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Welcome to DAY ONE of American Flowers Week, which continues through next Tuesday, July 4th, Independence Day!

The Slow Flowers Community is boldly sharing this message: Beautiful, fresh and seasonal flowers are worth celebrating! They are grown here, by real people on real U.S. flower farms!

This is our third year celebrating American grown flowers in all 50 states – coast to coast from north to south.

I’m thrilled with the incredible enthusiasm and participation from flower farmers, floral designers, retailers, grocery chains and avid gardeners who are joining in to help raise awareness about the origin of our flowers.

Your use of hashtag #americanflowersweek along with #slowflowers and your personal branding terms is an awesome way to engage with consumers and peers across the U.S.!

I’ve loved seeing the early posts as designers and florists have shared sneak-peeks of their projects on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram – flowers, signage, displays, events and special red-white-and-blue bouquets to celebrate American Flowers Week.

We’ll keep on re-tweeting and re-posting to spread the awareness and attention on social platforms – with the overall goal of getting more folks asking for and buying American grown flowers.

Follow these links to the free resources available to you – as well as details about cool American Flowers Week projects our members are producing around the country (including a few that took place last week in the days leading up to American Flowers Week).

Check out Americanflowersweek.com to download graphics, logos, photography and social media badges that you can use in your own branding or social feeds.

And don’t forget to download our awesome USA Map of state flowers, including individual state coloring sheets. Add your logo and print copies to share and hand out to your community and customers.

I have one more important event to remind you about – the Slow Flowers Summit, which is happening this coming Sunday, July 2^nd in Seattle at the Surf Incubator event space.

You’ve heard from some of our awesome speakers, and this Podcast has shared previews what’s on the agenda for an inspiring day of design innovation, personal inspiration and a bit of radical thinking to send you off with new ideas.

It’s not too late to sign up – we’re expecting and planning for a few last-minute registrants. If your schedule allows, I encourage you to join us!

I’m so happy to bring you some succulent joy today, with a conversation I recorded in late May when I traveled to San Diego to teach.

I have loved seeing the designs, creativity and color sense in the succulent florals of Marialuisa Kaprielian. Marialuisa is the owner of Urban Succulents, based in San Diego. She’s a Slowflowers.com member whose company is uniquely suited for a thriving mail order floral business.

If you recall my podcast episode with Robin Stockwell, author of the new book SUCCULENTS, he mentioned commissioning Marialuisa to design the succulent floral arrangements that appear in his book. You can listen to that episode and see images of her designs in the show notes here.

Because San Diego has ideal weather for growing and producing succulent plants, it’s the perfect headquarters for Urban Succulents.

Marialuisa’s mission is to create living arrangements using only the finest locally sourced succulent plants.

All her succulent arrangements, wreaths, gift boxes, bouquets and other items are made to order so they are fresh when the recipient receives them.  Urban Succulents’ living arrangements and bouquets can be replanted, bringing more enjoyment — a gift that keeps giving, or growing in this case.

Urban Succulents creates living florals for corporate events and galas, weddings and other festive occasions. For holidays and other gifting, the studio offers wreaths and succulent plant assortments.

I know you’ll find our conversation inspiring – and I hope it gives you some new ideas for using succulents in your design work. Or, contact Urban Succulents to special order wired succulents to add to your designs (as shown, left).

I had serious succulent envy spending time with Marialuisa in her home, studio and vast garden filled with plants we never see up in the chilly corner of the Pacific Northwest.

You can find and follow MariaLuisa at these social places:

Urban Succulents on Facebook

Urban Succulents on Instagram

Urban Succulents on Pinterest

 

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 204,000 times by listeners like you.

THANK YOU to each one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much. If you value the content you receive each week, I invite you to show your thanks and support the Slow Flowers Podcast with a donation — the button can be found on our home page in the right column. Your contributions will help make it possible to transcribe future episodes of the Podcast.

