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Today’s I’m excited to visit with two Slow Flowers members who have just opened new floral retail businesses.

This pivot to retail floristry that I’ve been documenting over the past 12 months continues and I think you’ll find today’s conversations entirely fascinating and enlightening.

One year ago, when I released the 2017 Slow Flowers Floral Insights & Industry Forecast, I declared the retail embrace a phenomenon of studio florists moving toward brick and mortar channels.

For 2018, I’ve added flower farmers jumping into the retail arena.

As I reported last year, If you rely only on mainstream financial analysis or census data for your intel, then the landscape for brick-and-mortar flower shops has appeared unpromising.

According to the November 2016 Dunn & Bradstreet industry report, the U.S. has about 14,000 floral establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $5.5 billion. Flower shops had declined by about 40% since 2000. Dunn and Bradstreet cited a Society of American Florists prediction that the number of retail florists in the US is expected to continue to drop, although the pace is slowing gradually.

Yet we’re tracking Slow Flowers members who are opening brick-and-mortar flowers shops across North America. Today’s guests will add their personal journeys to the compendium of stories about independent and progressive florists (and flower farmers) who are signing leases and opening retail spaces in the same markets that have witnessed mainstream mom-and-pop floral storefronts being shuttered.

First, you’ll hear from Lisa Waud of pot + box who has just opened a new retail space in a historic building in downtown Detroit.  Then you’ll hear from Melissa Brown of Flying Bear Farm on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, who just opened a retail shop in nearby Langley, Washington, with her partner and husband Benjamin Corteau.

Be ready to take notes and get inspired. Retail isn’t for everyone, of course. But if you’re looking for inspiration, insights and straight talk about making retail work for you and your business, I think you’ll find it here.

Here’s more about Lisa Waud:

pot & box founder Lisa Waud has been enthusiastically steering the company’s horticultural goings-on since its founding more than ten years ago. She’s been arranging flowers in the soil and in the vase for 21 years now—from the volcanic slopes of Hawaii, the clay garden beds of the Pacific Northwest and across the great [lakes] state of Michigan.

In Lisa’s words: “I love to work with flowers blooming now and nearby, celebrating the richest hues, most fragrant blooms, the abundance of seasonality. I thrive on the uncommon and unexpected, applauding a determined weed growing out of a brick wall, the unusual variegation pattern on a peony’s petal, a tattooed bride’s arms cradling a delicate bouquet. I excel when tasked with realizing the visions of my clients, arranging stems to suit the celebration, bringing event decor ideas to life,  striving for the breathtaking gasp of elation.”

Lisa lives in Detroit, and when she’s not playing with flowers, you can find her scheming up field trips with her dogs or planning explorations in other inspirational cities. As listeners may recall from past episodes of this podcast, Lisa is also the creator of Flower House, a floral art installation in 2015, and the producer of the 2016 Detroit Flower Week.

Find pot + box at these social places:

pot + box on Facebook

pot + box on Instagram

pot + box on Twitter

pot + box’s VLNTNSDYMRKT event on February 10th.

Michigan Flower Growers Cooperative

Listen to Lisa’s first interview on the Slow Flowers Podcast, February 2015

Listen to Lisa’s Flower House Detroit preview interview on the Slow Flowers Podcast, September 2015

Melissa Brown, also a past guest of this podcast, and her husband Ben are farmer florists who often draw on the talents of Melissa’s parents Molly & David Brown.

After several very successful seasons growing flowers and designing for wedding clients, the time came this past fall to enter retail. Flower farmers listening will want to hear what led to this decision and how Melissa hopes to strike a good balance between growing, designing and selling Flying Bear Farm’s flowers.

Find Flying Bear Farm at these social places:

Flying Bear Farm on Facebook

Flying Bear Farm on Instagram

Flying Bear Farm on Pinterest

Flying Bear Farm on Twitter

Listen to Melissa’s first interview on the Slow Flowers Podcast, December 2015

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 277,000 times by listeners like you. Thank you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing — it means so much.

As the Slow Flowers 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 at debraprinzing.com in the right column.

Thank you to our sponsors who have supported Slow Flowers and all of our programs including this podcast, American Flowers Week, the Slowflowers.com online directory to American grown flowers, as well as our new channels, Slow Flowers Journal and the 2018 Slow Flowers Summit.

And thank you to our lead sponsor for 2018, Florists’ Review magazine. I’m delighted to serve as Contributing Editor for the new monthly Slow Flowers Journal section, which you can find in the pages of Florists’ Review. It’s the leading trade magazine in the floral industry and the only independent periodical for the retail, wholesale and supplier market. Take advantage of the special subscription offer for members of the Slow Flowers Community.

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.

