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Bailey Hale (left) and Thomas McCurdy (right) of Ardelia Farm & Co.

There’s been an ongoing theme for our podcasts this year — that of reinvention, re-branding and diversification for everyone in the Slow Flowers Community. As creatives, it makes sense. We are multidimensional and we strive to balance entrepreneurship with artistry in equal measure.

Today’s guest, Bailey Hale, is one such individual. Bailey and his husband Thomas McCurdy established Ardelia Farm & Co. in 2011.

Inside the sweet pea greenhouse

Today it is a cut flower farm, floral design studio and bakery in Vermont’s picturesque Northeast Kingdom. Thomas bakes using local, organic, farm-fresh ingredients to produce everything from chocolate chip cookies to wedding cakes. Bailey raises specialty cut flowers, supplying farmers’ markets and florists, as well as providing full service wedding and event design.

Sweet peas galore — the top crop at Ardelia Farm & Co.

I met Bailey in 2014 at the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers annual meeting in Wilmington, where we struck up a brief acquaintance. I learned a lot more about his floral life story a few months ago when we both attended the regional ASCFG meeting that took place in Ontario, Canada’s Niagara region.

It’s amazing what a shared drink in the hotel bar with kindred spirits can lead to — before the evening was over, I made a point of inviting Bailey to come on this show as a guest.

This is how the “plugs” look when they arrive at a client’s farm — the individual plant starts are grown in flats, ready to be plucked out and re-potted into larger containers or directly planted into the ground.

We both agreed to schedule the interview and this episode for early October to coincide with the launch of a new season for Ardelia Farm & Co.’s spin off venture, Farmer Bailey Plugs.

As things happen in our community, we often catch glimpses of each others’ activities while scrolling across the screen of a computer or phone. I noticed what Farmer Bailey seemed to be about — and guessed that Bailey was batching or bundling a number of small orders into ones large enough to meet minimums set by plug or seed companies. What began as a “let’s help out friends in the flower farming world” gesture has rapidly taken off — and for 2018 it looks like the business whose tagline is: Custom Plug Brokerage for Professional Cut Flower Farmers will gobble up a good part of Bailey’s time.

In our interview, recorded via Skype recently with me in Seattle and Bailey in Irasburg, Vermont, I learned that the seasonal cycles of sourcing and marketing plugs and seeds is somewhat complementary to cut flower farming and floral design. Bailey saw an opportunity to fill a need — and he refined it into a sustainable business venture. I can’t wait for you to learn more.

Here’s more biographical information about Bailey and Thomas and how their chicken video went viral and made them famous a few years back. This is excerpted from their “about” section of the Ardelia Farm & Co. web site:

I’ve been working with flowers for a long long time. My grandmother taught me how to grow flowers when I was 5 years old, and this turned into a life long passion.  After receiving my B.S. in horticulture from the University of Kentucky, I worked at Longwood Gardens before starting an award-winning floral design studio (MODA botanica) in the heart of Philadelphia. Along with my business partner, we exhibited at the internationally renowned Philadelphia Flower Show where we took best in show a couple of times, and got to travel the world looking at cut flowers and meeting the folks who grow them.

When my husband Thomas and I left Philadelphia to start farming in 2011, I had no idea that flowers would be a major part of our operation. But after dabbling a bit, and joining ASCFG, I felt like I had found my tribe. I already knew flowers, and I knew how to grow things, I just needed a little more information on how to successfully grow and market cut flowers. I credit ASCFG with connecting those missing pieces, and introducing me to some amazing folks, including many of you.

As Ardelia Farm & Co. was taking shape, I searched endlessly for new varieties and tried to navigate the plug grower/broker relationship. I couldn’t understand why we need brokers in the first place, or why growers don’t just produce what is popular and trending right now. I now see that there needs to be someone communicating between the plug producer and the professional cut flower farmer.

In fall/winter 2015 I put together a group order for 6 Lisianthus varieties, and got an overwhelming response. These new and odd varieties were in high demand with florists and growers alike, but didn’t show up on the radar of plug growers or traditional bedding plant brokers. And that’s where the idea for Farmer Bailey started. I see the trends coming to the US from Asia and Europe, I know what we can grow well here in the US, and I’m determined to get those items in the hands of the folks who need them while they are are still relevant. Floral trends do change rapidly (despite the recent 5 year “Blush & Bashful” stagnation) and being able to respond quickly is key for the American flower farmer. 

