April 22nd, 2015
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This week’s episode coincides with Earth Day, fittingly symbolic for the Slow Flowers Movement and flower farmers, floral designers and product innovators who are working to change our industry and push for progress to alter the status quo.
So I’d like to share a few news items as well as two follow-up interviews featuring guests of past Slow Flowers Podcast episodes.
Listen closely to find out how you can win prize packages from each of our guests – you’ll want to get in on the good stuff!
First off, if you enjoyed last week’s interview with Jenny Elliott and Luke Franco of Tiny Hearts Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley and Rachel Gordon of Taproot Flowers of Brooklyn, please check out more photos that I’ve added to the show notes. They’re onto something really special and I encourage you to listen if you missed that episode – and enjoy the beautiful flowers the three of them grow and arrange in their worlds.
Second, I want to share details about this week’s Fashion Revolution Day, which takes place on April 24th.
If you believe in Slow Flowers, you should also embrace and support Slow Fashion, which has so many parallels in terms of labor practices, environmental concern and trade policy.
Slow Fashion asks questions about the origins of the clothing we wear that are virtually identical to the questions Slow Flowers asks about the bouquets we bring into our homes.
Fashion Revolution Day 2015 marks the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which killed 1,133, and injured over 2,500 people.
According to Fashion Revolution’s data, one in six people work in the global fashion supply chain. It is the most labor-dependent industry on the planet, yet the people who make our clothing are hidden from us, often at their own expense, a symptom of the broken links across the fashion industry.
Wow, doesn’t that sound identical to the floriculture industry? On April 24th, coordinated teams around the world will challenge global fashion brands to demonstrate commitment to transparency across the length of the value chain, from farmers to factory workers, brands to buyers and consumers.
Zady.com, an innovative online fashion brand based in New York City, is serving as U.S. chair of Fashion Revolution Day. Slow Flowers has been invited to help promote the cause. Check out this Slow Fashion/Fashion Revolution event taking place in Brooklyn. Slow Flowers hopes to have ongoing involvement with Slow Fashion in the future.
I am inspired by what the fashion industry has done in just two years to mobilize conscious consumers to care about the origins of their clothing — and in the future, I hope the floral industry will be just as vocal. I don’t wish for a fatal disaster to occur at an unregulated flower farm in a distant land to make us all wake up and start asking about the origins of our flowers.
What you can do on April 24th is to use your own social channels to get active. Take a photo of yourself wearing an item of clothing inside out. Tag the brand, share the photo on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the hashtags: #whomademyclothes and #fashrev.
Not to take away from this important endeavor, but perhaps you’ll be inspired to ALSO take a photo of yourself holding flowers that came from a US mega-retailer, big box store or supermarket and tag that retailer on your social sites with the hashtags: #whogrewmyflowers and #slowflowers. Just a thought.
Thanks for caring!
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Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, Entertainment, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Plants, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers | 3 Comments »
April 15th, 2015
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Tiny Hearts Farm of Copake, NY – a Hudson Valley cut flower farm destined for big things!
Luke Franco, one half of Tiny Hearts Farm.
Jenn Elliott, one half of Tiny Hearts Fars.
I’ve often talked about the exciting changes we’re experiencing with the Slow Flowers Movement as a “cultural shift,” not a Trend.
I credit sustainability expert and founder of Ci: conscientious innovation, Kierstin DeWest, the very first guest of this podcast in July 2013, for teaching me this concept. Trends are often momentary; cultural shifts are significant, meaningful and long-lasting changes in the marketplace.
There is a cultural shift taking place that is redefining the relationships consumers, florists and flower farmers have with one another. This is happening at all levels of the flower pipeline, from U.S. Flower Farms large and small seeking Certified American Grown status to brand and label their flowers – in order to satisfy the demands, especially at the mass market – for transparency in flower origin, to the grassroots efforts, region by region, to connect the people who grow flowers with the people who design and sell them.
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Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast | 4 Comments »
April 12th, 2015
A golden and green floral palette – with a beautiful echeveria as a focal element. (c) Perry Stampfel
Welcome to Week 14 of the Slow Flowers Challenge!
Greetings from Southern California, where I have been teaching this week! It’s a great excuse to show off some of the flowers grown in Encinitas, California – by Dramm & Echter, an established farm that grows beautiful blooms.
