It’s hard to believe that one month ago, nearly 100 of us gathered together in Seattle for the first Slow Flowers Summit. Before too much time passes, I want to personally thank you everyone who attended and invested their time and presence in sharing this incredible experience with me and others in the Slow Flowers Movement!

Here are a few of the Raves we’ve received to date:

The Slow Flowers Summit was a great platform for discussing important issues, the most important for me being diversity and inclusivity in the business. . . a fantastic event with something for everyone that didn’t shrink from the more challenging issues facing us.

The Slow Flowers Summit was hugely inspiring to me as a grower and an entrepreneur. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet other like-minded people who are successfully uniting their passion for flowers with a vision for a better world.

The Summit offered a day of inspiration and conversations. Being in the presence of other men and women who are passionate about their craft and the world behind the flowers was inspiring and uplifting. The value of the people that I met, the conversations that we united around, and the ideas that I left with made the day invaluable. I hope to be back year after year.

My participation in the Summit has sparked new ideas regarding how I grow my business. I’m inspired to think bigger and connect with a larger audience of like-minded flower people.

Thank you to our presenters for their intelligence, ideas and wisdom:

Above, from left: James Baggett, Riz Reyes, Nicole Cordier Wahlquist, Chantal Aida Gordon, Emily Ellen Anderson, Teresa Sabankaya, Amy Stewart, Debra Prinzing, Lisa Waud and Leslie Bennett

Who attended? Here’s a breakdown of how attendees identified themselves* in our post-Summit survey:
Florist/Floral Designer: 50 percent
Flower Farmer/Farmer-Florist: 27 percent
Educator: 14 percent
Media: 10 percent
Flower Gardener/Floral Enthusiast: 10 percent
Other categories: Wholesale floral managers, horticulturists, online floral retailer
*respondents were allowed to choose more than one category

We asked: “Was the Summit content relevant to you and your business?” Attendees ranked this answer 4.22 out of 5.0 
We asked: “What elements of the Summit were valuable to you? Attendees ranked these choices as follows:
1. Connecting with other Attendees
2. Connecting with Speakers
3. Learning about new Resources & Skills
4. Playing with Flowers (Flower Wall and Flowers on Your Head)

Panelists, from left: Chantal Aida Gordon of thehorticult.com blog; Leslie Bennett of Pine House Edible Gardens; Riz Reyes of RHR Horticulture; and Nicole Cordier Wahlquist of Grace Flowers Hawaii

Our Master of Ceremonies, James Baggett of Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

Emily Ellen Anderson of Lola Creative

Keynote speaker Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential and many other bestselling titles.

Lisa Waud of pot & box, Flower House Detroit and Detroit Flower Week

Enjoy our PICTURES!! Summit photos are here for your enjoyment and use. Follow this link to see/download.
Please credit (c) Hannah Brenlan and Luke Holtgeerts and use these hashtags: #slowflowersummit #americanflowersweek when you use any of these images. Thank you!

READ THIS. #SlowFlowerSummit 2017 is a HIT!
I loved reading one attendee’s thoughtful response with her takeaways from the Summit. Kit Wertz of Los Angeles-based Flower Duet wrote an extensive review in her July newsletter. You’ll want to subscribe to her newsletter! Thanks, Kit!

I can’t close without thanking all of our Sponsors and Volunteers.

I especially want to thank Stephanie Downes of Vanita Floral, @vanitafloral, our Event Manager Extraordinaire, and Niesha Blancas @nieshamonay, our Social Media Maven, from Poppy Social Media.

Seriously. Could. Not. Have. Done. The. Summit. Without. Them. xoxo

Our Audio/Visual Team was the best! Thank you to Hannah and Andrew Brenlan and the Brothers Holtgeerts (Henry and Luke).

A few of the many flowered and beautiful heads, thanks to Mud Baron for Flowers on Your Head

Thanks to Mud Baron of Muir Ranch for adding a festive, Instagram-worthy “flowers on your head” element to the day!

I’ve received personal notes from so many of you — and I promise to write back as time allows. I hope to announce a save-the-date for our 2018 Summit — on the East Coast — very soon.

Until then, continue to Inquire, Inform, Include, Instigate and Inspire!

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I’m celebrating the 4th anniversary of the Slow Flowers Podcast with a special guest and big announcement!

On July 23, 2014, I said this at the top of the Slow Flowers Podcast:

During the past year, I produced and hosted weekly episodes of this podcast — with news and insights of the American Grown flower movement.

The people who have been guests on this series have generously and passionately  shared their time and knowledge.

Our inspiring and straight-forward dialogue has prompted thousands of listeners to return, week after week, downloading the audio files to their various devices, to listen in the design studio, in the flower fields and wherever else they spend their days.

The Slow Flowers Podcast is now a must-hear medium connecting  listeners across our country with creative and influential voices and exciting points of view.

Thank you for joining me and please get ready for the next 52 weeks of great conversations.

We’re in full bloom, so to speak, and there’s an abundance of great information I’m eager to bring you!

That’s how I pronounced the news of this Podcast’s one-year anniversary, with 15,000 downloads and, as I said, 52 episodes to show for it.

Here we are, today, celebrating the 4th anniversary of the Slow Flowers Podcast, and by numbers alone, we’ve made some amazing strides. We have enjoyed 215,000 listener downloads, and have produced 208 episodes.

Behind the numbers are authentic relationships that have been formed, a community of like-minded kindred spirits who are truly trying to improve our floral landscape.

We are making empowered decisions about how flowers are grown, brought to market and incorporated into our designs, decisions that affect our branding and businesses in a positive way.

