Debra Prinzing

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SLOW FLOWERS Podcast: Flower Confidential with Amy Stewart (Episode 140)

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
The floral ceiling chandelier -- using all American grown floral ingredients -- from the White House State Dinner (photo: Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse)

The floral ceiling chandelier — using all American grown floral ingredients — from the White House State Dinner (photo: Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse)

I have exciting news to share this week: The New York Times published a piece by former food columnist Marian Burros entitled: “My, What Lovely Flowers. Who Lobbied for Them? — after a push by growers, U.S. products adorned a White House Dinner.” 

More than two months ago, I wrote about this exciting event — a stop on the Slow flowers journey in which the White House acknowledged for the first time ever its use of American Grown flowers for a public function. That was the State Dinner for the French President on February 11th. You can read my February 21st blog post, and my analysis of that event here. 

I’m gratified to see that NYT’s follow this story and give it the gravitas it deserves. Shining a positive light on American flowers is important, but there is much more that needs to be done in order to change the broken floral industry. One thing YOU can do is to join me in simple floral activism.

You can do this by visiting a compelling new web site: VOTE FOR FLOWERS. There, you’ll be able to identify your member of Congress and send him or her a letter urging support and engagement in the new Congressional Cut Flower Caucus.

Like others in the pro-domestic flower movement, I do NOT want the White House’s use of American flowers to be a one-time gesture. Like the presidential commitment to serve local, American-sourced food AND wine at White House functions, it is only right that domestic flowers grace the tables of all White House events. Stay tuned for ongoing updates on this story. 

Writer and all-around curious observer of the natural world, Amy Stewart (c) Delightful Eye Photography

Writer and all-around curious observer of the natural world, Amy Stewart (c) Delightful Eye Photography

Now let’s turn our attention to today’s fabulous guest: Amy Stewart. 

Amy's first book, "From the Ground Up," was published in 2001 by Algonquin Books.

Amy’s first book, “From the Ground Up,” was published in 2001 by Algonquin Books.

I first learned about Amy in 2001 when a local bookseller here in Seattle told me about From the Ground Up, a memoir by a young Texas native who wrote about her first grown up garden. The bookseller called it “heartwarming and said I had to read it. 

Amy was that author. She wrote From the Ground Up as a journal documenting her post-college Santa Cruz garden. When I reviewed in 2002, I wrote:

“There’s something very endearing and charming about Stewart’s self-effacing writing voice. She truly wants us to experience the same emotional highs and lows, the essential passion of gardening, that she lives through. It’s a wonderful late-night read . . . Pick it up as an alternative to moonlight gardening.” 

A few years later, I met Amy at the SF Flower & Garden Show. We were back-to-back speakers and met during that “changing of the guard” thing that happens when one speaker wraps up her book-signing and another takes that seat warmed by her predecessor. It was just a casual introduction, but there was a familiar recognition of a kindred spirit in the garden-writing world.

Since then, our friendship has been based on mutual admiration, similar professional interests and occasional collaboration. In fact, in 2011, Amy and I teamed up with three others to launch GREAT GARDEN SPEAKERS.COM, an online speakers bureau for our profession. 

cover_flower_confidentialGGSlogo-badgeAnd so it goes. My world changed when Amy Stewart wrote Flower Confidential in 2007. At the time, I had already begun interviewing American flower farmers and florists, unaware that she was writing an expose about the Global Floriculture Industry. Things happen like that in our worlds – after all, how could you explain the proliferation of vegetable gardening books that flooded the marketplace over the past five years?

But back to Flower Confidential. It truly was a book ahead of its time. When Amy wrote about the huge machine that relies on cheap floral imports, she started a conversation that resonated with me and with so many others – it was a dialogue I wanted to join. I was inspired to continue seeking out and telling the stories of American flowers and the people who grow and design with them. 

When The 50 Mile Bouquet was published in 2012, I was honored that Amy agreed to write the forward, her generous show of support for the next chapter in the American Grown story. In that forward, Amy wrote: 

“A great deal has changed since Flower Confidential. The notion of supporting local farmers was just gaining traction. The idea of celebrating our seasonal abundance – even if that means giving up tomatoes in January – was not quite mainstream. Just as “slow food” was catching on, the flower world was beginning the shift that The 50 Mile Bouquet celebrates.”

Indeed, a great deal more has changed – for the good – since Amy wrote our forward in the fall of 2011. 

Amy Stewart and Debra Prinzing.

Amy Stewart and Debra Prinzing.

With Amy’s blessing, I’ve gone down the flower garden path to document the exciting cultural shift in the domestic floral industry. All you have to do is read about the White House’s choice of American grown flowers to understand that. 

During the same time, Amy’s career has skyrocketed. She is the award-winning author of six books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world, including four New York Times bestsellers, The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Bugs, Wicked Plants, and Flower Confidential.   

Amy lives in Eureka, California, with her husband Scott Brown. They own an antiquarian bookstore called Eureka Books and tend a flock of unruly hens in their backyard. 

Amy has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition and Fresh Air, she’s been profiled in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, and she’s been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, the PBS documentary “The Botany of Desire,” and–believe it or not– TLC’s Cake Boss. 