At the invitation of Lynn Stampfel of Laguna Beach Garden Club, I traveled to Southern California earlier this week. This established and active group of gardeners graciously welcomed me to lecture about American Grown Flowers and the Slow Flowers Movement. We had 125 in attendance and it was a whirlwind. Why? Well, for some crazy reason, I had agreed to give a 30-minute slide lecture, followed by a 30-minute eco-design demonstration.
Above is the arrangement I created for the demo. I used a vintage brass planter – low and wide – in order to show how to use chicken wire as the internal mechanics of the container.
The floral elements were all grown locally – well, the next county over – at Dramm & Echter, an American grown flower farm with 40 acres of field-grown crops and 950,000 square feet of greenhouses. Dramm & Echter’s primary floral crops are gerberas, lilies, spray roses and protea varieties. Then there’s so much awesome foliage and textural varieties, including solidago, leucadendron, ruscus, eucalyptus and more.
Demonstrating with the flowers from Dramm & Echter. (c) Perry Stampfel
Working with the Dramm and Echter sales team, I ordered $800 of their flowers and foliage varieties for Laguna Beach Garden Club’s afternoon event: A hands-on design workshop.
Twenty-five participants gathered in the courtyard of the local church that hosted our workshop under the lovely canopy of a melaleuca tree, we spent two hours arranging with those blooms. Everyone was encouraged to try using chicken wire or fluffy foliage or curly willow as the stabilizing matrix — all great alternatives to conventional chemical-base flower foam. I’m pleased to have been able to demonstrate the brand new Floral Soil plant-based product in one of my designs, shown below.
This vintage footed glass bowl contains Dramm & Echter florals, including gerberas, spray roses, wax flower, and two types of eucalyptus branches. (c) Perry Stampfel
Twenty-five Slow Flowers designers, all members of the Laguna Beach Garden Club, at work on their personal projects. (c) Perry Stampfel
Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, floral design, Flower Farming, Gardening, General, Plants, Slow Flowers Challenge | No Comments »
April 8th, 2015
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Betany Coffland (left) and Lennie Larkin (right). This photograph captures the friends holding flowers they grew for Chica Bloom Farm (Betany) and Petaluma Bounty (Lennie).
Attention emerging flower farmers and #farmerflorists!
A B-Side boutonniere.
I know you’ll appreciate this week’s guests because they are both in the early phases of launching their floral businesses.
Either you’ve already been there so parts of their stories will sound familiar or you’re in the thick of building a floral enterprise – farming and/or design – and will draw inspiration from their candor about the challenges, opportunities and decisions about the direction to take.
With planting and harvesting season and months of weddings upon us, I can assure you that our episode is timely. Like all of my guests on the Slow Flowers Podcast, there is much to learn from what they have to share.
Please welcome Betany Coffland of Chloris Floral and Lennie Larkin of B-Side Farm. Together, they embody a unique collaboration for people who are growing and designing American flowers. Be wowed by the collective beauty of their work.
Betany, performing “Carmen,” photo by Pat Kirk
This episode was recorded in the San Jose hotel lobby after the conclusion of ASCFG’s “Growers’ Intensive” last month.
Betany Coffland has always possessed an artistic soul. Her first career lies in singing opera where she trained at the Juilliard School of Music.
Often gifted with an armload of bouquets on opening night, Betany frequently imagined herself in a Jane Austen novel.
The quintessential professional, Betany has given us permission to include snippets of her operatic performances, including the French art song, “A Chloris.” Check out her professional opera site here.
After moving to Sonoma County and reading the book, The Dirty Life, she was inspired to volunteer at a local flower farm to see if she would enjoy getting dirt under her nails and having the outdoors as an office.
A Chloris inspiration, photo by Paige Green
Betany Coffland, portrayed in an scene inspired by Chloris, the Greek goddess of flowers, photo by Paige Green
Betany swiftly and deeply fell entranced with how stunning and heartbreakingly gorgeous locally grown flowers are.
For 18 months, she co-owned Chica Bloom Farm, acting as the lead designer and wedding coordinator.
She especially loved getting to know her community through delivering weekly flower CSA bouquets.
In the winter of 2014, Betany launched Chloris Floral. The namesake Chloris perfectly combines her two artistic endeavors, classical singing and floral design.
