10 Reasons to Save American Flowers

January 9th, 2014

Here is the sample Home Page for the Slowflowers.com site. SAMPLE GRAPHICS are used as a place-holder only and do not imply endorsement.

I’m in the midst of raising money to help fund the launch of Slowflowers.com, a brand new, essential resource that will help connect consumers with American flowers and the people who grow, design with and sell them.

I’ve been living and sleeping flowers, dreaming about this project coming to fruition for so many months, more than a year, really.

And the exciting news is that donors to the Slowflowers campaign on Indiegogo have already contributed more than one-third of the $12,000 goal to this campaign in just four days. I think that’s remarkable. On this pace of $1,000 in donations per day, the goal will be met well before the 45-day deadline – and that means we can launch even sooner!

Here’s why this is such an important endeavor – and 10 reasons why saving American Flowers is important:

1. By supporting “American Grown” flowers, you are ensuring that “places” like this exist in this country and not just overseas.

Flower farms preserve open spaces and agricultural land. Like this 7-acre patch of heaven in Mt. Vernon, Washington, home to Jello Mold Farm.

2. By supporting “American Grown” flowers, you are stimulating economic development where it’s desperately needed:

Imagine, a new economic floral industry in Alaska! Here’s farmer Shelley Rainwater harvesting her beautiful peonies in Homer, Alaska.

3. By supporting “American Grown” flowers, you are saving the family farm and the very notion of making one’s living from the land.

Agriculture in America is alive and well, especially when we can support farmers young and old in making their living from their land. Gretel and Steve Adams of Sunny Meadows Farm outside Columbus, Ohio.

4. By supporting American flower farms, you are ensuring the diversity and variety of choices in the marketplace. 

Field grown calla lilies and heady lilacs – Oregon grown and amazingly beautiful, fresh and healthy.

Field-grown old garden and English roses from Rose Story Farm. Hard to resist!

5. By supporting American flower farms, you are giving conscious and creative supermarket floral buyers A CHOICE about where they source their flowers, too.

These Northwest flowers are on their way to the Town & Country Supermarket chain where buyers and their customers CARE that their flowers are locally grown.

 6. By supporting American Flowers, you are helping to RECONNECT florists with flower farmers – and when that happens, beautiful things emerge!

Polly Hutchison (right) of Robin Hollow Farm in Rhode Island makes weekly deliveries to David Urban (left), owner of The Secret Garden – an appreciative customer.

7. By supporting American Flowers, you are making it possible for farms to share their story with consumers, many of whom may never before have visited a flower farm or greenhouse!

Ivan Van Wingerden of Ever-Bloom in Carpinteria, California, tours visitors through the gerbera greenhouses during the annual open garden event bringing consumers to flower farms.

8. By supporting American Flowers, you’re making sure that LOCAL FLOWERS are part of the FARM-TO-TABLE story!

Flowers are an important item on the farm-to-table menu!

9. By supporting American Grown flowers, you are helping an entire industry advocate for change – for transparency and honesty when it comes to COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELING on FLOWERS:

Thanks to honest labeling, there is no doubt that these flowers were grown by local farmers in their local community.

10. By supporting American Grown flowers, you’re putting more flowers on the table, one vase at a time. You’re saving an industry that has been long-neglected by its own elected officials. You’re changing the dialogue and elevating the design aesthetic for the flowers you give to celebrate, congratulate and share love.

It’s a patriotic notion and an important way of life for generations of Americans.

Tell me . . . WHY do you want to Save American Flowers?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 9th, 2014 at 10:04 am and is filed under American Grown, Blog Posts, floral design, General, Slowflowers.com the Directory of American Flowers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.