Thank you to our family of sponsors:

Arctic Alaska Peonies, a cooperative of 50 family farms in the heart of Alaska providing high quality, American Grown peony flowers during the months of July and August. Visit them today at arcticalaskapeonies.com

Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farmer-owned cooperative committed to providing the very best the Pacific Northwest has to offer in cut flowers, foliage and plants. The Growers Market’s mission is to foster a vibrant marketplace that sustains local flower farms and provides top-quality products and service to the local floral industry. Find them at seattlewholesalegrowersmarket.com

Longfield Gardens provides home gardeners with high quality flower bulbs and perennials. Their online store offers plants for every region and every season, from tulips and daffodils to dahlias, caladiums and amaryllis. Visit them at lfgardens.com.

Syndicate Sales, an American manufacturer of vases and accessories for the professional florist. Look for the American Flag Icon to find Syndicate’s USA-made products and join the Syndicate Stars loyalty program at syndicatesales.com.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds, an employee-owned company that provides our industry the best flower, herb and vegetable seeds — supplied to farms large and small and even backyard cutting gardens like mine. Check them out at johnnysseeds.com.

Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers. Formed in 1988, ASCFG was created to educate, unite, and support commercial cut flower growers. It mission is to help growers produce high-quality floral material, and to foster and promote the local availability of that product. Learn more at ascfg.org

I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Podcast. 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 Brenlan. Learn more about his work at KineticTreeFitness.com.

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 and Hannah Brenlan. Learn more about their work at shellandtree.com.

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American Flowers Week and the Slow Flowers Summit are just around the corner — our week-long celebration of American-grown flowers and design begins on June 28th and continues through July 4th — check out americanflowersweek.com for all the cool details, including our just-released Coloring Map of the USA with every state flower designed by Jenny Diaz.

This is free for you to download, print and share with clients and customers this month. Feel free to add your own logo to the PDFs and get promoting! And I’d love to see your finished pages — when you post use #americanflowersweek. See All 50 State Flowers and download pages here.

We’re especially excited around here for the Slow Flowers Summit, which takes place on Sunday, July 2nd in Seattle during the heart of American Flowers Week. You’re invited to participate — and you can find all the details here. Tickets are selling at a brisk pace and it’s time to grab yours!

I’ve heard from many of you heading to Seattle to attend the Summit interested in knowing what else is going on when you’re here.

We’re sponsoring a fabulous one-day workshop held 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, July 1st the day before the Summit at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market.

I want to introduce you to Susanna Luck of Nettle Textiles, who’s calling the class The Art of Plant Dyeing.

A Portland textile artist and floral designer Susanna has been making and incorporating hand-dyed ribbons and linens into her design repertoire.

If you’re interested in learning more about naturally-dyed silks, cottons and linens to use in your work, you’ll want to sign up! Find the details here.

As you may know, I’ve invited many of my flower friends and floral crushes who I greatly admire to speak at the Slow Flowers Summit, including today’s guest, Chantal Aida Gordon.

We met virtually several years ago through our mutual friend Jennifer Asher of Terra Sculpture, when Jennifer asked me to share my insights with Chantal about the ins and outs of speaking gigs.

When we finally met in person a few years later, I felt like a kindred spirit came into my life. Chantal and Ryan Benoit, her collaborator in the popular blog thehorticult.com, attended one of the Field to Vase Dinners that that I co-hosted in the San Diego area — at the Flower Fields. They endeared themselves further by posting a lovely review of the evening, which included Chantal’s engaging storytelling and Ryan’s beautiful photography.

I very much wanted to bring Chantal for Seattle to moderate a panel on inclusion and diversity in our green worlds of horticulture and floriculture. And she is coming – I’m so jazzed for our attendees to meet her. I was in Southern Cali last month to teach and I met up with Chantal in Los Angeles to record today’s interview.

Here’s a little more about her:

Born in Brooklyn and now a resident of LA, Chantal Aida Gordon is the cofounder of The Horticult, a site that covers where gardening intersects with culture—from horticulture and design to cocktails and art. (Bona fides include a spread in The New York Times and “Gardening Blog of the Year” from Better Homes & Gardens.)

Together with Ryan Benoit, they’ve written about community gardens, floral care, and DIY plant habitats.

Outside The Horticult, Chantal’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Zagat Guide, and American Short Fiction.