Not only is Chloris the Greek goddess of flowers, she is also the heroine of Betany’s favorite French art song, “A Chloris,” by Reynaldo Hahn.
This song has special meaning because it was performed by a dear friend at Betany’s wedding to her husband Joseph. Now part of Betany’s repertoire, she continues to perform A Chloris.
A Chloris Floral spring bouquet inspired by Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto from The Four Seasons
Betany and her floral arrangement, Inspired by Debussy’s symphonic work- La Mer
Chloris Floral is a flower design studio in Sonoma County committed to using 100% local and seasonal blooms grown using organic practices. By supporting and building upon the strength of the local farming community, Chloris ensures the availability of fresh, locally grown blooms necessary to create achingly beautiful old world designs.
A little bit country: flower farmer, Lennie Larkin
A lush B-Side bouquet, by Lennie Larkin.
In her “day job,” Lennie Larkin is the community farm manager at Petaluma Bounty, a nonprofit community farm that works to create a healthy and sustainable food system for everyone in Petaluma, California.
At Petaluma Bounty, Lennie grows lots of vegetables and a seriously beautiful patch of flowers that are sold locally, including at farmers’ markets.
She will share her story, so I don’t want to give too much away, but let me quickly introduce Lennie’s new flower farming business, B-Side Farm.
B-Side Beauty, by Lennie Larkin
She describes B-Side as a small, bustling flower farm that grew out of her obsession with fragrant blossoms.
It sits on a fertile piece of land in the rolling hills of Petaluma, in the southern pocket of Sonoma County, California. From show-stopping dahlias to rare foliages and simple herbs, B-Side specializes in favorite old-fashioned flowers, picked daily and bursting with dreamy scents.
Lennie’s flowers and arrangement supply a family of local-minded florists and specialty stores in Petaluma, San Francisco, and Oakland, and she welcomes orders of loose flowers and specialty arrangements for pickup straight from the farm. Read Lennie’s extended bio from her new web site.
Lennie and Betany are founding members of the North Bay Flower Collective, a group of flower farmers and floral designers in the North SF Bay Area.
I love the motivation that led to the formation of the North Bay Flower Collective: To lean on each other for support and pull our resources together to build a flower growers’ alliance helping each farmer and florist to grow and thrive.
Here are the links to Betany’s social sites for Chloris, to Lennie’s social sites for B-Side and to the North Bay Flower Collective.
You’ll want to follow these talented individuals and watch how their coming design season unfolds:
Find Betany here:
Chloris Floral on Facebook
Chloris Floral on Instagram
Chloris Floral Web Site
Find Lennie here:
B-Side Farm on Facebook
B-Side Farm on Instagram
B-Side Farm Web Site
Thank you so much for joining me this week and please return again, as I continue to share insightful and educational episodes recorded exclusively for the Slow Flowers Podcast.
Listeners like you have downloaded the podcast more than 42,000 times. Until next week please 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, Entertainment, floral design, Flower Farming, General, Plants, Podcast Episodes, SLOW FLOWERS Podcast, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers | 3 Comments »
April 5th, 2015
Please feel free to use this graphic to promote the Slow Flowers Movement to your own community of flower farmers, florists and customers.
Out of the blue recently, an editor for the American Alliance of Museums’ annual TrendsWatch publication contacted me for permission to reprint the Slow Flowers‘ “Where do your flowers come from?” infographic in the organization’s 2015 annual report.
I really had no idea how this illustrious association of cultural institutions planned on using the infographic, but of course, I said YES.
TrendsWatch2015 features a report on “Slow Culture.”
The publication just landed in my in-box and I have to say, it’s pretty impressive.
Each year, the TrendsWatch report highlights top trends that the Center for the Future of Museums staff and advisors believe are highly significant to museums and their communities.
The story of “Slow Flowers” appears in an article titled “Slooow: better a tortoise than a hare,” which highlights slower cultural experiences in all consumer categories.
In addition to the Slow Culture section, the TrendsWatch report cited Ethical Consumerism (which has a lot of connections to Slow Flowers, as well), Personalization, Rising Sea Levels, Wearable Technology and Open Data as subjects of importance to the Museum community.
Here’s a PDF of the article: Trendswatch 2015. You can download a PDF of the entire TrendsWatch report here after completing a short registration form.
Posted in American Grown, Blog Posts, Creativity, Flower Farming, General, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers, Writing | No Comments »