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

Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farmer-owned cooperative committed to providing the very best the Pacific Northwest has to offer in cut flowers, foliage and plants. The Growers Market’s mission is to foster a vibrant marketplace that sustains local flower farms and provides top-quality products and service to the local floral industry. Find them at seattlewholesalegrowersmarket.com

Longfield Gardens 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. Visit them at longfield-gardens.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.

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. Check them out at johnnysseeds.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.

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This week we’re introducing a new ongoing feature that I hope to bring to you once a month: the “Slow Flowers Field Trip.”

As you know, I love interviewing flower farmers and florists for this Podcast, but what I love even more is visiting them in person to see them in their element — whether that’s out in the shed starting seeds, in the fields harvesting, or in the studio creating something breathtaking.

As often as possible, I’ll hit the road and visit Slow Flowers members to share a snapshot of a community, highlighting what’s grown in that region, and introducing you to the people who grow and design with those flowers.

For 2016, we’ve already booked a field trip to feature the North Bay Flower Collective, north of San Francisco, and several other destinations are in the works.

If you’re interested in bringing the podcast to your corner of the U.S., get in touch and we’ll see what might come together.

While it’s located only 30 miles north of Seattle, visiting Whidbey Island takes a little planning because it is reached via ferry from the mainland. The island is notable as one of the longest islands in the country, at 55-miles long, and it lies between the Olympic Peninsula and the I-5 corridor of western Washington. Whidbey Island forms the northern boundary of Puget Sound.

In my earlier years as a garden writer, Whidbey was a magnet for fantastic specialty plant nurseries and private garden tours, so I have spent quite a bit of time there. Now, thanks to the efforts of today’s guests, there is a nascent cut flower farming community, which is essential to Whidbey’s destination wedding scene.

A few weeks ago, I took a day trip to Whidbey, driving north to the waterfront community of Mukilteo, where I caught the 20-minute ferry ride across Puget Sound to Clinton, on the southern tip of the island. My three stops were concentrated on the southern half of the island, in and around the town of Langley, where there’s a mix of tourism, businesses serving vacationers and owners of second homes, as well as small agriculture.

Let me introduce you to the guests you’ll hear in this extended one-hour episode:

On my first stop, I visited Pam Uhlig and her daughter Kelly Uhlig, flower farmers who own Sonshine Farm, a specialty cut flower farm that packs more stems into a small homestead than you can imagine.

While pursuing a horticulture degree at a local community college Pam apprenticed with Vivian Larson of Everyday Flowers (a past guest of this podcast) – and that’s where I saw her in action. Kelly, a 4-H superstar who’s herself now a college student, is just as committed to flower farming as her mom. Together the two make a dynamic team; they are now members of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, where the local floral community snaps up their gorgeous flowers.

After interviewing Pam and Kelly and taking a tour of their farm, I went to meet Melissa Brown of Flying Bear Farm. Melissa is a farmer-florist interested in growing flowers for her own floral design business.

We met up first on a parcel that a friend has invited Melissa to plant with flowers, which is where we recorded our podcast interview.

And then . . . Melissa took me to the Flying Bear Farm headquarters, just outside Langley. That’s where she and her husband Benjamin Courteau have just moved, along with Melissa’s parents Molly & David Brown, into a fabulous compound complete with a barn, two residences, an art studio, and lots of terra firma for growing flowers.

Melissa’s folks treated all of us to a delicious luncheon where the conversation only got better with more creative voices around the table.

After lunch, I grabbed some time with our final guest, Tobey Nelson of Vases Wild.

Tobey and I have been talking about this emerging Whidbey Island flower farming-floral design community for a couple of years so I credit her with pulling together my field trip.

She has an extensive background in landscape design, fine gardening and wedding & event florals, which makes Tobey particularly passionate about sourcing from local flower farms on Whidbey Island.

That said, it’s not unusual for her to jump on an early-morning ferry to come into Seattle where she shops for flowers grown by the farms of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market.

Please enjoy each guests’ unique perspective on growing flowers, island style. They are building a creative interdependence that is a small-scale model of what can and should happen in every community where flower farmers and florists come together.

Here’s how you can find & follow the Whidbey Island creatives:

Sonshine Farm, Pam Uhlig and Kelly Uhlig on Instagram

Flying Bear Farm, Melissa Brown and Benjamin Courteau on Facebook

Flying Bear Farm on Twitter

Flying Bear Farm on Pinterest

Flying Bear Farm on Instagram

Vases Wild, Tobey Nelson on Facebook

Vases Wild on Pinterest

Vases Wild on Instagram

Thank you so much for joining me today. Episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast have been downloaded more than 74,000 times and I thank you and others in the progressive American-grown floral community for supporting this endeavor.

Until 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. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.

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 Wheatley and Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about their work at shellandtree.com.