Her favorite flowers to grow are epipyllums and her favorite cut flower is the dahlia.

Chantal is wrapping up work with Ryan on their first book How to Window Box, forthcoming from Clarkson Potter in Spring of 2018.

This book will show you how to build and plant window boxes in colorful, fun and inventive ways.

They’re putting a fresh spin on windowsill gardening with plant combinations both classic and unexpected. You can even pre-order How to Window Box on Amazon now!

Follow Chantal at these social places:

@chantalaida_garden

@thehorticult

The Horticult on Facebook

The Horticult on Pinterest

The Horticult on Twitter

 

It’s time to sign up for the Summit and you can find the registration link and more details at debraprinzing.com. The Summit’s mission is summed up in 5 simple but impactful words: We want to Inquire, Inform, Include, Instigate and Inspire!

The information you will gain in a single day at the Summit is an incredible value for just $175 — and members of slow flowers receive a great thank-you rate  of $135.

Your registration includes all lectures and coffee & alight breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception with speakers — plus a flower lovers’ swag bag and chance to network with the doers and thinkers in our botanical universe.

Oh, and did I mention our signature cocktail? It’s The Herbarium, a concoction featured in our keynote speaker Amy Stewart’s NYT bestselling book The Drunken Botanist!

READ MORE…

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The countdown for American Flowers Week and the Slow Flowers Summit has begun — we’re only five weeks away from the June 28th kickoff of American Flowers Week 2017 and just shy of six weeks from the Slow Flowers Summit, which will take place on Sunday, July 2nd in Seattle.

You’re invited to participate in both — and you can find all the details and links here in this post.

I’ll be previewing as many of our Slow Flowers Summit speakers as possible over the coming weeks. First of all, please meet James Baggett, science and horticulture writer, garden editor at Better Homes & Gardens and a true pioneer in garden media.

I’ve written and produced stories for this incredibly generous and talented man for years and I count him as a friend. In fact, as I mention often, if given a choice, I’d rather be his friend for life than ever write a single story for him in the future.

James is definitely demonstrating his friendship and support for my passion by agreeing to be our master of ceremonies during the Slow Flowers Summit.

He’s flying to Seattle from his home town, Des Moines, Iowa, where BH&G and its parent company Meredith Corp. are based. As luck would have it, my travels took me to Des Moines last month when Meredith sponsored my lecture at the Wonder of Words festival on Earth Day. While there, I grabbed a short interview with James to share with you.

James A. Baggett has been a garden editor and writer for more than 20 years. In addition to his new role as BH&G’s garden editor, he shaped content at Country Gardens® magazine as its editor in chief for nine years after serving previously as editor of Perennials^TM and as the founding editor of Nature’s Garden^TM magazines, both Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications.

James also is the former executive editor of Country Living Gardener and Rebecca’s Garden magazines. He is the author of Flower Arranging, a Best of Martha Stewart Living Book (Oxmoor House) and the former garden editor of American Homestyle & Gardening.

James formerly gardened in New York City — where he tended a 10-x-20-foot garden behind an 1850 brownstone — and he now gardens in Des Moines, where all the available land surrounding his Arts & Crafts bungalow has been given over to flowerbeds, specimen trees and shrubs, and containers.

James has a Bachelor of Journalism degree, from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s famed School of Journalism. In 2015, the American Horticultural Society honored James with the B. Y. Morrison Communication Award, which recognizes effective and inspirational communication – through print, radio, television, and/or online media — advancing public interest and participation in horticulture.

“Garden writing is science writing with Jazz Hands” — James Baggett

Click here to download the James Baggett Profile, “Charming, Disarming and Engaging,” written by Maryann Newcomer for to the GWA Association of Garden Communicators newsletter. His curiosity and passion about everything in the natural world comes through in all aspects of his work and his life, and I’m thrilled that he’ll be joining us as the emcee for the Summit.

Next up, past guest of this podcast, Emily Ellen Anderson of Seattle-based Lola Creative. If you missed my interview with Emily (episode 168) you’ll want to go back and hear her entire journey of arriving at a floral career drawing from a background in landscape architecture.

