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The theme of today’s episode is straight from our Slow Flowers Floral Insights and Industry Forecast – an insight that identifies cutting garden plants as an important business channel. Flower farmers are translating their expertise into new revenue streams by growing and selling cut flower seedlings and starts to flower lovers and fellow growers. Last fall, we produced a report for Johnny’s Seeds’ newsletter on this trend and today, three of the growers featured in that story share more about their cutting garden plant collections. As the idea of “gardening like a flower farmer” has taken off, and as home gardeners and floral enthusiasts ask for the unique cultivars that the pros grow, we’re thrilled that more gardeners want to jump-start their cutting gardens with flowers sown by someone else. For the consumer, this means having a cut flower garden without the grit and grind of farming. For flower farmers and farmer-florists it means trading your time and knowledge for a rewarding new revenue stream.

It’s the season for plant sales and for encouraging customers to grow cutting gardens! Today, you’ll learn from three Slow Flowers members as they discuss the market potential of growing and selling cut flower seedlings!

Flower Farmers: Learn how you can translate your expertise into a revenue stream when you grow and sell cutting garden plants to flower lovers and fellow growers. 

Florists: Get in on the act and offer locally-grown cut flowers as an add-on for workshops and special events!

As special thank-you to our expert panelists, Kate Skelton of Edgewood, Washington-based Gratitude Flowers; Carol Wetzel of The Little Farm on Olga Road in Eastsound-Washington on Orcas Island; and Fawn Rueckert of Sego Lily Flower Farm in Jordan, Utah, who is also the resident flower farmer and educator at Snuck Farm.

This session was recorded as part of the March Slow Flowers Member Meet-Up and we wanted to share it today for our viewers and listeners. It’s a follow-up to our November 2025 feature article in Johnny’s Seeds’ JSS Advantage Newsletter. Let’s dive into cutting garden plants and learn new ways you can profit from your farming expertise!

LEARN MORE: Enjoy our past Slow Flowers Podcast episodes with these experts
Episode 489 (January 20, 2021): Fawn Rueckert of Sego Lily Flower Farm, an urban micro farm in Utah
Episode 652 (March 6, 2024): Building a niche supplying flower seedlings for farmers and gardeners with Kate Skelton of Gratitude Flowers
Episode 734 (September 17, 2025): A visit to The Little Farm on Olga Road, with Carol Wetzel and Allan Tone, where customers are welcomed to harvest the beauty of flowers, herbs, and vegetables

FIND/FOLLOW:
Sego Lily Flower Farm on Instagram and Facebook
Snuck Flowers on Instagram
Gratitude Flowers on Instagram and Facebook
The Little Farm on Olga Road on Instagram and Facebook

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Join us at the ULTIMATE CUTTING GARDEN PLANT SALE

And head’s up if you’re in the Seattle area on May 3^rd, please attend the Ultimate Cutting Garden Plant Sale, produced in partnership with the Seattle Growers Market. As you heard, Kate Skelton of Gratitude Flowers will be back with her soil-block cutting garden collections, as well as annuals, perennials, tubers and seeds – and possibly a few ornamental woody plant surprises – from dozens of the Market’s member growers and more Slow Flowers members. This is a free event – just bring your wagon and boxes to transport your purchases. You can find more details and the signup/RSVP link in today’s show notes! I hope to see you there!

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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 700 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, Flowerbulb.eu and their U.S. lily bulb vendors. One of the most recognizable flowers in the world, the lily is a top-selling cut flower, offering long-lasting blooms, year-round availability, and a dazzling petal palette. Flowerbulb.eu has partnered with Slow Flowers to provide beautiful lily inspiration and farming resources to help growers and florists connect their customers with more lilies. Learn more at Flowerbulb.eu.

Thank you to Longfield Gardens, which 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. Check out the full catalog at Longfield Gardens at longfield-gardens.com.

Our final sponsor thanks goes to Rooted Farmers. 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.

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Thank you for joining me today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeavor, downloaded more than 1.5 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.

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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; Paper Feather
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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I have a fabulous and informative conversation for you today, with Fawn Rueckert of Sego Lily Flower Farm, based in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley.