So I became a broker, and luckily Gro ‘n Sell is supporting me in this. They have so graciously agreed to help us all by producing things that may have otherwise taken a decade to come into commercial production. These new items combined with their standard offerings will help us meet the varied demands of our clients nationwide.

While I have plenty of ideas and keep my eye on the international trends, I am no oracle, and I don’t know everything you want to see produced as a plug. Please tell me what you want. If there is a critical mass of interested folks, I can start the process of sourcing seed and asking the kind folks at Gro ‘n Sell if they will assist us. Feel free to use the Contact Us form, or join the ‘Farmer Bailey Plugs for Flower Farmers‘ group on Facebook and join in the conversation.

Here’s how to follow and find Farmer Bailey & Ardelia Farm:

Ardelia Farm on Facebook

Ardelia Farm on Instagram

Farmer Bailey on Facebook

Farmer Bailey Plugs on Instagram

Thanks so much for joining us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 242,000 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 family of sponsors:

Certified American Grown Flowers. The Certified American-Grown program and label provide a guarantee for designers and consumers on the source of their flowers. Take pride in your flowers and buy with confidence, ask for Certified American Grown Flowers.  To learn more visit americangrownflowers.org.

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.

Music Credits:

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The wonderful Slow Flowers people of Whidbey Island. Front row, from left: Pam Uhlig, Kelly Uhlig, Melissa Brown, Tobey Nelson. Back row: Benjamin Courteau, David Brown and Molly Brown.

Here’s a map of Whidbey Island to orient you! Notice the town of Langley on the southeast portion of the map and you can picture where today’s guests live, farm and flower!

This week we’re introducing a new ongoing feature that I hope to bring to you once a month: the “Slow Flowers Field Trip.”

As you know, I love interviewing flower farmers and florists for this Podcast, but what I love even more is visiting them in person to see them in their element — whether that’s out in the shed starting seeds, in the fields harvesting, or in the studio creating something breathtaking.

As often as possible, I’ll hit the road and visit Slow Flowers members to share a snapshot of a community, highlighting what’s grown in that region, and introducing you to the people who grow and design with those flowers.

For 2016, we’ve already booked a field trip to feature the North Bay Flower Collective, north of San Francisco, and several other destinations are in the works.

If you’re interested in bringing the podcast to your corner of the U.S., get in touch and we’ll see what might come together.

While it’s located only 30 miles north of Seattle, visiting Whidbey Island takes a little planning because it is reached via ferry from the mainland. The island is notable as one of the longest islands in the country, at 55-miles long, and it lies between the Olympic Peninsula and the I-5 corridor of western Washington. Whidbey Island forms the northern boundary of Puget Sound.

Picked on November 12th – pre-frost! Melissa Brown of Flying Bear Farm grew and designed this lovely arrangement for my visit.

In my earlier years as a garden writer, Whidbey was a magnet for fantastic specialty plant nurseries and private garden tours, so I have spent quite a bit of time there. Now, thanks to the efforts of today’s guests, there is a nascent cut flower farming community, which is essential to Whidbey’s destination wedding scene.

A few weeks ago, I took a day trip to Whidbey, driving north to the waterfront community of Mukilteo, where I caught the 20-minute ferry ride across Puget Sound to Clinton, on the southern tip of the island. My three stops were concentrated on the southern half of the island, in and around the town of Langley, where there’s a mix of tourism, businesses serving vacationers and owners of second homes, as well as small agriculture.

Let me introduce you to the guests you’ll hear in this extended one-hour episode:

A bird’s eye view of Sonshine Farm, photographed by a tree-trimmer who was working there

Kelly Uhlig (left) and mom Pam Uhlig (right)

On my first stop, I visited Pam Uhlig and her daughter Kelly Uhlig, flower farmers who own Sonshine Farm, a specialty cut flower farm that packs more stems into a small homestead than you can imagine.

While pursuing a horticulture degree at a local community college Pam apprenticed with Vivian Larson of Everyday Flowers (a past guest of this podcast) – and that’s where I saw her in action. Kelly, a 4-H superstar who’s herself now a college student, is just as committed to flower farming as her mom. Together the two make a dynamic team; they are now members of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, where the local floral community snaps up their gorgeous flowers.

Kelly, with one of her summer bouquet creations, which she grew & designed

Pam poses with ‘Vincent Fresh’ ~ a favorite sunflower she grew last summer.

Melissa Brown (c) Jenna Bechtholt Photography

After interviewing Pam and Kelly and taking a tour of their farm, I went to meet Melissa Brown of Flying Bear Farm. Melissa is a farmer-florist interested in growing flowers for her own floral design business.

