Episode 301: Slow Flowers Summit Preview #2 — meet Chantal Aida Gordon of TheHorticult.com
June 14th, 2017
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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!
I can’t wait for you to join us in Seattle on July 2 in the heart of American Flowers Week!
The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 199,000 times by listeners like you. We are closing in on the next big milestone of 200k downloads, which I’m pretty sure we’ll report next week!
THANK YOU to each one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much. If you value the content you receive each week, I invite you to show your thanks and support the Slow Flowers Podcast with a donation — the button can be found on our home page in the right column. Your contributions will help make it possible to transcribe future episodes of the Podcast.
Thank you to family of sponsors:
Our lead sponsor for 2017: 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 lfgardens.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 KineticTreeFitness.com.
June 14th, 2017 at 8:45 am
[…] our just-released Coloring Map of the USA with every state flower designed by Jenny […]Episode 301: Slow Flowers Summit Preview #2 — meet Chantal Aida Gordon of TheHorticult.com this post has been replublished from the original […]
July 1st, 2017 at 8:11 pm
WOW! This looks so incredible. I’m so sad I’m going to miss it this year!!