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Get out your crayons: Our American Flowers Week Map of State Flowers!
American Flowers Week and the Slow Flowers Summit are just around the corner — our week-long celebration of American-grown flowers and design begins on June 28th and continues through July 4th — check out americanflowersweek.com for all the cool details, including our just-released Coloring Map of the USA with every state flower designed by Jenny Diaz.
This is free for you to download, print and share with clients and customers this month. Feel free to add your own logo to the PDFs and get promoting! And I’d love to see your finished pages — when you post use #americanflowersweek. See All 50 State Flowers and download pages here.
We’re especially excited around here for the Slow Flowers Summit, which takes place on Sunday, July 2nd in Seattle during the heart of American Flowers Week. You’re invited to participate — and you can find all the details here. Tickets are selling at a brisk pace and it’s time to grab yours!
Learn how to make and dye beautiful ribbons using safe and natural plant dyes.
Susanna Luck, textile artist and floral designer
I’ve heard from many of you heading to Seattle to attend the Summit interested in knowing what else is going on when you’re here.
We’re sponsoring a fabulous one-day workshop held 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday, July 1st the day before the Summit at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market.
I want to introduce you to Susanna Luck of Nettle Textiles, who’s calling the class The Art of Plant Dyeing.
A Portland textile artist and floral designer Susanna has been making and incorporating hand-dyed ribbons and linens into her design repertoire.
If you’re interested in learning more about naturally-dyed silks, cottons and linens to use in your work, you’ll want to sign up! Find the details here.
As you may know, I’ve invited many of my flower friends and floral crushes who I greatly admire to speak at the Slow Flowers Summit, including today’s guest, Chantal Aida Gordon.
We met virtually several years ago through our mutual friend Jennifer Asher of Terra Sculpture, when Jennifer asked me to share my insights with Chantal about the ins and outs of speaking gigs.
Country Gardens feature on Chantal & Ryan’s TheHorticult.com
When we finally met in person a few years later, I felt like a kindred spirit came into my life. Chantal and Ryan Benoit, her collaborator in the popular blog thehorticult.com, attended one of the Field to Vase Dinners that that I co-hosted in the San Diego area — at the Flower Fields. They endeared themselves further by posting a lovely review of the evening, which included Chantal’s engaging storytelling and Ryan’s beautiful photography.
Stylemakers in Better Homes & Gardens
I very much wanted to bring Chantal for Seattle to moderate a panel on inclusion and diversity in our green worlds of horticulture and floriculture. And she is coming – I’m so jazzed for our attendees to meet her. I was in Southern Cali last month to teach and I met up with Chantal in Los Angeles to record today’s interview.
A self-described plant nerd, Chantal puts a fresh twist on horticulture in her posts and writing.
Chantal Aida Gordon is coming to Seattle to speak at the Slow Flowers SUMMIT
Here’s a little more about her:
Born in Brooklyn and now a resident of LA, Chantal Aida Gordon is the cofounder of The Horticult, a site that covers where gardening intersects with culture—from horticulture and design to cocktails and art. (Bona fides include a spread in The New York Times and “Gardening Blog of the Year” from Better Homes & Gardens.)
Together with Ryan Benoit, they’ve written about community gardens, floral care, and DIY plant habitats.
Outside The Horticult, Chantal’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Zagat Guide, and American Short Fiction.
Her favorite flowers to grow are epipyllums and her favorite cut flower is the dahlia.
Chantal is wrapping up work with Ryan on their first book How to Window Box, forthcoming from Clarkson Potter in Spring of 2018.
This book will show you how to build and plant window boxes in colorful, fun and inventive ways.
They’re putting a fresh spin on windowsill gardening with plant combinations both classic and unexpected. You can even pre-order How to Window Box on Amazon now!
Follow Chantal at these social places:
It’s time to sign up for the Summit and you can find the registration link and more details at debraprinzing.com. The Summit’s mission is summed up in 5 simple but impactful words: We want to Inquire, Inform, Include, Instigate and Inspire!
The information you will gain in a single day at the Summit is an incredible value for just $175 — and members of slow flowers receive a great thank-you rate of $135.
Your registration includes all lectures and coffee & alight breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception with speakers — plus a flower lovers’ swag bag and chance to network with the doers and thinkers in our botanical universe.
Oh, and did I mention our signature cocktail? It’s The Herbarium, a concoction featured in our keynote speaker Amy Stewart’s NYT bestselling book The Drunken Botanist!
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