We met up first on a parcel that a friend has invited Melissa to plant with flowers, which is where we recorded our podcast interview.

And then . . . Melissa took me to the Flying Bear Farm headquarters, just outside Langley. That’s where she and her husband Benjamin Courteau have just moved, along with Melissa’s parents Molly & David Brown, into a fabulous compound complete with a barn, two residences, an art studio, and lots of terra firma for growing flowers.

Melissa’s folks treated all of us to a delicious luncheon where the conversation only got better with more creative voices around the table.

Benjamin Courteau, field harvesting Flying Bear Farm’s snapdragons

Here’s the land that a friend has lent Melissa and Benjamin to grow flowers on Whidbey Island.

A floral creation from Flying Bear Farm

A Flying Bear Farm tabletop design ~ lovely!

Tobey Nelson of Vases Wild

After lunch, I grabbed some time with our final guest, Tobey Nelson of Vases Wild.

Tobey and I have been talking about this emerging Whidbey Island flower farming-floral design community for a couple of years so I credit her with pulling together my field trip.

She has an extensive background in landscape design, fine gardening and wedding & event florals, which makes Tobey particularly passionate about sourcing from local flower farms on Whidbey Island.

That said, it’s not unusual for her to jump on an early-morning ferry to come into Seattle where she shops for flowers grown by the farms of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market.

Floral necklace by Vases Wild’s Tobey Nelson (c) Suzanne Rothmeyer Photography

Wedding arbor by Vases Wild’s (c) image by Scott O’Malley

Bridal bouquet by Vases Wild’s Tobey Nelson (c) Mazagran Photography

Please enjoy each guests’ unique perspective on growing flowers, island style. They are building a creative interdependence that is a small-scale model of what can and should happen in every community where flower farmers and florists come together.

Here’s how you can find & follow the Whidbey Island creatives:

Sonshine Farm, Pam Uhlig and Kelly Uhlig on Instagram

Flying Bear Farm, Melissa Brown and Benjamin Courteau on Facebook

Flying Bear Farm on Twitter

Flying Bear Farm on Pinterest

Flying Bear Farm on Instagram

Vases Wild, Tobey Nelson on Facebook

Vases Wild on Pinterest

Vases Wild on Instagram

Thank you so much for joining me today. Episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast have been downloaded more than 74,000 times and I thank you and others in the progressive American-grown floral community for supporting this endeavor.

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. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

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.

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How do flower farmers band together to take control of their distribution channels? This week’s podcast features a recording pulled from the 2014 audio vault, a fantastic presentation that I know will answer this and many questions about selling American grown flowers. I hope you find it inspiring.

The panel, “Cooperative Wholesaling Among Farmers,” features the history and experiences of three farmers’ co-ops in the Madison, Wisconsin area; in the Pacific Northwest; and in the nation’s Capitol.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard quite a bit of of interest in farmer-owned flower cooperatives around the country. There are probably as many potential farmer-to-florist models as there are individual floral marketplaces.

For example, I have personally heard from groups in Oregon; Sacramento, California; New York-Hudson Valley area; and in Ohio, all of whom are exploring the possibilities of a collective selling effort to reach a hungry customer base of florists, event and wedding designers, and other wholesale buyers. So clearly, the potential has yet to be tapped.

This panel was presented last fall at the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers annual conference in Wilmington, Delaware. Slow Flowers was a sponsor of that conference and I’ve aired several other panels in the past.

Today, you’ll hear from Barbara Lamborne of Greenstone Fields, a Northern Virginia organic flower grower and co-founder of Capitol Flower Growers; Joe Schmitt of Fair Field Flowers; and Diane Szukovathy of Jello Mold Farm and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market. The three generously share their experience as leaders of successful regional co-ops around the country and how they made it happen.

The presentation starts with Diane Szukovathy, co-founder of Jello Mold Farm in Mt. Vernon, Washington, and founding chair of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market. Diane was one of this podcast’s first guests, appearing in Episode 103 when she discussed the co-op model in depth.

Be sure to visit debraprinzing.com to find links to several articles that I and others have written about the Seattle co-op model. Full-disclosure: I’m not totally objective here. As one of two non-farmer board members who volunteer for this endeavor, I care deeply about the co-op model. It is so rewarding to work closely with flower farmers like Diane and I know that her insights will help point you to resources for possible collaborations in your own farming community.

