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I have a great interview to share with you today — and it includes a virtual visit to Bitterroot Flower Shop in Missoula, Montana, where I caught up with owner Lindsay Irwin.

I first met Lindsay through fellow Slow Flowers members Carly Jenkins and Jamie Rogers of Killing Frost Farm. and their wholesale venture Farm to Florist Montana. They consider Bitterroot Flower Shop one of the top customers for their fresh, seasonal and local Montana-grown flowers.

Over the years, on a few different visits to Montana, I’ve come to know Lindsay. She is active in the Montana Florists Association, having served as president in the recent past.  A few years ago, I was invited to speak at the MFA annual conference and we were hosted at Lindsay’s shop, Bitterroot, a sizeable retail and production space located at a strategic intersection in downtown Missoula. I was so impressed by the many conversations I had with florists across the state . . . including Lindsay, who are pursuing new sourcing models with local flower farmers.

Last summer, Killing Frost Farm reached out and asked if they could buy a gift membership in Slow Flowers Society for Lindsay — as a thank you for her support of their farm and their flowers. I was so touched by that creative way a flower farm connected on a deeper level with a key customer — and it’s a great client gift idea for other flower farmers to consider!

That gesture brought Lindsey and me together, too. When I was in Missoula earlier this month, she and I recorded an audio conversation, which you’ll hear today. We also recently recorded a virtual design demonstration, which appears at the top of this post. The flowers she used are all Montana-grown, along with beautiful fruiting raspberry branches from Killing Frost Farm and some California eucalyptus.

Let’s jump right in and meet Lindsey Irwin of Bitterroot Flower Shop in Missoula, Montana.

Follow Bitterroot Flower Shop on Facebook

Find Bitterroot Flower Shop on Instagram

Bonus: Listen to my 2020 interview (Episode 473) with Jamie Rogers about how Killing Frost Farm is getting more Montana-grown flowers into the hands of Montana florists!

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Thanks so much for joining me today! As October gets underway, this is the first podcast episode of the month featuring visits that highlight our members and the ways they share the Slow Flowers Message with their customers and marketplace. Join me, each Wednesday, for a new live-stream video interview on YouTube and our Facebook page, and here on the Slow Flowers Podcast for the audio conversation.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Connect with Slow Flowers Society for our Facebook Live Content

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As I mentioned last week, October is Slow Flowers Member Appreciation Month! We have lots planned each day of this month to connect with you and others in our community. This Friday, be sure to join our Member Virtual Meet-Up — and hear from two members, retail florists who will share their marketing and branding tips to leverage the Slow Flowers message to their customers.

We’ve invited Sarah Reyes of Wildflower & Fern based in Oakland, Calif., and Toni Reale of Roadside Blooms, based in North Charleston, S.C., to discuss some of the ways they have successfully developed Slow Flowers’ messaging, marketing & PR, and consumer education programs that underscore their values about sourcing and sustainability.
Bring your questions!! 

Here is the LINK to pre-register — and we’d love to see you this Friday, October 8th in the zoom room at 9 am pacific.noon eastern.

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Thank you to our Sponsors!

This show is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 880 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 for 2021, Farmgirl Flowers. Farmgirl Flowers delivers iconic burlap-wrapped bouquets and lush, abundant arrangements to customers across the U.S., supporting more than 20 U.S. flower farms by purchasing more than $9 million dollars of U.S.-grown fresh and seasonal flowers and foliage annually. Discover more at farmgirlflowers.com.

Rooted Farmers works exclusively with local growers to put the highest-quality specialty cut flowers in floral customers’ hands. When you partner with Rooted Farmers, you are investing in your community, and you can expect a commitment to excellence in return. Learn more at RootedFarmers.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. Find the full catalog of flower seeds and bulbs at johnnysseeds.com.

Mayesh Wholesale Florist. Family-owned since 1978, Mayesh is the premier wedding and event supplier in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to partner with Mayesh to promote local and domestic flowers, which they source from farms large and small around the U.S. Learn more at mayesh.com.

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Thanks so much for joining us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 772,000 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.

I value your support and invite you to show your thanks to support Slow Flowers’ ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right.

I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Show & Podcast. Next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more Slow Flowers on the table, one stem, one vase at a time. 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. You can learn more about Andrew’s work at soundbodymovement.com. 

Music Credits:

Molly Molly; Turning on the Lights; Gaenaby
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; Redwood Trail
audionautix.com

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The conversation I recorded recently with today’s featured guest began much earlier this year. I learned so much from flower farmer Jamie Rogers, one half of Killing Frost Farm, while pulling together a segment of a lecture about flower farm diversification. And much of what Jamie and I discussed when I called him back in February was in some ways prophetic. At the time, we could not have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic and what it would mean to the floral marketplace.