I first met Fawn in person in September 2019 when I was in Salt Lake City for the annual GardenComm conference. I skipped out one day and rented a car to drive about 30 minutes south of the city to join a gathering of Utah flower growers. Laura Pittard of Poppin’ Blossoms hosted the lovely luncheon and tour of her beautiful cut flower fields and you’ll want to go back and listen to Episode 418 that we recorded prior to the event. There, I met Fawn and learned about her urban micro farm and focus on retail sales of her flowers through a CSA subscription and farmers’ market outlets.

Fawn has been on my wish list to interview. She is vice president of the burgeoning Utah Cut Flower Farm Association and you’ll hear an update about that amazing collection of inter-mountain west flower growers. As it turns out, at that same gathering in September 2019, I met Heather Griffiths of Wasatch Blooms, a colleague of Fawns through the Utah Cut Flower Farm Association. You can hear my interview with Heather in Episode 428 which aired in November 2019, along with an interview with Slow Flowers member Ali Harrison of Florage Utah.

There’s a lot going on in this part of the country, an area that Fawn points out is only recently embracing local flower agriculture and sustainable design.

Fawn shares a lovely “about” essay on her website for Sego Lily Flower Farm, which talks about her childhood wonder of the plant world, and her gardening family roots. She picks up the narrative after moving from Southern California to Utah with her young family, writing:

“We were finally able to purchase our first home, a duplex on a tiny unfinished lot.  As we dove head first into landscaping,  my childhood dreams were coming true, I finally had my own bit of earth to tend and plant.  Only it wasn’t enough, I needed more, so in 2013 we moved to a smaller home on a larger lot.  Now with 4 sons in tow, we began designing and building my dream potager, complete with a cutting garden.  It didn’t take long to realize that it would be a lot more fun to share the bounty of our garden than keep it to ourselves, and we established Sego Lily Flower Farm in 2017.  We focus on growing cut flower varieties that are unique, that wouldn’t survive the rigors of shipping, are most beautiful when grown locally and grow them in a way that is safe for our family and yours.”

Sego Lily Flower Farm is situated in  Salt Lake valley on Fawn’s 1/3-acre suburban lot. We focus on sustainable growing practices, feeding the soil with organic material, and avoid the excessive use of herbicides and pesticides. 

I’m excited for you to hear the rest of the story, including how Fawn is branching out into education and workshops. You will find photos of this talented farmer-florist and links to her social places in our show notes at debraprinzing.com for Episode 489. Let’s get started.

Find and follow Fawn at these social places:

Sego Lily Flower Farm on Facebook

Sego Lily Flower Farm on Instagram

Fawn’s Backyard Cut Flower Garden Course at Snuck Farm

If you live in any of the inter-mountain states, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming check out the Utah Cut Flower Farm Association. As Fawn mentioned, there are people and resources for the entire region.

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I want to direct you to a few cool video resources that we posted for Slow Flowers members this past week.

First, you can find the concluding post in our eight-part weekly series about all the insights and themes from our 2021 Slow Flowers member survey — on Slow Flowers Journal.com. Karen Thornton and Niesha Blancas joined me for a lively recap Q&A discussing some of the survey’s findings that reveal much more about YOU, our members. We also share many of the comments and questions that members wrote in response to two open-ended questions: What are the key ways in which you have found value in the Slow Flowers member benefits? and Do you have any other comments, questions, or concerns you’d like to share with Slow Flowers? We recorded our Zoom conversation on January 14th and you’ll want to watch. Karen and Niesha added so much to that session, but truly, Edd and Rami, Niesha’s two cats, are the stars of the show! Since Niesha pointed out that she looks for images of your flowers with pets while curating the Slow Flowers Society IG feed, this will come as no surprise!

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Last week, I also invited you join our free webinar about Botanical Couture fashions for the upcoming American Flowers Week 2021 promotional campaign. It is a fabulous session and I’ve posted the link to our replay video in today’s show notes for you to hear from more than ten past botanical couture creators, each of whom shared how they conceptualized their unique, iconic look for past American Flowers Week collections.

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Thank you to our Sponsors

And thank you to our lead sponsor for 2021: 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, and providing competitive salaries and benefits to 240 team members based in Watsonville, California and Miami, Florida. Discover more at farmgirlflowers.com.

This podcast is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 800 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.

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 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.

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.

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Thanks so much for joining us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 680,000 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 at debraprinzing.com

I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Podcast. Next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more Slow 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; 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; Paper Wings
audionautix.com