The next speaker is Joe Schmitt, who I and many consider the elder statesman of the American cut flower movement. Long before the flower farming craze burst onto the mainstream scene, Joe was growing flowers on his Madison, Wisconsin farm. He is a founder of Fair Field Flowers, a Slow Flowers member that serves as a wholesale farmer-to-florist cooperative selling to florists in Madison, Milwaukee and beyond.

Approximately eight farms combine their resources to supply floral customers from spring through fall. Where the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market is a central hub that sells direct to florists five days a week, Fair Field Flowers is a delivery truck (like a wholesaler on wheels) that delivers flowers to its customers in key markets.

The panel continues with a presentation from Barbara Lamborne of Greenstone Fields, one of the founders of Capitol Growers, which until recently served the Washington, D.C. market. At the time of the presentation, Capitol Growers had lost one of its three founding members. And as of 2015, the cooperative has sadly disbanded. There are lessons to learn here, from failures as well as successes.

Some of the best information comes at the end of the panel presentations during the Q&A portion. Hang in there to listen to the amazing wisdom from farmers with years of experience growing quality American flowers.

Episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast have been downloaded more than 67,000 times. I thank you and others in the progressive American-grown floral community for supporting this endeavor.

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. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

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.

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The Zweifel Family enjoys the nearby Oregon Coast, From left, daughter Nina, and Monika and Patrick Zweifel.

In the fall, there’s a pretty fun Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze at Oregon Coastal. Here, Patrick poses with his daughter Nina.

Patrick Zweifel’s Oregon Coastal Flowers – his 64-acre, Tillamook, Oregon-based farm – has been well received by florists who shop at the Portland Flower Market, the Los Angeles Flower Market District and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market where you can find permanent stalls filled with his gorgeous hydrangeas, calla lilies and Oregon forest products.

Feast your eyes on the Hydrangea Fields at Oregon Coastal Flowers. Field-grown, true-blue hydrangeas! You can’t get it any better!

Here’s that awesome new Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Pistachio’ that Patrick talked about in our interview. 

Here’s an arial view of Oregon Coastal Flowers where you can spot the full-size competitive race track amidst the fields. 

Check out the Crocosmia borders! 

Patrick’s message is that if you can find your niche and be the very best in that niche, you *might* succeed. Being the best means producing excellent, high-quality botanical and floral elements. It also means the type of customer service you provide and the relationships you build with customers.

But no matter how beautiful or fresh the bloom, domestic farmers face competition on price, especially from importers who buy from low-wage countries, Patrick says. “I was the first person in the U.S. to sell colored calla lilies in a big way. I couldn’t have bought my farm without them. Then the South Americans started selling callas for 30-cents-per-stem against my $1-per-stem product. And they had added incentives, like buy one box, get a second one for free.  I just can’t compete with South America on callas, even if my quality is great.” Patrick describes how cheap imports nearly ruined his core business – colored calla lilies. By 2008, he was faced with devastating losses of 85% of his total revenue and Patrick was driven to save his company.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t see that he had a choice. With a mortgage on his farm and family and employees to support, Patrick searched for a way to diversify Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The wedding pavilion at Hydrangea Ranch, a gorgeous event space at Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The romantic Alder arbors created at Oregon Coastal Farms from alder poles harvested on local forest land.

Hear the optimistic story of how he’s survived and moved beyond that episode to become even more solid in knowing his niche. This is a story of never giving up – and being smart and resourceful enough to find a solution that satisfies your customers, to provide products that meet a need in the floral marketplace, and to find new marketplaces for those products. 

Mossy branches – a signature product offering.

Here are those little log “cake plates” that Patrick has popularized among the floral, wedding & event world.

Oh, wow, those Alder logs!

All kinds of goodies from the Oregon forest: mosses, ferns, gnarly surprises!

Patrick credits his ability to quickly change direction for saving his business. He noticed a few years ago that floral designers were snatching up his offerings of Northwest forest products, such as lichen-clad branches, soft green mosses, cone-laden conifer boughs and other woodland items, infusing their bouquets with a naturalistic feel. In the past three years, Oregon Coastal Flowers has increased the variety of specialty forest items, while at the same time shrinking its acreage devoted to calla lily production. With forest service permits that allow him to legally harvest everything from birch saplings to decaying tree trunks, Patrick has seen his sales double from 2010 to 2011.

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Meet Lane DeVries, CEO of The Sun Valley Group, America’s largest cut flower farm, and Chairman of the California Cut Flower Commission.

American Flower Farming Update with Lane DeVries, Chairman of the California Cut Flower Commission (Episode 112)

Today’s interview is with Lane DeVries, a fourth generation flower farmer who grew up in his family’s business in Holland until he came to the US in 1983, at the age of 23.