Four of Amy’s previous books have been New York Times bestsellers.  They have been translated into eight languages, and two of them–Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs–have been adapted into national traveling exhibits that appear at botanical gardens and museums nationwide.

She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the American Horticulture Society’s Book Award, and an International Association of Culinary Professionals Food Writing Award. In 2012, she was invited to be the first Tin House Writer-in-Residence, a partnership with Portland State University, where she taught in the MFA program.  

I recently stopped at Amy and Scott’s house in Humboldt County, northern California, while on a road trip from LA to Seattle. They don’t live too far off of Hwy 101 and it was an easy detour, my 2nd visit to their charming Victorian house surrounded by a slightly unruly garden and an opinionated clutch of hens.    

As is typical, our conversations involved book writing, book publishing, book promotion and more — all those things that authors obsess about. And before I left the following morning, Amy and I sat down in her cozy work space – her combination writing and art studio in the attic of this vintage residence, and talked about Flower Confidential. 

Amy Stewart’s next gift to the book-reading world is a historical crime novel about a real woman who was an early 20th century sheriff and detective. Girl Waits With Gun, is a novel based on a true story. It will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015.  

Visit amystewart.com to follow Amy and all of her projects – including her busy lecture schedule and her other outlet -painting and drawing.

Here's a photograph of a floral arrangement I made last spring - and then wrote about.

Here’s a photograph of a floral arrangement I made last spring – and then wrote about. 

 

Amy's charming oil painting of that same arrangement ~ a surprise and cherished gift.

Amy’s charming oil painting of that same arrangement ~ a surprise and cherished gift.

And enjoy this Q&A with Amy about why she loves to paint.

Because of the support from you and others, listeners have downloaded episodes of the Slow Flowers Podcast more than 11,000  times! I thank you for taking the time to join to my conversations with flower farmers, florists and other notable floral experts.

If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

Until next week please join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. 

 The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Hannah Holtgeerts and  Andrew Wheatley. You can learn more about their work at hhcreates.net.

My sedum-planted wicker chair

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Take a seat. A succulent seat, that is.

Voila! My sedum-planted wicker chair as garden art

If you’ve ever admired the charm and whimsy of a planted chair, you’re not alone. I’ve always liked plants combined as a design element with furniture. When my mom passed along Grandma’s 1940s wicker porch set, I knew that the slightly unraveled rocking chair was destined for a new role in my garden. So two weekends ago, on Mother’s Day, I started creating a sedum seat for the cherished rocker.

After giving Grandma’s wicker chair a fresh coat of herbal green paint, I was ready to turn the family hand-me-down into an ornamental garden feature. Here’s Part Two of my Mother’s Day gardening project, which illustrates how to prepare and plant the chair. 

Step One

Step One: Using a sheet of 1/4-inch wire mesh and a pair of wire clippers, I cut out a seat-sized section to fit into the chair’s base. A staple gun came in handy to secure the mesh to the piece of wood bracing.

Step Two: I layered sections of dry Angel Moss over the mesh. A highly-absorbent variety of sphagnum moss, Angel moss is a nifty product that I discovered last month while teaching four container and hanging basket design classes for Gardening How-To magazine. The moss hails from the bogs of New Zealand and, because of the way it is farmed and harvested, is considered a renewable resource. You can purchase pre-formed liners to fit into wire hanging baskets or flat sheets to use for projects such as mine.

Step Two

As dry as a piece of brittle cardboard, Angel moss changes its character dramatically when exposed to water. It’s a fabulous medium for baskets, window boxes and the mesh seat of my wicker chair because the moss proves itself to be an excellent material for holding soil and plants. It doesn’t dry out as quickly as the kind of coco-fibre or woodland moss we’re used to here in North America.

Step Three: On top of the Angel moss I spread approximately 3 inches of my planting medium. I’ve learned that the best environment for growing succulents (especially in containers) is to mix equal parts organic potting soil with cactus mix. Erin Taylor, owner of Botanik, a great garden emporium in Summerland (near Santa Barbara) taught me this recipe soon after I moved to Southern California. One look at her shop’s awesome succulent containers and I knew she was speaking from experience.

Step Four: My friend Jean Zaputil, who I call my garden muse for the 25 years of design, horticulture and landscaping knowledge she’s shared with me, was visiting from Seattle last weekend (along with our mutual friend Jan Hendrickson).

We had a little free time on Sunday morning so Jean offered to do the planting layout for my chair. She worked with about 14-16 small succulent plants of varying colors (ranging from silvery-white to lime green to red-burgundy).

Step Four

Before planting the “seat,” we tackled the tricky gap in one of the chair’s rolled arms.

Plants in the "arm"

A total negative from my mother’s point of view (the shredded wicker arm reminded her that a childhood dog had gnawed on the arm and practically ruined it for comfortable use), I decided to use the gaping void as a spot for more succulents.

Jean fashioned a shallow tray with the 1/4-inch wire mesh sheeting. We fit it under the arm and wired it into place. Just as with the seat, we inserted some pieces of Angel moss and poured in some soil. The chewed-away openings now hold three succulents, including the very pretty Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’. Its chartreuse-color and fluffy form will drape over the arm and soon obscure the mesh tray.

