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This iconic photo is showing up everywhere and I am so lucky it’s mine! So symbolic of American Grown. Design and truck: Tara Kolla, Silver Lake Farms (Los Angeles) (c) Debra Prinzing 

It’s summertime and the Slow Flowers Podcast is on the road. And it’s no surprise to learn there’s at least one awesome American flower farmer everywhere I seem to go.

There are passionate floral designers to be discovered right alongside and that means more beautiful Slow Flowers experiences for the nation’s consumers, coast to coast.

This week I’m sharing a fabulous conversation with a farmer-florist team from Portland, Oregon – Elizabeth Bryant, owner of Rose Hill Flower Farm, and Kailla Platt, owner of Kailla Platt Flowers.

But first, a bonus conversation that I recorded on July 16^th at Sunny Meadows Flower Farm in Columbus, Ohio.

Owned by Steve and Gretel Adams, previous guests on this podcast, Sunny Meadows is leading the way in changing how flowers get to market in several Ohio cities. The reason for my return to Sunny Meadows was to work with James Baggett, editor-in-chief of Country Gardens magazine, and Kritsada, an uber-talented photographer, to produce a feature story about Gretel and Steve – and their farm, flowers and floral design.

Some might call this “flower farm porn,” but who cares? Gretel and Steve were really good sports about posing in the flower fields (isn’t that vintage tractor a great “prop”?) 

You can keep an eye out for that nothing-but-gorgeous story in the summer of 2015 – and of course, I’ll remind you here when the magazine hits the newsstands.

I recorded a short interview with Gretel and two of her summer design interns, Katie Vontz and Danica Jones. They all agreed to chat briefly about what is becoming a popular way for would-be flower farmers and new floral designers to gain training: via internships, apprenticeships or seasonal work-study-style programs. I think you’ll be intrigued and inspired to hear how Gretel filled her need via social media, too.

This is the “ad” that Sunny Meadows used on Instagram to recruit its summer design interns. 

From left: Me, design intern Katie Vontz, Gretel Adams (Sunny Meadows Flower Farm co-owner), design intern Danica Jones and Sunny Meadows floral designer Kumiko Matsuura.

Next up: A dynamic conversation with collaborators Elizabeth Bryant and Kailla Platt. 

Elizabeth Bryant (left) and Kailla Platt (right), photographed in their Portland studio. 

Kailla was trained in fine art and landscape architecture and logged a decade designing gardens. But she traces her primary training in floral design to time spent in the lush green of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where she fell under the floral spell cast by her grandmother Jane K. Platt. 

Kailla’s work, a seasonal and local floral bouquet.

As Kailla puts it: “she filled my young heart with a love of gardens, plants and flowers.  She would generously send me out into her amazing garden with a basket and clippers, telling me I could pick anywhere.  Then, as we selected frogs and filled vases, she would tell me the names and the stories of all these beautiful flowers.  Her garden was a fairy land to me as a child and it continues to inspire me and influence my work today.”

Kailla Platt Flowers, a delightful seasonal composition.

Kailla Platt Flowers is a young floral studio inspired by Kailla’s lifelong relationship with flowers. On her website, Kailla writes: “I care about where my flowers come from. I want to know the farmer who grew them.  When possible, I want to gather and forage botanical material myself.  The flowers we give to others, wear in our hair and lift to our faces and smell, should be free of pesticides and harmful chemicals.  Farm to table, garden to vase, me to you.” 

Seasonal design by Kailla Platt Flowers. 

Kailla works collaboratively on wedding and event design with another amazing force, Elizabeth Bryant, a flower farmer, floral designer, and founder of Rose Hill Flower Farm, a small, sustainable urban flower farm and design studio in Portland. 

Elizabeth and Kailla at Prettyman’s General, a neighborhood mercantile where they sell their local bouquets.

Elizabeth and her wife Jill grow flowers on three acres of family land in West Linn, Oregon, about 15 miles southeast of Portland. 

She says: “Our farming and land-care practices are organic and ecologically grounded, with the utmost care given to creating a healthy soil ecology and rich pollinator habitat.  We grow a range of both common and unique specialty cut flowers for use in weddings and events, through our CSA, and direct to florists.”  Rose Hill also provides lush, locally grown arrangements weekly for restaurants, businesses and individuals, or for any special occasion.  