I’ve gotten to know Lane in the past few years while partnering with him on projects for the California Cut Flower Commission, the advocacy agency that promotes that state’s 225 flower farms. His farm, The Sun Valley Group, based in Arcata and Oxnard, is the state’s largest (in fact, it’s the country’s largest).

Lane and I recently met in Portland, at the Field-to-Vase Dinner, a very special gathering of flower farmers, florists, flower retailers and wholesalers and the media, held on October 8th.

I co-hosted the event with the CCFC and our goal was to convene floral industry leaders to discuss new initiatives in the American Grown Flower Movement.

The underlying message: partnering with your would-be competitors is a good idea when it comes to changing how consumers connect with domestic flowers.

Lane takes time to meet flower consumers as often as possible. He recently made an appearance at New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.

My podcast interview with Lane took place via Skype, a few days after that dinner. Please enjoy our conversation and meet a man who lives and breathes cut flowers. I love that Lane, in spite of all of his professional success, continues to eagerly seek out the next new thing. He sees old flowers in a new way and improves on customer favorites with new hybridizing methods.

He is a visionary and I credit Lane with his amazing leadership moving his own flower farming community into an important dialogue about American grown flowers.

The next time you see a blue-and-yellow license plate-style CA-Grown label on a bouquet of flowers at the supermarket, you’ll have people like Lane DeVries to thank.

Highlights of Lane’s long career in the U.S. cut flower industry are chronicled in Amy Stewart’s 2007 book, Flower Confidential: The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful – and you can read an excerpt of that story here, courtesy of Amy and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (c) 2007 and 2008. All Rights Reserved. 

(Photos (c) Linda Blue, courtesy of the California Cut Flower Commission)

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Meet a Young Flower Farmer (Episode 105)

Meet new flower farmer Janell Patterson of Flower Forest Farm in Auburn, Washington

Earlier this year I met Janell Patterson, a young cut flower grower who launched Flower Forest Farm, a micro-agriculture endeavor that’s part of Seattle Tilth’s farm incubator program called Seattle Tilth Farm Works.

There’s a forest and farm here, which perhaps inspire Janell’s charming business name: Flower Forest Farm

Located about 40 minutes southeast of Seattle in Auburn, where there are still patches of agricultural land that the developers have missed, Janell and several other new farmers at the are learning the art and science of growing through hands-on efforts. Tilth instructors provide extensive small farm business training and support. Here is some of the curriculum:

This program provides: 

• A comprehensive educational program covering farming, business planning, operations and marketing 

• On-site mentorship from experienced farmers

• Hands-on experience growing food on 1/4 acre plots

• Access to farmland, equipment, water and other necessary farming inputs

• Assistance in creating marketing channels for products

Peek through one of Janell’s pink dahlias catch a glimpse of the nasturtiums and Queen Anne’s Lace flourishing beyond.

Each participants’ time and sweat equity yields food or flowers that supply Tilth’s weekly Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions. Janell’s Flower Forest Farm is the only flower grower involved and it’s wonderful to see her beautiful ingredients supplying CSA customers and local farmers’ market shoppers. She manages a one-quarter acre parcel filled with beautiful rows of annuals and gorgeous dahlias.

A young mom, Janell brings an eclectic background to her endeavor. She has experience as a professional interior designer and she has been studying horticulture at South Seattle Communit College (which is where I gained my training in horticulture and landscape design). Janell also worked as an environmental volunteer managing a small rural tree nursery with the Peace Corps in Ghana, West Africa.

Fellow garden blogger Filiz Satir and I visited Seattle Tilth Farm Works in July and walked through the fields on a tour with Janell. You’ll hear Filiz’s voice (and a few of her own questions) on this recording as part of our conversation. See more of my photos below:

The forest looms beyond the Seattle Tilth Farm Works, creating a beautiful setting for growing flowers (and food)

Zinnias on display in straight rows, ready to be harvested.

Another pretty dahlia, one of hundreds that Janell planted this season.

Sweet peas were at their peak when I visited in July, trellised inside the hoop house at Seattle Tilth Farm Works.

Love the dark Opal basil that Janell grows for her mixed CSA and Farmers’ Market bouquets.

Click here to learn more about Tilth’s CSA program, including how to order Janell’s weekly bouquets.

Click here to learn more about Flower Forest Farm’s flowers, bunches, bouquets and custom services.