It’s inspiring and it’s one of the reasons I asked Emily to speak at the Slow Flowers Summit on the topic of “Reinvention: Professionally, Artistically + Sustainably.” She will share her story and talk about how creatives are morphing with the changing cultural scene, changing aesthetic tastes and changing values.

And a huge bonus of having Emily involved in the Summit will be her “live” demonstration of building a foam-free floral wall.

It was during our recent walk-through of the Surf Incubator Event Space where our Summit will be held, that I recorded our short audio conversation. Our mutual friend Liz Browning of Laughing Girl Flowers was with us and we were all so excited to see the environment that will house the Summit gathering. We also discussed logistics of building a mini version of the massive floral wall that Emily and her team created for the 2016 Seattle Art Fair.

Her business, Lola Creative, is comprised of a team of art-minded, world-wandering, endlessly curious event and visual art professionals and ready to get obsessed with their clients’ projects. They specialize in design and production of bold events with a focus on brand enhancement and generating a meaningful connection between guests and a host organization, styled photoshoots and creative direction for online content and marketing campaigns, exceptional weddings for excellent couples. Lola Creative includes craftspeople, architects, project managers, marketers, writers, painters, organizational master-minds, and bold thinkers. Lola operates out of a light- filled studio in Edmonds, Washington, serving the entire state and Northwest region.

Lola promotes sustainable flower growing, low waste events, and low-impact practices of all kinds, including composting plant waste, reusing materials, and sourcing locally and responsibly. Lola Creative has ceased the use of floral foam for its toxicity and non-biodegradability. A portion of profits benefit scientific research, creatures, and kids’ education in entrepreneurship, art, and technology.

Check out Curious Lola, Emily’s blog where she shares tips, stories and videos about building, running and designing an event design and floral business.

Find/follow Emily at these social places:

Lola Creative on Facebook

Lola Creative on Instagram

Lola Creative on Pinterest

Thanks for joining us today. The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 191,000 times by listeners like you. THANK YOU to each one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

It’s time to sign up for the Summit and you can find the registration link and more details right here.

The information you will gain in a single day at the Summit is an incredible value for just $175 — and members of Slow Flowers receive a great thank-you rate  of $135/ Your registration includes all lectures and coffee/light breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception with speakers — plus a flower lovers’ swag bag and chance to network with the doers and thinkers in our botanical universe.

I can’t wait for you to join us in Seattle on July 2 in the heart of American Flowers Week!

If you value the content you receive each week, I invite you to show your thanks and support the Slow Flowers Podcast with a donation — the button can be found on our home page in the right column. Your contributions will help make it possible to transcribe future episodes of the Podcast.

Thank you to family of sponsors:

Arctic Alaska Peonies, a cooperative of 50 family farms in the heart of Alaska providing high quality, American Grown peony flowers during the months of July and August. Visit them today at arcticalaskapeonies.com

Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farmer-owned cooperative committed to providing the very best the Pacific Northwest has to offer in cut flowers, foliage and plants. The Growers Market’s mission is to foster a vibrant marketplace that sustains local flower farms and provides top-quality products and service to the local floral industry. Find them at seattlewholesalegrowersmarket.com

Longfield Gardens provides home gardeners with high quality flower bulbs and perennials. Their online store offers plants for every region and every season, from tulips and daffodils to dahlias, caladiums and amaryllis. Visit them at lfgardens.com.

Syndicate Sales, an American manufacturer of vases and accessories for the professional florist. Look for the American Flag Icon to find Syndicate’s USA-made products and join the Syndicate Stars loyalty program at syndicatesales.com.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds, an employee-owned company that provides our industry the best flower, herb and vegetable seeds — supplied to farms large and small and even backyard cutting gardens like mine. Check them out at johnnysseeds.com.

Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers. Formed in 1988, ASCFG was created to educate, unite, and support commercial cut flower growers. It mission is to help growers produce high-quality floral material, and to foster and promote the local availability of that product. Learn more at ascfg.org.