Mixed bouquets by Rose Hill Flower Farm.

What you’ll enjoy about this interview is hearing how two creatives – Elizabeth Bryant and Kailla Platt – have distinct points of view and floral businesses that are different from one another, but that they also are collaborative in a way that benefits both of their work – and their clients.

Spring ephemerals, grown by Rose Hill’s Elizabeth Bryant.

Rose Hill’s Elizabeth Bryant’s flowers and floral design.

Kailla and Elizabeth share studio space with Portland photographer Katie Prentiss. In a charming little cottage in Southeast Portland, the three us a combined design and meeting/event space for floral projects.  Together they enjoy great artistic synergy and often partner on projects, including weddings and large events requiring florals.

A floral collaboration.

Thank you for joining me today to hear some of the exciting voices in American flower farming and floral design. Even after a year of producing and hosting the Slow Flowers Podcast, I can guarantee that the list of future guests is very long and I don’t imagine running out of names we need to hear from – inspiring people who are changing the way Americans gather and enjoy flowers in all aspects of life.

Floral design by Kailla Platt.

Next week Slow Flowers comes to you from Homer, Alaska, where I’ve happily returned after my 2012 peony-hunting excursion. After that, the road tripping continues, and you can anticipate Slow Flowers interviews with flower farmers and floral designers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. 

The hot, new “ice cream” tulip – spotted in a vase on Sun Valley CEO Lane DeVries’s desk!

I’ve been home for an entire month from an 11-day road trip that took me by plane to Southern California and back home again behind the wheel of a rental car. 

I have many fond memories (as well as the photographs that I collected), while stopping along U.S. Hwy. 101 on my way north to Seattle. My first post featured Rose Story Farm and the Carpinteria flower scene; my 2nd post was about visiting author-friend Sharon Lovejoy and her husband Jeff Prostovitch in San Luis Obispo. [I’m going to save the photos and stories of my stop in Healdsburg-wine country for another day.]

So here is my third travelogue installation — all about The Sun Valley Group of Arcata, California.

Visiting Sun Valley and touring its vast flower-growing universe has been on my bucket list for quite a while. I’ve enjoyed collaborating with CEO Lane DeVries and his staff over the past few years to promote American-grown flowers and flower farms. In fact, Lane was a podcast guest last year – you can listen to that interview here. But I had never been able to see Sun Valley up close and personal!

Still on the road last month, I routed myself through Eureka, Calif., where I first visited another writer-friend, Amy Stewart of Flower Confidential and The Drunken Botanist fame (listen to our Podcast interview here).

The following morning I continued north to the next town on the map, Arcata – home to Sun Valley’s headquarters and one of the company’s farm locations. 

Sun Valley is a leading grower of cut bulb and field flowers in the United States. According to its web site, Sun Valley chose this area as an ideal environment for growing bulb flowers, due to its mild winters, cool summers, generous humidity and coastally moderated sunlight. The fields surrounding the greenhouses also provide excellent growing conditions for spring, summer and fall iris, and summer flowers including crocosmia, hypericum, monkshood and montbretia.

Bill Prescott, the farm’s social media/communications guru, met and escorted me on a whirlwind tour. It’s a good thing that I brought my rubber-soled Merrills, cuz the ground gets muddy and wet at a flower farm – in the shade houses and in the greenhouses. These farms practice water conservation, of course, but the puddles and wet spots still exist.

We started by walking through the tulip operations. By the way, click here to see the farm’s mind-boggling array of tulip varieties – you’ll not believe it!

Bill Prescott, my host and tour guide at Sun Valley Flower Farm in Arcata, Calif.

This is how the tulip-growing cycle begins. Bulbs planted in growing medium, shoulder to shoulder. Their tips emerge from the soil and then the crates are transferred to the greenhouse rows.

Just one of countless state-of-the-art greenhouses that produce beautiful tulips throughout the year.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the beautiful variegated foliage on this tulip variety. It’s not always about the bloom, especially when you have leaves like this! 

Hello, tulip! 

The tulip harvest – this was the week before Easter, so imagine: nonstop harvesting! 

. . . and this is how the flowers come out of the ground – bulbs and all – to ensure the longest stems.

Some other popular crops include irises and lilies:

Gotta love these lemony-hued irises! 

And the classic purple ones, too! 

Lilies, just picked and ready for shipment to flower shops, supermarkets and designers. 

