bin until I’ve gone through multiple arrangements.

Enjoy! Not sure when I’ll resume this bouquet-a-week project, but I promise to share more of my local, seasonal and sustainable floral projects in 2014.

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Kelly Sullivan, floral designer, flower farmer, and owner of Botanique in Seattle.

Today’s guest is my friend and fellow Local Flowers Advocate Kelly Sullivan.

Based in Seattle, in fact, just a few blocks from where I live, Kelly is an up-and-coming studio floral designer, small-scale flower farmer and owner of Botanique. 

We met a few years ago at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, just as Kelly was developing her business model for Botanique. I have to tell you, her venture has really taken off — and Kelly has lived up to her tag-line: Overwhelmingly Beautiful Flowers. 

Kelly brought me this spring arrangement using all spring garden elements with a few juicy anemones from a local farmer. So enchanting!

There are so many things that impress me about this young woman. She brings a garden design and landscaping background to her floral creations; her horticultural knowledge has greatly influenced the plantings in The Botanique Cutting Garden – the backyard “urban flower farm” where Kelly grows many of the flowers she uses in her designs. 

While she’s still young, Kelly is actually already on her second career. She trained and performed as a modern dancer after college. Dance plays a special role in her designs. “When people ask what defines my style, I’ve realized recently that it’s ‘movement,’” she says. “Movement is like choreography. When I compose a bouquet, it always has movement – and you see it in everything from the vines to the stems.”

One of Kelly’s beautiful arrangements shows her dancer’s sensibility in designing with botanicals.

Movement adds energy to her otherwise lush design style. Kelly isn’t interested in producing perfect, symmetrical arrangements. “When I design, that’s when the gardener in me shows up,” she says. “I love foliage, berries, wild elements. I love interlocking stems, unusual edibles and even seed pods.” What you see in her vases looks and feels alive (I guess that’s the dancer showing up, right?).

A peek inside Kelly’s new floral design studio in her Seattle garden.

Our conversation took place in Kelly’s brand new studio, a converted one-car garage that will soon be a bustling center of creativity and design. “I’m obsessed with flowers,” she confides. To Kelly, when you grow your own ingredients you can’t help but notice the seasonality of each flower. “If it’s growing right there in your garden, it’s impossible not to want to pick it and arrange it,” she points out.

Of course, I feel the same way. And as more floral designers follow Kelly’s example – either by growing some of their own botanical elements or connecting with local flower farmers – the floral community will only improve. Designs that are seasonal and local have a special character, a vibrancy and authenticity not found in distantly grown or out-of-season choices. Here are some more flowers, gathered together by this gifted and inspired designer. 

So happy holidays to the flower-obsessed. And thank you  for joining me in this episode of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast with Debra Prinzing.

Because of your support as a listener, we have had nearly 4,500 downloads in 2013 – 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. 

THE ALLURE OF AMARYLLIS

‘Joker’, a red-streaked amaryllis – perfect for a long-lasting holiday display

Ingredients: