Christof Berneau of UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology (Episode 202)

July 15th, 2015

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Christof Berneau holds in his hands, a bunch of beautiful, organic, just-picked roses from UCSC’s flower fields.

“The Farm” at University of California/Santa Cruz’s 33-acre compound.

A 2015 Apprentice poses with her just-harvested, just-designed bouquet.

Last month, my travels returned me to one of the most prolific flower growing regions in the U.S. – Monterey Bay, California.

I was there to co-host the Field to Vase Dinner Tour at Pajarosa Roses, a fantastic American flower farm known for luxury roses grown with sustainable practices. I was also able to connect with some other influential people in the cut flower industry in order to record interviews for the Slow Flowers Podcast.

You’ll hear today from one of those voices. Please meet Christof Bernau, the farm garden manager of the UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

A veteran of the UC Santa Cruz program, Christof is a totally hands-on farmer-educator, working closely with the graduate apprentices, undergraduates and members of the public interested in land stewardship through farming.

2015 UCSC Apprentices gather to make beautiful summertime bouquets from flowers picked only moments earlier.

Christof, clipping a few UCSC-grown Kordes roses for a custom order.

Look how much happiness these American grown flowers spread!

Today’s guest, Christof Berneau, is the hands-on educator-farmer at USCS’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Here’s more about Christof:

Christof has been part of the CASFS since coming to the Santa Cruz area as an Apprentice in 1994. He has been an Apprenticeship instructor since 1999.

Christof has extensive experience in nursery management, propagation, vegetable, and specialty cut flower production.

He is especially interested in floral design with specialty crops, high nutrition crops, small-scale grain production, the cultivation of a wide range of fruit crops, and creating a learning environment where everyone can thrive.

He holds a BA in Asian History from Reed College and an MA in Equity and Social Justice in Adult Education from San Francisco State University.

When not immersed in the farm, Christof cherishes his time with his wife Jennifer and their daughter Eleanor Wren, spending time in the mountains, pursuing wildflowers, studying natural history, water cycles, and local ecology.

Harvest Schedule- Love this!

Summer bouquet-making with the 2015 apprentices yields some gorgeous and hyper-local arrangements.

And more about the Center:

It is a research, education, and public service program dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system. And yes, thankfully, flowers are a part of that equation!

The Center operates the 3-acre Alan Chadwick Garden and the 33-acre UCSC Farm, which serve as research, teaching, and training facilities. Proceeds from produce, flower and plant sales support the UCSC Farm & Garden facilities, and the Center’s Apprenticeship training course in organic farming and gardening.

“The Farm,” as it is called, is the hub of activity for the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, which teaches the concepts and practices of organic gardening and small-scale farming.

This full-time, six-month  program includes approximately 300 hours of classroom instruction and 700 hours of in-field training and hands-on experience in the greenhouses, gardens, orchards, and fields.

Buckets of Santa Cruz flowers, ready for designing.

Another creative Apprentice with his custom arrangement.

Since its founding in 1967, the Apprenticeship has developed into an internationally recognized program that blends the virtues of experiential learning with traditional classroom studies.

Topics covered during the six-month course include instruction and daily work experience in organic gardening and farming, focusing on ecological interactions amongst plants, soils, climate, insects, and pathogens.

In a hands-on education approach, apprentices work alongside staff in the greenhouse, gardens, fields, and orchards, as well as attend lectures, demonstrations, and field trips.

Apprentices are exposed to the different aspects of growing plants organically on both a hand-dug garden scale and a tractor-cultivated field scale. The Apprentices selected to attend the course each year are interested in practical training that will prepare them to teach others and/or to run their own operations.

Another fun Apprentice shot – note the lavender sprig in his beard.

The goal of the Apprenticeship is to increase the number and diversity of individuals who have a command of the fundamental skills and concepts associated with organic horticulture and agriculture, such that they will be prepared to actively participate in commercial or social service projects that aim to improve human health and environmental quality through organic practices.

If you find yourself traveling to Northern California, the SF Bay Area or Santa Cruz, check out the ways you can connect with the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

For flower farmers and floral designers, something really exciting is coming up at The Farm on Saturday, July 25th: Growing and Designing Special Event Flowers.

Join professional flower grower Zoe Hitchner of Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg, and Sky DeMuro of UCSC’s Alan Chadwick Garden for a day-long workshop on special event flowers. If you are a bride, groom, farmer-florist, or simply love playing with flowers, this workshop will delight and educate.

Zoe and Sky will lead participants in demonstrations and hands-on activities as we make unique, seasonal arrangements that are farm-fresh and elegant. In addition to basic floral design techniques including hand-tied bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, and boutonniers, this workshop will also cover organic growing and selection tips for those who want to grow their own bouquets.

The cost of the all-day workshop is $125 (or $95 for members of the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden. Discounts available for beginning farmers (see contact information, below, to inquire about discounts). Space is limited to 20 participants and you’ll take home your arrangements. Pre-registration required. Click here to read a lovely profile about Zoe and Front Porch Farm that was featured on the Field to Vase blog.

Check out these Social sites where you can follow year-round activity of The Farm:

The Farm on Instagram

The Farm on Facebook

Application details about the 2016 Apprenticeship program.

You never know, this may be your introduction to a whole new world of sustainable flower and food farming!

Listeners like you have downloaded this podcast nearly 56,000 times. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

Until next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. And If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

The content and opinions expressed here are either mine alone or those of my guests alone, independent of any podcast sponsor or other person, company or organization.

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Wheatley and Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about their work at shellandtree.com.

Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast | 1 Comment »

Week 27 // Slow Flowers Challenge

July 12th, 2015

July. Hydrangeas. Boom.

What a week. Our last to enjoy the home and garden we’ve occupied for the past four years. Downsizing is wonderfully aspirational, but boy is it a lot of work. In fact, I’m rushing to post this because the Garden Lovers’ Garage Sale resumes in 1-1/2 hours!

But with only 72 hours left before closing on the sale of our nearly 3,500-square-foot home and moving into a not quite 1,200-square-foot apartment (still in Seattle), I had to take a Slow Flowers Challenge “moment” yesterday.

The cause for my joy? These amazing hydrangeas! I inherited numerous hydrangeas from this home and garden’s previous owners, more than a half-dozen. In one shaded corner beneath the fir and cedar trees, there is a trio clustered between the fence and the driveway. Occasional irrigation; otherwise much neglect.

Still, they are glorious come summertime. Look at these iridescent hues ranging from powder blue to French blue to rosy purple. These flowers do not disappoint – even when there are piles of garage sale junk strewn at their feet.

Ready to be carried to my new home in this amazing steel floral caddy, complete with six jars of hydrangeas.

PS, don’t you LOVE this metal carrier? It was designed and custom fabricated by Silver Lake Farms, the urban flower farm based in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood, owned by flower maven Tara Kolla. You can read about Tara in a chapter of my book The 50 Mile Bouquet – and at her beautiful web site here.

Tara designed these carriers so she and her crew can harvest flowers, pop them into the jars of water, and bring them to their various sales outlets. One of the most popular is Hollywood Farmers’ Market, where you can find Silver Lake Farms every Sunday, February through July. You can also join Silver Lake’s FLOWER CSA for custom-picked beauties – straight from Tara’s urban growing fields. And, you might get lucky and be able to purchase a carrier. It’s a perfect tool for gardeners and flower farmers alike!

Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Gardening, Slow Flowers Challenge | 1 Comment »

First & Bloom’s Tammy Myers, an All-American Studio Florist (Episode 201)

July 8th, 2015

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Meet Tammy Myers of First & Bloom, today’s Slow Flowers Podcast guest.

A moss-covered swing on Tammy’s farm is a lush spot to photograph one of her hand-tied bouquets.

This week’s Slow Flowers Podcast guest is Tammy Myers, a Seattle studio florist with a focus on 100% American-grown flowers. Scroll down to read more, find links and to see photos of her design work.

It was completely fitting to interview Tammy during American Flowers Week, which just wrapped up July 4th with a fantastic level of involvement from flower farmers and floral designers all over the country.

From boutique growers to the largest flower farms in the country; from studio florists to grocery stores and wholesalers, too, we celebrated American Flowers Week as a grass roots education, promotion and advocacy campaign to highlight our nation’s flowers and foliage — and to raise awareness among consumers, the media and policymakers about supporting domestic flowers!

Source: Keyhole.co Real-time Hashtag Tracking

On Twitter and Instagram alone, mentions of #americanflowersweek generated more than 400k impressions in one month.

That’s pretty exciting for what was a mere idea six weeks ago!

Huge thanks to our top participants – without their intentional involvement and embrace of American Flowers Week, we would never have created so much beautiful buzz about this grassroots campaign.

Top post honors go to Farmgirl Flowers of San Francisco and Los Angeles for generating more than 3,500 likes on Instagram with a special “firecracker” bouquet promotion designed just for American Flowers Week. You rocked it, Farmgirl Team.

READ MORE…

Posted in American Flowers Week, American Grown, Blog Posts, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers | 2 Comments »

Week 26 // Slow Flowers Challenge for #Americanflowersweek

July 4th, 2015

Here’s to a cool, pastel-themed July 4th!

I’ve been preoccupied with thoughts of Patriotism this week, especially with the Slow Flowers launch of American Flowers Week, which runs through today – July 4th.

A sampling of the posts on Instagram and Twitter – all for #americanflowersweek

Hundreds of folks have joined me in making red-white-and-blue floral arrangements and posting photos of their fields, flowers, bouquets and arrangements across the social media spectrum, all tagged with #americanflowersweek.

I’ve had a lot of fun making red-white-and-blue bouquets this week, too!

So, for a softer take on #americanflowersweek, may I present floral patriotism with pastels?

Peach, white and blue!

That nigella ~ so divine! Grown by Vivian Larson of Everyday Flowers.

I love the distressed quality of this white cast-iron planter, recycled from a Better Homes & Gardens photo shoot from a few years back.

With a plastic liner converting it to a vase, the urn fits right into this week’s restful floral palette. P.S., I used a small flower frog, secured inside – for stabilizing the stems.

From my garden:

• Dusty Miller foliage ~ intensely white at this time of year

From Seattle Wholesale Growers Market:

• Pale peach foxgloves from Triple Wren Farms
• Astilbe from Ojeda Farms (purchased fresh last week, but preserved as a dry element)
• Globe thistle (Echinops sp.) and raspberry foliage from Jello Mold Farm
• Nigella ‘Black Cumin’ and double Shasta Daisies from Everyday Flowers

Posted in American Flowers Week, American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Flower Farming, Gardening, General, Plants, Slow Flowers Challenge | No Comments »

Destination Weddings in North Michigan, with BLOOM Floral Design (Episode 200)

July 1st, 2015

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Jennifer Haf (left) and Larissa Flynn (right) of BLOOM Floral Design, collaborating on a floral headpiece at a recent Francoise Weeks workshop in Michigan

We are in the middle of celebrating the inaugural American Flowers Week, June 29th through July 4th. We created American Flowers Week as a grass roots education, promotion and advocacy campaign to highlight our nation’s farms, florists, flowers and foliage — and to raise awareness among consumers, the media and policymakers about supporting domestic flowers!

If you haven’t joined in, there is plenty of time to get involved.

The easiest thing you can do is to make a red-white-and-blue bouquet using all American-grown, local and seasonal blooms. Please post that photo on your social sites and tag #americanflowersweek. I believe this effort will grow from a small idea into a significant annual event – and by adding your voice (and creativity) to American Flowers Week, you’re helping sing the praises of our homegrown blooms.

I’m so pleased today to introduce you to Jennifer Haf and Larissa Flynn of BLOOM Floral Design based on the beautiful North Michigan shore, in the communities of Petoskey/Charlevoix.

Jennifer founded BLOOM floral design in 2008 in response to her love for sharing cut garden flowers from her Northern Michigan backyard.

Having since studied under some of the most celebrated designers and with her team executed hundreds of regional and destination events, Jennifer radiates her love for all things natural into the designs BLOOM creates.

With a talented design team, BLOOM offers exclusive services to Northern Michigan and destination wedding clients — in fact, for 65 ceremonies this year alone.

Jennifer Haf, founder of BLOOM Floral Design.

Along with Jennifer, you’ll also meet Larissa Flynn, the creative director for BLOOM.

Trained as a graphic designer and fine artist, with extensive gallery and arts management experience, Larissa joined the floral business several years ago after meeting Jennifer and realizing they were creative kindred spirits.

I love the philosophy of BLOOM, as described on the studio’s web site:

We believe that flowers are most beautiful in their natural state.  When combined with other blooms in a customized palette, color and texture create a distinctive design that exudes the feeling you wish to create.  BLOOM sources flowers from only the finest growers, sourcing as much as we can locally and domestically.  Hand selected from tried and true varieties of the highest standards, our blooms will be sure to please.

Behind the scenes our creative team works meticulously at our production design studio where all of the magic happens the week leading up to your event.  Hand processing all of our flowers and prepping and designing each arrangement per event, our designs will charm and delight you and your guests.

Larissa Flynn, BLOOM’s creative director.

As you will hear in our conversation, I recorded the interview with Jennifer and Larissa rather spontaneously – at a gathering hosted by Lisa Waud of pot and box and Detroit’s The Flower House, a prior guest of this podcast.

I had flown to Detroit for a 24-hour visit to attend the preview for this amazing art installation, which will be held over the weekend of October 16-18.

Jennifer and Larissa will create the florals for one of the rooms at The Flower House and I can’t wait to see what kind of botanical magic they conjure up.

Please follow links to all of BLOOM’s social sites, shared below. These are talented Slow Flowers floristas you will want to follow:

BLOOM on Facebook

BLOOM on Twitter

BLOOM on Pinterest

BLOOM on Instagram

Here’s a gallery of the beautiful design work from BLOOM Floral Design, used with their permission. These gorgeous images give me a keen sense of place and an appreciation for the character of their region’s landscape, climate and flora. A large percentage of their floral elements are local, Michigan-grown flowers. You’ll want to visit Northern Michigan at the peak of the season to see these lovelies yourself!

Listeners like you have downloaded this podcast more than 54,000 times. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

Please join the American Flowers Week excitement and check out these resources to help your efforts. With your involvement, I believe this public awareness campaign will gain momentum and become an established annual event in the floral industry.

Until next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. And If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

The content and opinions expressed here are either mine alone or those of my guests alone, independent of any podcast sponsor or other person, company or organization.

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Wheatley and Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about their work at shellandtree.com.

Posted in American Flowers Week, American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers | 1 Comment »