Having fun with the lilies – Bill is a bit of a ham!

Bill sent me home with a huge bucket filled with irises and tulips – gorgeous, fresh, just-picked and more than I could ever use in a single Easter arrangement. They survived the 10-hour drive to Seattle that day and still looked awesome when I gave an arrangement of those blooms to my mother on Easter. We both enjoyed those American-grown flowers for nearly two weeks – especially the lilies, with so many plump buds that kept opening up, a few new blooms every day.

And speaking of lilies . . . did you know that “Lily,” the voice of Sun Valley’s blog, is none other than Mr. Bill Prescott? On the blog, he channels his inner florist supremely well! Check out “Flower Talk: Grow with Lily” here – and subscribe to receive notices of the frequent installments. 

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I recently visited Joost Bongaerts, floral wholesaler and owner of Florabundance.

Over the past several weeks you’ve heard my conversations with floral designers who are leading the way when it comes to sourcing their flowers, leaves and branches from local farms. They place high value on seasonal blooms, because they know their bouquets and arrangements will be all the more beautiful and cherished by the customer – a customer who is also asking, Where do my flowers come from?

Yet many of these florists whose operations are not large enough to guarantee sizeable orders or meet minimum purchase requirements face a dead-end when they ask their local wholesaler to provide domestic or locally-grown product.

The wholesaler is basically a broker, an agent between the grower and the designer. The way the wholesale florist makes money is to buy low and sell high. I know this is an essential truth in any modern-day distribution system, but – to me – it can lead to a situation where the wholesaler holds all the power to set price, to determine what is brought to market, to manage the flow of goods from producer to end user. And in floral, over the years, that set up has led to a near-total obscurity of sourcing and certainly NOT truth in labeling.

It has been close to impossible for designers seeking flowers from the wholesaler in their town to ever know WHERE those flowers came from or WHO grew them, let alone what growing practices were used.

This model is only beginning to change. As we heard from Foxglove Brooklyn and The Local Bouquet, two studios featured in recent episodes, their big breakthroughs occurred when a light bulb went off in the mind of their wholesale florist. The energy and enthusiasm these designers express whenever they can source American grown flowers has stimulated a shift in thinking at the wholesaler. It might not even be the owner of that wholesale business who gets it, but perhaps an enterprising salesperson or account manager who says: “Ah ha! I get it – they want more local product and If I can source it – my sales will increase.”

So . . . in the coming months, in an effort to crack the code and inspire more wholesale florists to “see the way to the future,” I’ll be featuring conversations with the ones who are committed to transparency in their sourcing practices.

Today, we’re kicking it off with Joost Bongaerts, owner of Florabundance in Carpinteria, California.

Joost has been involved in the horticulture and floral industry his entire life – and through Florabundance he sells flowers to retail florists and designers all around the country.

Located as they are in the flower-basket of the U.S., Florabundance has the unique ability to source from small and large flower farms in California and in many other states on an almost a year-round basis.

I applaud Joost for labeling all of the CA-grown options on the Florabundance web site. In the future, we should see other wholesalers adopting this practice. And next, we’ll urge them all to identify other states, as well as use the soon-to-launch American Grown Flowers logo.

Here’s a little more about Joost and his background:

Born in 1959 in Den Hague, The Netherlands, Joost grew up in Holland. His father managed agricultural land holdings all over the country. Joost spent summers working on his family’s farm in northern Holland and became interested in agriculture and horticulture as a result. He attended The Land en Tuinbouw School in Dordrecht and continued his education in Gouda, graduating with a degree in plant science.

Joost also spent a semester at Michigan State University as part of an exchange program, which led to his desire to work and live in the United States. Joost began his professional career in 1981, marketing fresh cut flowers from Holland for The Dutch Flower Auctions & Exporters Organizations which was located in Livonia, MI.

From 1983 to 1991 Joost worked for several Dutch companies selling flower bulbs and perennial plants to specialty cut flower growers in the United States and Canada.

In 1991 Joost and his wife Alexandra opened BonFleur, a European-style retail flower shop in New Canaan, CT, which they sold to their manager in 2002. During this time Joost also imported flowers from Holland and started to do business with Florabundance, becoming a partner in 2002 and eventually full owner in 2008.

