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Françoise Weeks brings home the charm of the wild woods with her creative botanical arrangements that are so much more than bouquets of blooms. Our conversation about Wonder of the Woodlands, Françoise’s new book, includes an exclusive visit to her Portland garden and design studio.

Françoise Weeks is a good friend to the Slow Flowers Movement and she is a longtime member of our society. Regular podcast listeners will have met Francoise on a few earlier occasions, including on her first appearance on Episode 217 in the fall of 2015, during Lisa Waud’s Flower House Detroit – Françoise collaborated with Susan McLeary to design a fantstical vintage kitchen filled with flowers and root vegetables, plants, and foliages – it was a delight.

Françoise has influenced the floral community as an educator and artist, and we now have the delightful gift of her first design book – Wonder of the Woodlands, The Art of Seeing and Creating with Nature.

The book will be published on April 2^nd so you’re the first to hear all about it and if you check out the video interview on which today’s podcast is based, you’ll enjoy a peek into Françoise’s Portland, Oregon Studio, where we recorded our conversation.

Here’s a bit more about the new book:

Containers lined with bark to replace ordinary glass vases. A bed of moss to cushion a vibrant spring arrangement. Ever-changing wreaths to showcase acorns, branches, lichen, twining vines, and delicate ferns throughout the year. A cloche holding an arrangement of dried mushrooms that might have come out of a fairytale.
 
In this gorgeous celebration of the woodlands, renowned floral designer Françoise Weeks offers all the ways, from simple to complex, that you can bring the wildness and wonder of the forest to your indoor arrangements. Each chapter of Wonder of the Woodlands features the materials Françoise uses most—barks and logs; acorns and seeds; ferns, branches, moss, and lichen—and showcases how she builds her unique, beautiful arrangements, which last far longer than a vase of cut flowers.
 
Inside are also Françoise’s insights on seeking out the most unique natural materials for arrangements, and how to responsibly forage or source them in a shop. And you’ll find her tips on how to reuse materials so you can enjoy lots of different arrangements without increasing your environmental impact.
 
Bursting with images of nature and suggestions for weaving that magic into your interiors, Wonder of the Woodlands is a celebration of arrangements that are inspired by a walk through the trees. With stunning photography of wild and wonderful wreaths, table arrangements, wall décor, and more, you can re-create the peaceful majesty of spending time in the forest in your own home.

In this gorgeous celebration of the woodlands, renowned floral designer Françoise Weeks offers all the ways, from simple to complex, that you can bring the wildness and wonder of the forest to your indoor arrangements. Each chapter of Wonder of the Woodlands features the materials Françoise uses most—barks and logs; acorns and seeds; ferns, branches, moss, and lichen—and showcases how she builds her unique, beautiful arrangements, which last far longer than a vase of cut flowers.
 
Inside are also Françoise’s insights on seeking out the most unique natural materials for arrangements, and how to responsibly forage or source them in a shop. And you’ll find her tips on how to reuse materials so you can enjoy lots of different arrangements without increasing your environmental impact.
 
Bursting with images of nature and suggestions for weaving that magic into your interiors, Wonder of the Woodlands is a celebration of arrangements that are inspired by a walk through the trees. With stunning photography of wild and wonderful wreaths, table arrangements, wall decor, and more, you can re-create the peaceful majesty of spending time in the forest in your own home.

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Françoise was born in Belgium and started her business in 1996. She has infused her work with a quintessential European reverence for flowers and nature. Combined with creativity and mechanical ingenuity, she has crystalized her singular style of Textural Woodlands and Botanical Haute Couture pieces, garnering a global following.

Her innovation and love of teaching have brought her to many cities in the US in studios, at wholesalers, at garden clubs, Art in Bloom events and conferences, including at AIFD Symposium. She also taught in Mexico, Canada, England, Sweden, Iceland, France, China and Australia.

Her dynamic work has been published in national and international publications such as Fusion Flowers, Modern Wedding Flowers, Huffington Post, Flutter and Millieu.

Françoise’s studio is located in Portland, OR where she teaches and offers online courses, including Zoom workshops.

She created “The Herbal Recipe Keeper,” a blank journal featuring her artwork, published by Timber Press in 2018.

Before we start the interview, I want to mention that you’ll occasionally hear the voice of botanical artist Julie Beeler of Bloom & Dye, a Slow Flowers member who lives in Trout Lake, Washington, outside of Portland; Julie joined me on my visit to Françoise’s studio last week and then the three of us had lunch together. I had wanted these two women to meet and I’m so delighted that it worked out. Julie and Françoise share a mutual love of mushrooms and Julie has a forthcoming book – out this fall – called The Mushroom Color Atlas, A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi, so keep an ear out for her appearance on this podcast.