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This week’s podcast features two interviews that I recorded during an 11-day trip to many beautiful venues.It’s my summer vacation gift to you!

Here’s the smiling Miriam Goldberger, surrounded by a sea of golden coreopsis flowers.

I met up with Miriam Goldberger of Wildflower Farm, a fellow author whose forthcoming book Taming Wildflowers promises to educate and inspire those of us in the floral industry.

Confusion about the terms “wildflowers,” “native plants” and “indigineous plants” always raises a red flag for me. I’m never sure what’s okay to grow or harvest and I certainly do not want to pick endangered plant species. Miriam’s mission is to demystify those terms as she singles out 60 flowers and grasses that fall into these categories. These are plants that are adapted to North America and have been since the first Euopean settlers arrived. They can be easily grown from seed and find a home in your garden, flower farm and floral arrangements.

Taming Wildflowers will be published by St. Lynn’s Press in February 2014.

Here’s a little background about how Miriam and her husband Paul Jenkins started Wildflower Farm in 1988:

Founded in 1988, Wildflower Farm began as wholesale dried flower growers. In 1991, Wildflower Farm expanded to become a pick your own flower farm. This quickly attracted the attention of people in Southern Ontario, drawing thousands of people to the farm during the summer months.

Over the years, Miriam and Paul became increasingly interested in the low maintenance advantages of growing native wildflowers. Working with plants that required no watering, no fertilizing and minimal annual maintenance was very attractive. At that time there were very few sources for truly native wildflower seeds and the seeds that were available were very expensive and of dubious quality and origin. Seeing an opportunity, in 1997, Wildflower Farm expanded its focus and has since blossomed into becoming a leading native seed grower supplying hardy, native perennial seeds and site specific wildflower seed mixes to homeowners, landscape contractors, municipalities and corporations.

During this same time, what began as a simple walk in the forest planted a seed in the minds of Miriam and Paul, when they spotted clumps of a rich green grass growing in the deep shade of the northern woods. Perhaps, they thought, these emerald patches could be used as natural grass pathways for their wildflower meadows. Trial and error led to the development of the drought-tolerant, low maintenance turf grass Eco-Lawn™ from a blend of fine fescue grasses, a move which has changed the face of “lawnscaping” for homeowners and businesses across North America.

Wildflower varieties range from Yarrows (Achillea millefolium) and Alliums to Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) and Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea). By the way, she mentioned Parthenium integrifolium, wild quinine — one of her favorite floral ingredients and I thought you’d like to see what it looks like.

Wildflower Farms’ super-cool annual “Wild Quinine” — an uncommon variety favored by Miriam Goldberger.

Miriam’s book, Taming Wilflowers: The Complete Wildflower Cutting Garden Guide, will be published by St. Lynn’s Press in February 2014. Its subtitle is: “From Seed to Vase – Growing, Gardening & Designing with Wildflowers.” You can pre-order her book at the Taming Wildflowers web site here. 

A few days after my conversation with Miriam, I traveled to Saunderstown, Rhode Island, to visit Polly and Mike Hutchison of Robin Hollow Farm. Polly and Mike specialize in flower growing and full-service wedding and event flowers through their floral studio. They fall into that unique category of “farmer-florist,” doing it all beautifully, with passion, artistry and professionalism.

Robin Hollow Farm’s sign at the local farmers’ market stall, surrounded by fresh-picked flowers.

I spent a wonderful 24 hours with these talented flower farmers who welcomed me into their home, shared amazing local seafood with me (thanks Matunuck Oyster Bar!), toured me through their growing fields, let me tag along on flower deliveries and observe the design process. Before I left, we grabbed a few minutes to sit down and talk about their lives and work as organic growers for today’s podcast.  Here’s some background on Polly and Mike: 

At Robin Hollow Farm, a wide range of gorgeous flowers and plants are grown in the fields and greenhouses. Mike and Polly farm using sustainable and/or organic methods on about five acres in Saunderstown, RI, just minutes from Newport and Providence.

Our flowers are grown without chemical pesticides, for our health and yours. Our fields are maintained with our cultivating tractor, our hoes, and mulches for maximum organic effect. We use these flowers at farmers markets, in our events, and for arrangements. Robin Hollow Farm is a proud member of ASCFG , the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers. Polly is currently President of ASCFG.

Discover and enjoy some of my favorite images from my 24-hour visit with this creative and dynamic couple:

Mike Hutchison (left) chats with Tran. She’s a lettuce and greens grower who has been volunteering at Robin Hollow Farm to learn more about growing flowers.   