Jean Zaputil, as always, my garden muse

Jean arranged the sedums, sempervivums and other succulents to create the planted seat.

Even though the root space appears shallow, these plants will do just fine. They are ideally suited for my project – able to withstand extended periods of drought.  A quick “shower” every week or so will give the plants enough moisture to take root in the soil/Angel moss and begin to spread, eventually filling in the seat.

And pretty soon, I’ll have a lush, succulent “cushion” for my grandmother’s wicker chair.

Now I’m looking at a modern wicker chair – a Pier One version with leg bent from too many teenagers leaning back in it while playing X-box games – and thinking about giving that chaise a new life in the garden. It’s currently natural colored, but maybe a coat of paint and a new planting theme will give it the necessary style to move outside.

Wonder what plants belong in that chair? Maybe I’ll paint it peacock blue and do an all-white flowering scheme! Stay tuned.

A tale of a Wicked Plant (aka “The Case of the Poisonous Monkshood”)

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

In preparing for a phone interview with prolific, bestselling author Amy Stewart to discuss her new book, Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities, I came across a dog-eared manila folder in my office file drawer. Its label read “Emery’s Garden Monkshood.”

”]Autumn Monkshood - beautiful and poisonous [photo from Valleybrook Gardens Ltd.]And immediately, I recalled my own brush with a “Wicked Plant.” Before sharing my Q&A with Amy, I will indulge in the tale of Autumn Monkshood, aka Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’.

In the late 1990s, I worked for a wonderful specialty nursery in Lynnwood, Washington, called Emery’s Garden. I had recently left business writing and a nonprofit communications gig to embark on my “garden writer” journey. Lucky for me, the people at Emery’s took me in and our relationship there flourished. I wrote and edited “The Weedy Reader,” our quarterly newsletter. I planned and produced our educational program and special events. I basically learned the horticulture business, thanks to Emery Rhodes, Marlis Korber and Amy Tullis.

After I left Emery’s in 2000 (that’s when I joined the team of The Herald’s “Home & Garden” section in nearby Everett), I stayed in close touch with my Emery’s pals. One day, in April 2001, I received a panicked phone call from Marlis, the nursery’s general manager.

Turns out, a customer purchasing perennials pointed out some odd tags on the 6-inch containers of Monkshood (Aconitum). The tag read: “All parts of this plant are tasty in soup.” The shopper had filled one of Emery’s carts with her two toddlers and three pots of the mislabeled (and wicked) perennial. “I thought this stuff was poisonous,” she said to our sales associate. “But this label says it’s edible.”

aconitum-story2aconitum010Needless to say, a check in Sunset Western Garden Book revealed the exact opposite to be true. Under “Aconitum,” Sunset warns: “All parts are poisonous if ingested.”

What resulted was a mini-international scandal and media frenzy. The common Monkshood, which is a beautiful, tall violet-blue ingredient in the cottage border, is NOT a tasty ingredient for soup or stews. Instead, it’s lethal.

The ensuing drama played out as you might expect. I got to play the role of Crisis-PR consultant while Emery’s pulled all the mislabeled plants, contacted the grower (a Canadian nursery), and soon discovered that the label mishap had been a stupid prank pulled by one of the grower’s employees! Within 48 hours, we were visited by the FDA; the Canadian authorities got involved; the plant recall went out over the wires; television, radio and print outlets picked up on the story and came to report on the scare.

In the end, it was a bit of a wake up call for Emery’s (and possibly other local nurseries) about the importance of using proper signage and labeling of toxic ornamental and landscaping plants. But I wonder, did anything really change? It certainly elevated consciousness at one nursery, at least for one season.

wicked012Now, however, with the advent of Wicked Plants, the evils of ingesting the flowers, stems or leaves of Aconitum are coming back to haunt me. The perennial is, in fact, the very first entry of Amy Stewart’s charming and horrifying new effort, published earlier this month. Amy writes:

In 1856 a dinner party in the Scottish village of Dingwall came to a horrible end. A servant had been sent outside to dig up horseradish, but instead he uprooted aconinte, also called monkshood. The cook, failing to recognize that she had been handed the wrong ingredient, grated it into a sauce for the roast and promptly killed two priests who were guests at the dinner. Other guests were sickened but survived.

Her scary narrative explains where the perennial grows and what to look out for (gardeners should wear gloves anytime they go near aconitum, Amy advises). The page is labeled “Deadly.”

Wicked Plants, is a compendium of horrifying stories and historical facts of the botanical world. If you have any question as to the deadly, illegal, intoxicating, dangerous, destructive, painful and offensive traits of the trees, shrubs, perennials and herbs growing on our planet, you’ll want to peruse this powerful little volume.

Between the pages of Amy’s 5-3/4 x 7-1/4 inch, 235-page book, which is bound in the same sickly green worn on the face of the witch Elphaba in the musical “Wicked,” are tales of death, destruction, war and more. I recently had a chance to chat by phone with Amy, and here is part of our conversation:

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