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Spokane, Washington-based floral personality Katie Lila is on a mission to make fresh flowers a cultural expectation. Not just a novelty, but a norm. She has navigated many facets of the flower-verse – from running a floral event business, to crafting large-scale art installations, and producing her floral-centric TV series. We first featured Katie as producer and host of “Follow the Blooms” in 2024 when it debuted on a live-streaming platform. Now the series has moved to PBS with a nationwide distribution that reaches 70% of public TV viewers across the country. I reunited with Katie last week at Bellevue Botanical Garden, where she previously filmed our Slow Flowers Summit in 2023. The “Flower Summit” episode is part of Season One. Bellevue Botanical Garden hosted a Follow the Blooms screening for members and volunteers. You’ll hear an update from Katie as we discuss manifesting one’s floral dreams, and a conversation with James Gagliardi, the BBG director, who discusses the importance of public gardens in the life of communities everywhere. Katie also generously shared a preview of her “Flower Summit” Episode. If you attended that fabulous event, you might just see yourself on the screen!
Katie Lila has spent more than two decades working in every nook and cranny of the flower industry—running a wedding and event business, holding workshops, creating massive floral installations, and producing “Follow the Blooms.” She has partnered with local growers, visited farms across the country, and inspired hands-on flower experiences in ways people never imagined.
These days, Katie is a flower-reporter who documents the world of blooms and shares their narratives through media that tells a darn good story.
This all comes together in 10 episodes of “Follow the Blooms” Season One, just picked up nationally by PBS stations in 70 percent of the viewing market. As Katie integrates fresh flowers into the mainstream fabric of society through innovative floral experiences that spark joy, cultivate community, and invite curiosity, she is living out her own dream of floral storytelling – something we here at Slow Flowers have been doing for 15 years. We’re thrilled that Katie is a Slow Flowers member and encourage you to join her as she’s following the blooms. As Katie likes to say: “If my creativity had a theme song, it would be a quirky tune on a ukulele titled, ‘What Else Can We Do With Flowers?’”
WATCH Follow the Blooms on PBS
Join me to learn more about this project and also learn how you might be able to get involved in a future episode. Let’s jump right in and get started. Enjoy a sneak peek of the “Flower Summit” episode that features Tracy Yang of Jarn Co. Flower Farm, the Seattle Growers Market, and the Slow Flowers Summit from 2023.
Season Two of Follow the Blooms is currently filming, but Katie is collecting ideas for Season Three.
Thank you to our Sponsors
This show is brought to you by slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to florists, shops, and studios who design with local, seasonal and sustainable flowers and to the farms that grow those blooms. It’s the conscious choice for buying and sending flowers.
Thank you to our lead sponsor, My Patio Tree: Expertly Grown Plants, Perfectly Designed to Elevate Your Garden. Their second-generation family tree farm has curated the best-performing, cutting-edge, multi-zone varieties to enhance your garden, patio or special event. Every tree purchased supports Plant With Purpose, a nonprofit organization that restores hope by reversing global poverty and environmental damage. Learn more at mypatiotree.com.
Thank you to 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. Find the full catalog of flower seeds and bulbs at johnnyseeds.com.
Thank you to Charles Little & Company for supplying our industry with some of the most beautiful and sustainably-grown design ingredients, available nationwide through their website at charleslittleandcompany.com. Based in Eugene, Oregon, the farmers at Charles Little & Company have been growing and drying flowers since 1986. New products and dried flower collections are added to their website at the first of each month. Check it out at charleslittleandcompany.com.
Thank you for joining me today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeavor, downloaded more than 1.6 million times by listeners like you. Thank you for listening, commenting and sharing – it means so much. As our movement gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of our domestic cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious. I know you feel it, too. If you’re new to our weekly Show and our long-running Podcast, check out all of our resources at SlowFlowersSociety.com.
I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Show & Podcast. The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Brenlan. 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. Next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more Slow Flowers on the table, one stem, one vase at a time. Thanks so much for joining us today and I’ll see you next week!
Music credits:
Drone Pine; Gaena; Rose Ornamental
by Blue Dot Sessions
http://www.sessions.blue
Lovely
by Tryad
http://tryad.bandcamp.com/album/instrumentals
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
In The Field
audionautix.com