Joost’s background and experience in selling flower bulbs to growers, importing cut flowers and running a successful retail flower shop provides a unique perspective from which he has developed the Florabundance brand into one of the premier wholesalers in the United States.

Here’s a bonus feature: a UBloom episode about Florabundance, produced by J Schwanke for his California Grown Experience video series.

httpv://vimeo.com/15039946 

I predict that by sharing my conversations with “floral middlemen,” three things will happen in the coming months and year:

1. Other wholesalers will begin to hear the buzz – and they’ll be curious about the successes of their peers like Florabundance’s Joost Bongaerts.

2. More florists will point to these examples and nudge along their own wholesaler, asking them to source domestically, seasonally and locally – for good reason.

and . . .

3. The consumer will benefit – and have more confidence in the purchases he or she makes.

Please send me your suggestions for who you’d like to hear from on future episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast.

And tune in next week to hear from a special guest. Author Amy Stewart, who wrote Flower Confidential in 2007, will join me for a conversation about that groundbreaking book. Don’t miss it!

Because of the support from you and others, listeners have downloaded episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast nearly 11,000  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 Andrew Wheatley.

(c) Washington Post image of California irises and Florida alocasia foliage.

The White House has had a long-standing tradition of featuring and celebrating American grown food and wine during its state dinners.  Menus and wine pairings are carefully selected months in advance to ensure that only the freshest and finest American grown ingredients are used during these important special events. 

And now, acknowledged for the first time ever, the centerpiece flowers are 100% American grown. 

This is a HUGE cause for celebration in all 50 states where flower farmers are working hard to make a decent living from their land; working hard to grow unique, high quality flowers for American consumers; working hard to keep their employees on the payroll; and working hard to stimulate the economy in their own communities. As one of my supporters of the Slowflowers.com campaign on Indiegogo wrote about supporting American Grown Flowers:  “The whole concept makes so much sense –what is there not to get???” 

According to a recent blog post by USDA Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden, the Obama White House made a deliberate effort to not only feature the diversity and bounty of American grown agriculture, but also its beauty.  Deputy Secretary Harden’s post highlighted the extra effort by the Obama Administration to feature American Grown flowers and greens that were proximately displayed during last week’s state dinner with France’s President Francois Hollande. 

“The dinner celebrated the ‘best of American cuisine’ and featured dry aged rib eye beef from Colorado, trout from Maine, cheese from Vermont, chocolate from Hawaii, and potatoes from New York, Idaho, and California.  The wines served at the dinner included excellent selections featuring California, Washington State, and Virginia offerings,” shared USDA Deputy Secretary Harden on the Department’s blog.  “However, beyond the menu itself an equally impressive feature was the visible presence of American cut flowers.”

Extending the White House’s rich tradition of featuring American Grown food and wine to include flowers is a timely sign of support for U.S. flower farmers.   Flowers from California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida were all included.   

“We very much appreciate President Obama and his Administration’s decision to showcase American grown flowers at this recent state dinner,” said California Cut Flower Commission’s CEO/Ambassador Kasey Cronquist.  “Having the White House ensure that the flowers at the center of the table are as fresh, sustainable and local as the food during a state dinner shows great support to our family flower farms in California and across the country.  The decision by this Administration to source and feature locally grown blooms is a significant affirmation of the growing momentum among consumers for more American grown flowers.”

What’s next? Let’s get this practice codified and see even MORE American Grown Flowers on the table at White House dinners! I can only assume last week’s BIG AMERICAN FLORAL EVENT is the beginning of a White House commitment to give as much attention to the origins of its flowers as it does the origins of the food and wine it serves to guests. 

Mrs. Obama, you have single-handedly stimulated the American fashion industry by supporting our country’s creative designers. Please bring that same passion to the flower world. There are so many parallels between wearing beautiful, American-designed and American-made clothing AND filling vases with beautiful, American-grown flowers on the White House’s tables. Flowers are just as important and taking the leadership to feature them will touch just as many lives of Americans!

 WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SUPPORT THIS ENDEAVOR? Please log onto the USDA Blog Post and add your comment of support for getting more American grown flowers on the White House tables!

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Something really exciting happened last week – my friends at the San Francisco Flower Mart, the premiere flower market in the U.S., came onboard as presenting sponsors of the Slowflowers.com directory. This is my other passionate project, and it dovetails nicely with the Slowflowers Podcast.