I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Podcast. 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 Brenlan. Learn more about his work at KineticTreeFitness.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Podcast Index | RSS | More

It’s the first week of May and we have just announced details about the third annual campaign called American Flowers Week.

Set for June 28 through July 4, American Flowers Week started in 2015 as a grass-roots endeavor inviting flower farmers and florists to post images of their red-white-and-blue bouquets on Instagram, Twitter or other social media channels.

In that first year, the campaign stimulated 400,000 social media impressions. Last year, with more time to plan, we added beautiful collateral material, a free USA floral coloring map that participating florists and flower farmers could download and share with customers, and even red-white-and-blue stickers used by florists, flower farmers and retailers to label their AFW bouquets. Impressions on social media hit 1.3 million last year.

For 2017, I’m more ambitious than ever about American Flowers Week — and you’re invited to join in!
We’ve just released the press announcement and the gorgeous campaign graphic (shown above), featuring the most beautiful wearable sunflower gown you’ve ever seen!

These and other images are included in our free collateral material that you can download and use from americanflowersweek.com. At that site, you’ll also find inspiration about what creative activities Slow Flowers members are cooking up to promote local flowers in their communities — all ideas that you can borrow and personalize for your marketplace.

At the heart of American Flowers Week we are staging the first ever Slow Flowers Summit, a one-day forum for thinkers and doers in the progressive, sustainable floral world.

Taking place on July 2nd in Seattle, the Summit will feature pioneering voices and compelling topics to perhaps push you to a new level in your own relationship with American grown flowers.

Tickets are on sale now and you’re invited to join me, along with floral luminaries like Amy Stewart, author of the groundbreaking book Flower Confidential, Teresa Sabankaya of Bonny Doon Garden Co., James Baggett, garden editor for Better Homes & Gardens who is our master of ceremonies for the day, Chantal Aida Gordon from the award-winning blog, The Horticult, who will moderate our diversity panel with florist Nicole Cordier Wahquist of Grace Flowers Hawaii, landscape designer Leslie Bennett of Pine House Edible Gardens, and horticulture-floriculture whiz Riz Reyes; Emily Ellen Anderson of Lola Creative on the foam-free flower wall and professional reinvention, and floral innovator Lisa Waud of pot & box and Flower House Detroit — who will lead a conversation on the creative process.

All this for just $175 with a deep discount offered to Slow Flowers Members. We’ll have swag bags, giveaways and delicious local lunch and cocktail reception with speakers, all with a view of the Seattle waterfront from our venue, Surf Incubator Event Space in downtown Seattle. Please join us!

After the success of its inaugural two-year session, the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers‘ Mentor Program is ready for another round of matching new growers with veteran farmers.

The main goals of the program are to help fast-track younger or inexperienced growers through the learning phase of beginning flower farming; build more successful growers and engage older or more experienced growers.

ASCFG has just opened up the application process at its web site for those interested in finding a mentor for the 2018-2019 class, with a May 31st deadline. Click here for the requirements and application details.

To learn more about program, I’m hosting several guests today.

Tanis Clifton of Happy Trails Flower Farm in Dennis, Mississippi. Tanis is the past southeast regional director for ASCFG who worked on the initial development of the organization’s Mentorship program. She provides the “big picture” thinking behind the formation of this farmer-to-farmer program.

Follow Tanis/Happy Trails at these social places:

Happy Trails Flower Farm on Facebook

Happy Trails Flower Farm on Instagram

Happy Trails Flower Farm on Twitter

In 2010, Tanis and Rick established  Happy Trails Flower Farm at their homestead in the scenic hill country of Northeast Mississippi.

The couple grows hundreds of different flowers as well as greenery, vines, pods, cotton and other unusual vegetation, which they sell to discriminating florists, event designers, grocery stores, flower lovers and customers at Pepper Place Farmers Market in Birmingham, Alabama.

As Tanis writes on her web site, “Happy Trails Flower Farm is part of a growing movement to provide slow flowers all  over the USA.  We are committed and compassionate about supporting local flower farmers, like ourselves, thereby providing seasonal and local  blooms to designers, florists, grocers and lovers of flowers.”

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