Click here to find Françoise’s upcoming book events, classes, and workshops and a link to order your own copy of Wonder of the Woodlands.

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

Thank you to Store It Cold, creators of the revolutionary CoolBot, a popular solution for flower farmers, studio florists and farmer-florists.  Save $1000s when you build your own walk-in cooler with the CoolBot and an air conditioner.  Don’t have time to build your own?  They also have turnkey units available. Learn more at storeitcold.com.   

Thank you to Red Twig Farms. Based in Johnstown, Ohio, Red Twig Farms is a family-owned farm specializing in peonies, daffodils, tulips and branches, a popular peony-bouquet-by-mail program. Learn more at redtwigfarms.com.

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I’m so glad you joined us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeavor, downloaded more than one 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!

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Music Credits:

Drone Pine; Gaena; Drone Birch; Homegrown
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

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We’ve had some amazing extended episodes in the past month and now it’s time to return to our familiar format of single conversations with singular individuals.

This week’s guest is Hilary Horvath of Portland’s Hilary Horvath Flowers.

Airing today’s conversation with Hilary is a timely follow-up to last week’s episode when we released our 2017 Floral Insights and Industry Forecast.

If you missed that episode, take a moment to download and hear the many things happening as the Slow Flowers Movement disrupts and shifts the way flowers are grown, marketed and used by designers. You can find a link to a PDF of the Report here.

In that report, I cited a renaissance taking place among with brick-and-mortar flower shops in markets across the country where main street mom-and-pop florists are closing their doors. Hilary Horvath Flowers embodies the new flower shop model — and I’m delighted to share her story with you today.

I’m not sure how we first met, but recently, I was looking through photos from a Little Flower School of Brooklyn workshop that came to Schreiner’s Iris Farm in Oregon a few years ago and there was Hilary in my gallery of images. I had forgotten that we met taking that lovely design workshop together.

Since then, I’ve visited her beautiful flower shop, which resides just inside the entry of Alder + Co., a perfectly curated emporium for clothing, accessory, home, jewelry, paper and textiles — and Hilary’s flowers.

Located on 10th & Alder, on the hip and happening edge of downtown Portland, Hilary Horvath’s flowers spill out onto the sidewalk and seemingly lure in people moved by the beautiful scene.

Hilary is dedicated to sourcing the most beautiful flowers to feature in her shop. One of her favorite and distinguished customers has said “not even in Paris are the flowers this beautiful”, and she can believe it as she herself is constantly amazed and inspired by the offerings of the many flower growers with whom she is fortunate to know in the Pacific Northwest.

Hilary started working with Welch Wholesale Florist in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1994. She continued to expand her skills in floral arrangement and styling in retail shops in Indiana and Chicago. Hilary has found inspiration in the landscape of the Pacific Northwest and bounty of local growers for nearly a decade. Her flowers range from wild, natural arrangements to romantic, elegant bouquets.

Hilary arranges flowers for weddings, events, photo shoots and individual and business clients throughout the Portland area. She is also happy to travel to accommodate those living outside of Portland who would like her beautiful and unique arrangements.

You’ll hear in our conversation, recorded a few months ago while we shared a cup of tea at a cafe across from Alder + Co., our discussion of Welch Wholesale Florist in Indianapolis.

In another small-world chapter of the life I live in flowers, I met the sisters who run Welch Wholesale in 2015 when I was a guest of the Indianapolis Art Museum. I was there to speak at the Museum’s flower festival and to also teach a design workshop.

It was April – a little early for local flowers in Indiana – but the Museum worked with Welch Wholesale to source as many as they could find for our workshop. I remember how much fun it was to discover how resourceful and caring sisters Nora (Welch) Steinmetz and Annie (Welch) Horvath — they ordered local tulips, ranunculus and anemones — straight from flower farmers nearby!

Come to find out, this is where Hilary’s roots in floriculture and horticulture began. I love knowing that this 55-year-old family business is part of her foundation in bringing flowers to her Portland customers.

Please enjoy our conversation and these images of Hilary’s beautiful design work. Be inspired by the way seasonal beauty makes its way into her hand-tied bouquets and elegant arrangements.

Follow Hilary Horvath at these social places:

Hilary on Facebook

Hilary on Instagram

Thanks so much for joining me today.

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 145,000 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 our lead sponsor for 2017: 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.

We’re also grateful for support from 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

More sponsor thanks goes to 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.

A big bouquet of thanks goes to Longfield Gardens… providing 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.

And finally, thank you 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 shellandtree.com.