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Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall, photographed by Mary Grace Long (c) September 2012 at Jello Mold Farm in Mt. Vernon, Washington.

In this week’s podcast you’ll meet flower farmer Diane Szukovathy, the “cover girl” (along with floral designer Stacie Sutliff) of The 50 Mile Bouquet.

More than anyone I have met in the past five years, I credit Diane and Dennis Westphall, her husband and co-owner of Jello Mold Farm, with inspiring me and enhancing my understanding of what it means to be an American flower farmer. 

I’ve interviewed and written about Diane and Dennis many times, but in today’s episode, I wanted to zero in on some of the exciting news taking place at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market. This is an innovative, farmer-owned cooperative that Dennis, Diane and several other pioneering flower farmers launched two years ago. Their tagline is: Farmer to Florist.

Listen to my conversation with Diane as we discuss the new supermarket/mass merchandising program called “By the Bunch.”

The flower-growers’ co-op provides great messaging and branding to educate customers at point of purchase.

Remember this cool logo: By the Bunch. It means these gorgeous bouquets are possible because their ingredients were grown by a bunch of awesome NW flower farmers

This is a cooperative-driven model that was designed to connect local flower farms with volume market opportunties like grocery store floral departments. Diane explains how this new program came to be and why it has so much potential to increase the income stream for people growing cut flowers.

Click here for more background on Diane and Dennis of Jello Mold Farm.

Click here for news about the 2011 launch of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market.

Click here for an October 2012 report about the grant funding that was used to launch the new mass market program.

Click here for the post I wrote this past spring when the By the Bunch bouquet program launched.

Seriously the most spectacular sight I've ever witnessed: Peony fields in the foreground. . . Glaciers in the distance! Taken at Shelley Rainwater's GLACIER PEONIES in Homer, Alaska

I was lured to Alaska by peonies.

You probably didn’t think it was possible to use the words Peonies and Alaska in the same sentence, but guess what? There are acres and acres of peony fields, flourishing in June and July as far north as Fairbanks (Latitude 64). A little further south, peonies bloom in Homer until August and even early September. The cool thing about this chilly state is that an intrepid group of farmers is making a cut flower industry possible. These flower lovers have seized the opportunity and created a market for their lovely crops at the exact same time when a huge percentage of weddings takes place in the Lower 48.

Irene Repper's license plate, from Echo Lake Peonies

It’s a sweet spot you rarely see these days. After learning about Alaska’s emerging peony scene in 2011, I set my sights on a first-person trip. In late July, I spent one week there, logging more than 1,500 miles on Alaska’s highways and byways (and a few dirt roads to nowhere!), visiting 15 peony farms and meeting with dozens of wonderful people behind the blooms. I came home totally enthralled with the can-do mindset of flower farmers everywhere, especially in Alaska where no one expects you to grow anything except those oversize cabbages that win blue ribbons at the state fair.

Here’s why it’s so exciting:

Peonies are one of the top bridal flowers in the country, according to The Knot and other industry sources. Yet here in the lower 48 states, peonies peak in late May and early June. If you are a bride yearning to hold a bodacious bouquet of peonies on your special day in July, August or September. . . you are simply out of luck. The next chance for peonies comes in the fall, around October, when they bloom on Australia and New Zealand flower farms – and have to be shipped to you at outrageous expense and a serious carbon foot print.

Pat Holloway, left, and me - standing underneath the Alaska Pipeline in Fairbanks. Kinda scary, but I couldn't resist the photo!

So when the folks in Alaska, inspired by the research of Pat Holloway, a professor in the department of high altitude agriculture at U of A/Fairbanks and the Georgeson Botanic Garden, discovered they could grow peonies and harvest them in July and August, well, they literally created a brand-new seasonal flower crop. The marketplace has responded with a voracious appetite for the pale pink, coral, cream, wine and hot pink blooms. Brides and their floral designers are jumping for joy – and Alaska has its first agricultural export crop. Not fish. Not oil. But PEONIES!

This micro-flower story has taken place in less than a decade, gradually at first, as a few folks planted a few hundred peonies on an acre or two. Then, armed with Pat’s research and information gleaned from her workshops on growing and harvesting, more growers joined the movement. Like many perennials, peonies take at least three years to become productive, so it has only been in the last year or two that significant quantities of blooms have been cut and shipped out of state.

The numbers are exploding, though – and an informal statewide survey suggests that about 100,000 stems were shipped this summer. There are about 150 members of the young Alaska Peony Growers Association, with about one-third of them actively growing and marketing their flowers. The rest are just getting started, ordering peony roots by the thousands and patiently tending to the plants until they explode in beauty (and quantity) over the next several seasons.