Jamie and his partner Carly Jenkins founded Killing Frost Farm in Missoula, Montana, in 2012. Carly shared some of their story when I first interviewed her for the Slow Flowers Podcast, episode 296, aired in May 2017. I’ll be sure to share a link to that episode, and to a subsequent appearance when she and I discussed the woodland-inspired lichen and moss gown for American Flowers Week 2018, episode 355. 

Here’s a bit of their background, which originally appeared on their website a few year’s back: In 2012, Carly and Jamie bought a house on a single city lot in Missoula’s Westside neighborhood. The soil was rocky, ant-infested and barren. They tilled, weeded, and with a truckload of compost, began growing tomatoes, herbs and flowers.

In 2014, the house next door went on the market, and after a bit of financial finagling, the couple made an offer. With more soil to work, their gardening ambitions grew, and before long, taking care of their plants was not only tough on schedules, but hard on the wallet. A financially savvy friend recommended Carly and Jamie find a way to form an LLC, sell some of what they grew and treat those mounting gardening expenses as a business expense. By the fall of that year, they grew their first batch of microgreens. A week after the ground was frozen, they delivered some to a neighborhood restaurant, and Killing Frost Farm was born.

When I first posted that introduction to Jamie and Carly, back in 2017, I concluded: A lot has happened since then, including forming established relationships with local chefs and growing other types of produce for them. Carly and Jamie also upped the number of flower beds and sold edible flowers . . .  before narrowing their focus to cut flowers for floral arrangements.

As they wrote on their web site: “It has been a frightening, stress-inducing, humbling ride so far, but it’s allowed us to quit our old jobs and spend our days working in dirt, together.”

Today’s episode will catch you up on what Jamie and Carly have been up to in the past few years. They moved to Potomoc, a town about a 30-minute drive east of Missoula, where Killing Frost now has 2-plus acres for its cut flower production.

As you’ll hear in this conversation, the couple now focuses almost entirely on selling flowers wholesale through their weekly Market in Missoula, where florists can shop off the floor and pick up pre-orders. To grow, they began in earnest delivering flowers to customers (studio and retail florists) in Butte, Bozeman, Helena and often to other markets when supply allowed.

They just wrapped up the 2020 season for running a Montana-grown delivery program, marketing Killing Frost’s fresh flowers as well as crops grown by a number of other farms. Spearheaded by Jamie, the program will not stop just because dahlia season is over. As he discusses in our interview, there are plans to add dried flowers and holiday greenery to the product availability list moving forward through the end of the year.

I think you’ll pick up on the fact that Jamie is personable, committed to excellent customer service, and a whole lot of fun. As he shares, the Killing Frost model is based on one originated by Ralph Thurston and Jeriann Sabin, founders and former owners of Bindweed Flower Farm.

Our conversation is an honest one and I appreciate Jamie’s transparency about the challenges of building a bucket truck route in a marketplace where customers have not had access to locally-grown flowers for decades. As he told me earlier: “We need them more than they need us. If you get that notion, Jamie said, you’ll be rewarded, because remember: they have just been buying flowers from someone else for nine months of the year.“

Find and follow Killing Frost Farm on Instagram

Thank you so much for joining me today! At the end of our interview, I had a big grin on my face — Jamie has a way of lifting my spirits. I hope you pick up on his enthusiasm and passion for getting more Montana-grown flowers in to the hands of the state’s florists on a regular basis. As he told me about his sales and customer service strategy: “We have to make it as convenient for them as possible. We are really lucky that they want to buy our flowers.”

Before I close, I want to highlight a couple of items and ask you to keep an eye out for our October happenings. Our October newsletter launches this week, as does our 2021 member survey. I hope you take a moment to click on the survey if it lands in your in-box — we are eager to glean insights and input from you to help shape the coming year’s themes and programs. To sweeten the deal and thank you for your investment of valuable time, we will send a special gift to everyone who completes the survey. And all respondents who complete the survey and share their contact information with us will be entered into a drawing for a full registration to the 2021 Slow Flowers Summit, valued at $599.

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 645,000 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 the American cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious. I know you feel it, too. I value your support and invite you to show your thanks and with a donation to support my ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right.

Thank you to our Sponsors

This podcast is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, nationwide online directory to florists, shops, and studios who design with American-grown flowers and to the farms that grow those blooms.  It’s the conscious choice for buying and sending flowers.

And thank you to Florists’ Review magazine. I’m delighted to serve as Contributing Editor for Slow Flowers Journal, found in the pages of Florists’ Review. Read our stories at slowflowersjournal.com.

The Gardener’s Workshop, which offers a full curriculum of online education for flower farmers and farmer-florists. Online education is more important this year than ever, and you’ll want to check out the course offerings at thegardenersworkshop.com.

Mayesh Wholesale Florist. Family-owned since 1978, Mayesh is the premier wedding and event supplier in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to partner with Mayesh to promote local and domestic flowers, which they source from farms large and small around the U.S. Learn more at mayesh.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 soundbodymovement.com. 

