Debra Prinzing

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SLOW FLOWERS Podcast: Henry Hudson’s Amy Nardi on Australia’s Love for Local Flowers (Episode 141)

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

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Today we’re celebrating local flowers – both in the U.S. and in Australia. Seasonal and local flowers are flourishing in Australia, too!

Amy Nardi, creator of Henry Hudson, the beautiful, Australia-based floral blog.

Amy Nardi, creator of Henry Hudson, the beautiful, Australia-based floral blog.

Like many of this podcast’s guests, Amy Nardi and I met “virtually,” through an email correspondence. Originally, she contacted me to ask permission to link to my web site from hers.

I was aware of her beautiful website: HenryHudson.co.au, but I didn’t know her personal story. We decided to record our conversation so I could share it with listeners of the Slow Flowers Podcast

With a professional background in the fashion and floral industry, Amy Nardi created Henry Hudson to be a place where all kinds of floral folk could head to, gain inspiration, find out what is happening in the floral world, and find new floral friends all over the globe to floral exchange ideas with.

"Bouquet of Scraps," from a Henry Hudson photo shoot.

“Bouquet of Scraps,” from a Henry Hudson photo shoot. 

 

Australia Fashion Week Installation.

Australia Fashion Week Installation. 

 

A floral still-life, from a Henry Hudson post.

A floral still-life, from a Henry Hudson post.

She says: “We love flowers so much, we thought there must be other people out there who love them just as much, too (and want to talk about them!).”

Indeed that’s true. And I know you’ll be fascinated to learn about the locally-grown influences in Australia, where flower farmers there are a valued resource to florists throughout the country.

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Floral Art, ‘Frozen Windflowers’

Here’s a little bit more about Amy, in her own words: 

“I grew up in rural New South Wales (Australia) in a very small town. My parents are farmers, although we grew oranges and grapes (juice and wine). I was creatively influenced at a young age — my mum was not only a keen gardener, she’s an amazing seamstress and painter. When it came to floral industry influences my Aunt and Uncle were flower farmers and another Aunt was a florist. I used to follow her around like a shadow at work and at home picking up scraps and making posies. 
“I have always been a creative person. If I wasn’t sewing something, I was drawing or crafting something. Or dancing. At University I studied Design, majoring in Fashion. I have always loved design. This is really where I cemented my understanding of the elements and principles of design and how they can translate into anything and everything. 
“After Uni, I decided I wanted to work in the corporate world and I got into HR (Human Resources). However, to feed my creative side I formally studied Floristry in my spare time for 3 years. One day I decided I wanted to try out the creative industry full-time and left my corporate world to work full-time in Floristry. However, after a few years of work for a Floral studio that predominately had large event work, I was diagnosed with Arthritis in my hips (in my early 20’s) and was told I had to go back to a job where I wasn’t on my feet for more than 3 hours continuously a day. While I was devastated, I knew that this wasn’t the end for flowers and me. I went back into the HR world and still did my own small weddings and events on the side. Now I work for a great American Management Consulting firm, in their HR department, and I curate the Henry Hudson website also. It keeps me very busy! 
“I started Henry Hudson just over a year and a half ago, I wanted to bring together the floral community and share the work and stories of innovative and cool floral designers and amazing local growers. I have a keen interest in economics, statistics and interactions and I wanted to involve that somehow into Henry Hudson, hence the trend predictions!”
A bronze and green suspended floral installation.

A bronze and green suspended floral installation.

Follow Henry Hudson here:

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A Slow Flowers Celebration

Please join me in celebrating the launch of my long-awaited resource: SLOWFLOWERS.com

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What is Slowflowers.com? It’s a sister project to this podcast. A free, online directory of American-grown flowers and the designers, shops, studios and farms who source those blooms.

The mission of Slowflowers.com is simply this:

To promote American-grown flowers, to make it easy for flower consumers to connect with florists, shops, studios and farms who provide American-grown flowers, and to encourage truthful and transparent country-of-origin labeling in the floral industry. 

If you haven’t done so yet, please visit the site and check it out. There are already 250 domestic floral resources listed there — and my goal is to grow that list to one thousand! 

If you’re a flower consumer, sign up to receive our quarterly e-newsletter. If you own a floral business focused on seasonal and local flowers, please create a listing so others can easily find you!

I want to give a special thank you to the 229 individuals and businesses who contributed to the Slowflowers.com campaign on Indiegogo earlier this year. Together, they helped to raise more than $18,000 to complete this project. 

An extra special thank you goes to our three main supporters. The California Cut Flower Commission, our premier sponsor, and the San Francisco Flower Mart and Mellano & Co., established growers of beautiful flowers, the two presenting sponsors. 

My goal with this project is that anytime someone wishes to purchase or send flowers, they stop and ask themselves: Can those flowers be American grown? Slowflowers.com provides that answer.

Thank you for joining me this week. Because of the support from you and others, listeners have downloaded episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast more than 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 Hannah Holtgeerts and  Andrew Wheatley. You can learn more about their work at hhcreates.net.

 All photographs appear, courtesy of Amy Nardi and Henry Hudson. The photo of the white ‘Henry Hudson’ rose (top of page, center – in collage) is from Connon Nurseries.