If you are wondering “what’s so special?” about these flowers, I can only tell you that there’s some kind of fairy dust in the soil, air, sunlight and altitude of Alaska that adds up to robust, healthy and vivid flowers. Some have stems like you’ve never seen before – 30-inches long or more. The foliage is healthy and true green; the petal colors are intense when you want them to be and subtly quiet when that’s preferred (in other words, better than the catalog photos!). These plants are extraordinarily responsive to the 22-hours-of-sunshine in the land of the midnight sun – and the sunlight seems to be that secret ingredient for the flowers’ success.

Elle Stapleton, a summer intern, harvests 'Red Charm' peonies at Aurora Blooms in Homer

Shelley Rainwater, harvests peonies at her farm in Homer.

There are many ways that these luscious blooms make their way from North Pole, Palmer, Soldotna or Homer to the designers and florists in New York City or Los Angeles (and many places in between). Yes, there is a carbon footprint to shipping peonies on an airplane from Anchorage to the rest of the United States.

But as Pat Holloway pointed out to me:  “For years, I had been saying, Isn’t there something we can stick in a box and ship to someone on all those (empty) planes?” You see, when combined, the international airports in Anchorage and Fairbanks are ranked as the third-largest air cargo transport stop on the globe. The combination of superior cut flowers — available nowhere else on the planet for nearly 10 weeks — and the necessary transportation infrastructure to deliver those flowers to the world adds up to floral magic of a different sort.

The growers typically harvest to order, fulfilling online requests, phone calls from anxious DIY brides, faxes from desperate floral designers — all who have joined the peony gold rush. Alaska has what they need. The flowers are harvested in the cool mornings or late in the day, stored in buckets of water and placed inside coolers large or small. The packaging is thoughtfully done. Stems of peonies “in bud” are swathed in soft quilt batting and arranged carefully in long boxes where there’s space for an ice pack or two. Then off they go, sent overnight so the recipient can enjoy his or her flowers as quickly as 24 hours after they were cut.

Peonies packed at Midnight Sun Peonies in Soldotna - ready to be shipped.

Great labeling!

Peonies are pretty remarkable flowers. They can be “dry-stored” after having been cut when in bud (some growers call this the marshmallow stage; others, the cotton ball stage).

Pat’s research has evaluated the relationship between time stored at this stage and the vase life of the blooms once they’re placed in water. You can read some of her research here. One study found that “under optimum conditions, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peonies lasted up to 15 days in a vase, 8-9 days from bud break to full bloom, and an additional 5-6 days in full bloom. Chilling is the most important attribute to long vase life.”

Yes, there is an acknowledged carbon footprint associated with shipping Alaska’s peonies to other states. But the energy and expense to do so is significantly lower than the alternative (such as importing from New Zealand or Holland). And to me, here’s the bottom line: It’s exciting to support a new, viable domestic flower industry that’s meeting demand, filling a need, and bringing beauty to the rest of us.

When I was visiting Fairbanks, Pat hosted a barbecue for me to meet several peony farmers in the Fairbanks area. A few local officials came, as well, intrigued to learn about the economic development story under their noses. Later, Pat shared an email one of them had sent to his constituents:

“Two things make Alaska uniquely situated to become the single seasonal source for peonies. First, nowhere else but Alaska can farmers grow crops of peonies that bloom through the summer, especially for late summer weddings. Traditionally, there have been no peonies available for sale between July and September. Second, Anchorage provides critical shipping as the world’s largest handler of international air cargo. These two aspects give Alaska 100% exclusive access to this worldwide market. . . .

“This is just the beginning for growers in Alaska. There is a demand for tens of thousands of stems worldwide and we are in (an) excellent position to develop this outstanding and diversifying product.”

Beth Van Sandt, one of my generous hosts, from Scenic Place Peonies in Homer.

How Can You Find Alaska Peonies?

Peonies, a classic beauty, from Aurora Blooms

The Alaska Peony Growers Association has a one-stop web site in which you can connect with dozens of growers. Of course, the season is pretty much over, but it’s worth contacting the peony farms to get on their mailing list and ask about pre-ordering peonies for the 2013 season. These farmers are so happy to help you – so excited to know that their flowers are bringing floral beauty to the rest of the country. I encourage designers to make those important contacts now so that next year, when wedding season rolls around, you’ll have access to superior American-grown peonies during the busiest wedding months.