Music Credits:

Turning on the Lights; Gaena
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; River Meditation
audionautix.com

Earlier this month, I flew to Missoula, a Western Montana, college town where there is quite a bit happening on the local flower farming scene. t was on my way to speak at the Rocky Mountain Gardening Live conference held on September 11-12 at Chico Hot Springs in Pray, Montana, just 30 minutes outside the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

The reason for this Seattle-to-Missoula leg of my trip was to meet up with Carly Jenkins and Jamie Rogers of Killing Frost Farm, Kathy and Adam Sherba of Mighty Fine Farm and George and Marcia Hart of Hart’s Garden & Nursery — all in the Missoula flower farming and Slow Flowers community.

Carly and I met in person earlier this year when she attended Tobey Nelson’s Whidbey Island Flower Workshop, which featured Susan McLeary of Passionflower Events and Kaleb Willis of Kaleb Norman James Design. Carly, or CJ, as she’s often called, gave me the big news about the second-season launch of Westside Flower Market, a wholesale farmer-to-florist venture that she and Kathy incubated beginning last summer in Missoula garage owned by Carly and Jamie. You can hear our Slow Flowers Podcast interview from that visit here.

This year, six additional flower farmers have joined the momentum and they are doing some really awesome things. Read more about the Slow Flowers Missoula story in this excellent piece that just ran in The Missoula Independent.

George and Marcia graciously hosted a barbecue, farm tour and meet-up at their property.

And while I didn’t count totals, I bet we had about 30 folks in attendance,  including some who drove up to 4 hours from places like Kalispell to join us!

I was delighted to introduce the Slow Flowers Movement to all those who attended, including Montana Rep. Willis Curdy, member of the agriculture committee for the state legislature, who just wanted to learn more about flower farming in his district — very cool!

We also had some very special guests in attendance — Jeriann Sabin and Ralph Thurston of Bindweed Farm in Blackfoot, Idaho! Jeriann and Ralph are past guests of the Slow Flowers Podcast, which we recorded last year upon the publication of their fabulous book, Deadhead: The Bindweed Way to Grow Flowers.

A last-minute flower farmers’ vaycay (thanks to an invitation from Carly), their 350-mile road trip . . .  and we were blessed with Jeriann and Ralph’s generous souls, playful personalities and amazing wisdom. People soaked up every word they had to say. Southeastern Idaho’s growing conditions are similar enough to those of Western Montana’s that our crowed wanted to hear every word — and wanted to buy signed copies of Deadhead!

That night, Carly, Kathy, Ralph, Jeriann  and I stayed up late, talking and visiting under the Montana moon. It has been a rough few months there, with the rampant wildfires, so we all were delighted that the breezes cleared the skies for one beautiful evening. A very special thank you to Adam Sherba’s parents for lending us use of their fabulous Missoula home. Jeriann, Ralph and I stayed there in great Montana luxury. In the morning, I watched deer and wild turkeys roaming through the hillside below the home.

I drove from Missoula to Pray (about 250 miles east) on Sunday, September 10th, arriving before dinnertime to check into Chico Hot Springs. CHS is a very special place — historic for its dude ranch vibe, its restorative 104-degree soaking pools fed by the springs and its adjacency to Yellowstone. The original lodge, where I stayed, dates to 1900, but the first recorded reference to the Hot Springs goes back to 1865. This is a place for kicking back and relaxing, which I did lots of. But now that there is a Conference Center to host corporate events, people come for multiple reasons.

I was there as guest of Dan and Andra Spurr, editor and publisher of Rocky Mountain Gardening magazine.

This wonderful quarterly magazine is for gardeners throughout the Rocky Mountains, encompassing stories and subscribers from the Canadian-US border down to Colorado and includes Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.

I was delighted to speak about Slow Flowers and share the story of what’s happening in Montana and beyond to an audience of more than 80 attendees.

Several flower farmers and florists were there, which made me feel welcome and allowed me to brag about their achievements — including Cindy Hanson of The Herb And Garden in Helena, a Slow Flowers member who I recently featured in Florists’ Review/Slow Flowers Journal.

After my time at Chico Hot Springs, I left knowing that even more folks are supportive of our movement, our cause, and our purpose. I met florists who promised to join and list their businesses on Slowflowers.com and I made lifelong friends with Dan and Andra, who couldn’t have been more generous in their hospitality.

A final bonus — spending two days with my siblings, Scott Prinzing and his wife Kristen Rickels Prinzing. They live in Billings and have both contributed to Rocky Mountain Gardening in the past, with articles (Kris) and photography (Scott). As a very special treat, they agreed to record the upcoming holiday special music episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast — listen for that Episode 328 on December 20th. I have no musical talent, but it’s nice to have siblings who do!