In the works right now, Slowflowers.com is a free online directory to help you find florists, studio designers, wedding and event planners, supermarket flower departments and flower farmers who are committed to American grown flowers.

Inside the San Francisco Flower Mart: Connecting Bay Area florists and flower lovers with fresh, seasonal and local blooms.

I’m currently raising funds to complete this project via Indiegogo.  To date, supporters of American Grown flowers have contributed $11,045 to the campaign, with SF Flower Mart’s $1,000 contribution giving us a huge boost earlier in the week.

I happened to be working in SF this past Monday, so I stopped by the management office and grabbed General Manager Bob Otsuka and Jeanne Bose, the SFFM’s marketing/promotions director and social media strategist, for a quick conversation, recorded as a Bonus to the Slow Flowers Podcast. Listen to what Bob and Jeanne say about the Market’s decision to bring their support to the Slowflowers.com launch.

It’s fascinating to learn about the history of this amazing center for locally grown flowers – and inspiring to know that we’re on the same path to promote more American Grown Flowers to the floral industry and consumers alike. 

Seasonal blooms, six days a week. 

There’s a huge selection of local California-grown roses . . . in awesome colors~

Here is a little slice of history, as told on the Market’s web site:

With beginnings paralleling the growth and development of the San Francisco Bay Area, the origins of the San Francisco Flower Mart go back to the late 1800’s when land was plentiful. Local flower growers could bring their product to Lotta’s fountain in downtown San Francisco three days a week, selling their product to local flower shops. [Note: Lotta’s fountain is located at the intersection of Market, Geary and Kearny streets in downtown San Francisco.] 

A need for a centrally located market bringing together the three ethnically diverse groups of flower growers was fulfilled with the opening of a market located at 5th and Howard Streets in 1924. As flower growers expanded production areas outside of the Bay Area and as product from other parts of United States came in, the need for a larger more modern permanent facility led to the design and construction of our current market at Sixth and Brannan Streets in the South of Market area of San Francisco.

The grand opening of the San Francisco Flower Terminal in September 1956 marked the establishment of an industry icon. Today, officially known as the San Francisco Flower Mart, we now have over 60 vendors, purveyors of cut flowers, potted plants, blooming plants and floral supplies. We have evolved from being a “growers” market to being a marketplace for floral wholesalers. Product, which at one time was only from the immediate Bay Area, now comes from the far reaches of the world.

As you will hear in this podcast interview, more than a century after it was established, the San Francisco Flower Mart continues to reflects the character of locally-grown flowers and the farmers who grow those blooms.

In addition to family flower farms selling direct to the floral industry and consumers, you will also find wholesalers who stock flowers from growers in other parts of California, as well as Oregon and Washington. And while people in “the flower biz” are served here as wholesale customers six days a week, some days as early as 2:00 a.m., the DIY flower lover/designer is also welcome to shop – after 10 a.m. 

A bustling center for flowers – with more than 60 vendors.  

Racks of California-grown hyacinths recently offered by Torchio Nursery, a vendor at the San Francisco Flower Mart.

This is truly a flower mecca and you must add it to your flower bucket list if you haven’t been to visit. I’m thrilled to feature the San Francisco Flower Mart and doubly thrilled that this important center for local flowers will be a Presenting Sponsor on the Slowflowers.com site for the year to come, connecting More American Flowers with Customers, One Vase at a Time.

 All photographs used here, courtesy (c) Jeanne Boes, SF Flower Mart

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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. 

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Floral designer, educator, author-blogger and visionary, Alicia Schwede

If you’re at all active in the online universe, and if you’re a florist or simply passionate about good design, you probably already know about today’s talented guest, Alicia Schwede, creator of the popular FLIRTY FLEURS blog.  Alicia has more than a decade of floral design to her credit, beginning with her first wedding clients in the Bay Area, and later, her Denver-based studio Bella Fiori.  

In the past year, Alicia migrated from Colorado back to Northern California’s wine country, where she created the florals for many happy bridal parties this past wedding season. And now, due to life’s unexpected turns, she is here in the Pacific Northwest. 

The life of a studio designer is a lot like the life of a writer. You are pretty mobile, and you can take your talents with you when you relocate. That’s exactly what happened this fall, when Alicia followed her husband Chad for a work-related move. We met in person when she surprised me by showing up in a workshop I taught last month.  

Since then, we’ve had several great discussions about floral design and the state of the business. I’m excited to share our most recent conversation with you in today’s podcast. Learn more about Alicia, about her career as a floral designer, and what inspired her to launch FlirtyFleurs.com, an online community for floral designers to gain ideas and inspiration from each other.  

In this podcast, we also discuss her beautiful book, Bella Bouquets, which is a compendium of more than 100 wedding bouquets, arranged by color theme, which is quite the perfect way to organize flowers. 

I was struck by this passage from the foreword to Bella Bouquets:

” . . . I still stop dead in my tracks when I spy a perfect peony, a gorgeous garden rose or the sweetest sweet pea at the market,” Alicia writes.  “I find great pleasure in sharing my love and affection toward flowers. This book, and the blog Flirtyfleurs.com are just a few ways for me to share and connect with others while exploring the flower path ahead.”

To me, that flower path is right here, under our noses. It’s not on another continent, especially when locally-grown and seasonal botanicals are available to designers and flower lovers. A big believer in locally-grown blooms — and it’s no wonder, since she has many ties to California floral sources — Alicia shared four of her favorite American-grown arrangements for you to see here. “How funny is that?” she wrote in her email message accompanying these images. “Four bouquets representing three different states!” 

Anemones are grown by Stevens & Son in Arvada, CO (designed in CO)

Tulips bouquet – all tulips and daffodils from Pike Place Market;
Washington grown (designed in WA)

Bella Fiori Garden – from Alicia’s garden, all of it!

Bella Fiori Dahlias – mostly from Alicia’s garden, Dahlias are CA grown (designed while in CA)

If you're interested in learning more about Alicia and Flirtyfleurs, be sure to subscribe to her free 
newsletter. You'll also find details and registration information on Alicia's "Bridal Bouquet Workshop," 
which I'm hosting at my event space in Seattle's Pioneer Square on Feb. 1, 2014. 

Thank you  for joining me in this episode of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast with Debra Prinzing. Because of your support as a listener, there have been more than 3,500 downloads since July – 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.

Thank you, Alicia, for such inspiration! 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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SLOW FLOWERS Podcast: American Grown flowers from a California Point of View (Episode 107)

Kasey Cronquist and I toured a Carpinteria, California, greenhouse together in April 2013. 

Here’s Kasey discussing the importance of supporting America’s cut flower industry – at the Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers – Open House this past June.

I’m so pleased to introduce you to Kasey Cronquist. I truly value Kasey’s leadership, counsel and friendship. He is the CEO and Ambassador of the California Cut Flower Commission, the largest organization of its kind promoting American Flowers.

And he is a kindred spirit who is supremely passionate about saving our homegrown flower farms and preserving the agricultural way of life as a part of our country’s vibrant landscape.

Kasey and I first met by phone in 2010 when I called him for a quote to include in an article for the Los Angeles Times. I was writing about organic flowers for Valentine’s Day and Kasey sure set me straight, changing the focus from organic (and possibly imported flowers) to a locally grown priority.  He pointed out: “We believe California flowers are the green alternative, whether we stick a label on them or not.”

It was the beginning of my own evolution as an American flower advocate.

Since joining the CCFC in 2007, Kasey has spearheaded an aggressive public affairs program targeting lawmakers at the state and federal level. He is a dynamic spokesman for flower farming both among his home state constituents and nationally and is a master at social media communications. Kasey understands the power of blogging, tweeting, posting and using visual social media platforms and he has brought flower farming into the modern era in that regard. More than all his talents, though, I’ve mostly been impressed with Kasey’s community-building gestures to bring together small and large flower growers across America with a united voice. 

In March 2012, I wrote a post called “Meet the Ambassador of Local Flowers,” profiling Kasey for The 50 Mile Bouquet blog. You can read this extensive interview here in which Kasey shares many inspiring ideas about the American cut flower industry.

One quote of his particularly impressed me:

“We can’t move that ball, but we can create market demand for local flowers. We leaned into the CA Grown campaign and now California’s flower farmers are the single largest licensee of that agricultural program — out of all the other commodity crops in the state. The future is in educating people to buy local, to buy U.S.-grown flowers.”

Read Kasey Cronquist’s Field Position blog at Americasflowers.org

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaGrownFlowers

Twitter: @kaseycronquist and @cagrown