Your participation in and support of all Slow Flowers projects is at an all-time high. With more than 715 members of Slowflowers.com, with ever-increasing support and collaboration with many of our sponsors, with the explosion of involvement in American Flowers Week — at more than 5 million impressions on social media during this year’s campaign, with the media attention not just about our program but about flower farmers across the country creating wholesale supply hubs and elevating the discussion about local flowers, and with this year’s amazing Slow Flowers Summit just occurring . . . well, we have so much to celebrate.

Let’s pop the cork and congratulate one another. Like a true community, your success equals my success; when the light is shined on one member, it benefits all members; when together we value interdependence over competition . . . that’s what inspires me and I hope it inspires you.

Four years ago, I started this tiny podcast wondering how I would ever “fill” the lineup with enough guests and stories to tell, imagining that eventually, I would be scrambling to find people to interview week after week. Well, that has proven NOT to be the case and it is pretty beautiful to acknowledge this accomplishment. My instinct for news tells me that the pool of voices to bring to you — as we inquire, inform, include, inspire and instigate new thinking — will not disappear. That’s a promise.

Travis Rigby, president and publisher of Florists’ Review

There’s one more big accomplishment to share and it is happening thanks to today’s special guest.

Please meet Travis Rigby, president and publisher of Wildflower Media, the parent company of Florists’ Review, Super Floral and an extensive bookstore and publishing operation.

Travis also is president of two companies both based in Portland — PosterGarden.com, a portable display company founded in 1995, and FlowerBox (formerly Blumebox), an innovative flower vase company specializing in recyclable vases.

Travis purchased Florists’ Review Enterprises and its suite of businesses in early 2016, with the sale closing on April 1 last year, so he has less than 18 months as a magazine publisher under his belt.

He acquired the Topeka, Kansas-based business from Frances Dudley, the previous owner of 29 years, but I was amazed to learn that Florists’ Review is a venerable, 120-year-old trade magazine.

Florists’ Review has been serving the floral industry for nearly 120 years. Established by Gilbert Leonard Grant in 1897 as The Weekly Florists’ Review, it was the first floral magazine to use photography rather than sketches, giving florists a true picture of what was happening in their industry.

Even during his short period of ownership, Travis has made some exciting changes, including redesigning Florists’ Review, with a larger-size format, higher quality paper and fresh graphics. With David Coake as editor and Kathleen Dillinger as new art director, together the cover and inside content of Florists’ Review are catching people’s attention.

“Four Seasons of Floral Design” featured designs from Kelly Shore of Petals by the Shore in Olney, Maryland, and flowers from Plant Masters flower farm.

I began contributing articles to the magazine this past January, auspicious timing for me because it coincided with the magazine’s beautiful new format. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Travis and I met through a mutual friend, the uber networker Heidi Berkman of The Bloom Project in Portland (who incidentally you’ll hear on this podcast in the not-so-distant future).

Being the magazine junkie that I am, I was immediately fascinated to meet Travis and talk about the future of print media. The magazine world has undergone a huge shakeup in the past decade, as has all print, especially newspapers, but Travis and I found ourselves agreeing that there is a sweet spot for micro-niche publications that really drill down on a focused topic or serve a distinct audience — and that Florists’ Review had the potential to become the publication of choice for the mainstream floral industry. Of course, I’m not really in the mainstream, preaching local and seasonal flowers, but Travis saw something of relevance in the Slow Flowers platform, and he continued to say “yes” when I brought story ideas to the table.

Here’s a sneak peek of our opening pages of the Slow Flowers Journal — launching inside the August issue of Florists’ Review.

Now, thanks to a new partnership, more than 13k subscribers of Florists Review will read regular coverage about the Slow Flowers Movement and the people who grow and design with local, seasonal and domestic flowers. Beginning in August, next week, I am joining Florists’ Review as a Contributing Editor and, you will find our dedicated editorial section called Slow Flowers Journal inside the pages of Florists’ Review magazine, the highest-circulation floral industry trade magazine on the market.

In the coming issues, we’ll feature:

• Design-driven feature articles, beautifully photographed, of course
• Farmer-florist profiles
• Products and resources sourced locally
• “How I do it” (Q&As with florists on their sourcing practices)
• Hero Worship — inspirational voices of “slow” pioneers

Isn’t that cool? Now even more readers will learn about the #slowflowersmovement and how they can adapt and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle in the floral industry.

Want to see what it’s all about?
Subscribe to Florists’ Review and read our bonus Slow Flowers Journal content at the special rate of $21 for 12 issues — 62 percent off the cover price! Take advantage of the special subscription offer from Florists’ Review. Click on this link or call 1-800-367-4708.  I promise you that you’ll find inside each Slow Flowers Journal, our mini-magazine, the stories, news and resources important to you.

Thanks again for joining me and for helping me celebrate all the good Slow Flowers news of this Podcast’s significant fourth anniversary. If you want to get more involved, please reach out — I’d love to hear from you!

Join the Slow Flowers Community on Facebook, and share your story of this ever-changing ethos to source domestic, American grown flowers and support flower farmers, as well as adopt a more mindful, sustainable lifestyle for you and your business.

As I mentioned, the Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded nearly 215,000 times by listeners like you. 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:

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 services 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. Its 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.

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Linda Beutler, clematis expert, floral designer and author. (c) Loma Smith photograph

Linda is the author of The Plant Lover’s Guide to Clematis.

Last week, we heard from Rebecca Reed, U.S. Sales Executive for David Austin Garden Roses.

I learned so much from Rebecca about these beloved and increasingly popular roses for both the landscape and floral arranging and if you haven’t listened yet, head on over to Episode 305. It’s the perfect lead-in for today’s equally fabulous topic: Clematis.

Because so many of my friends are involved in the Pacific Northwest horticulture community and because I once was deeply embedded in it, serving as the Northwest Horticultural Society’s “Garden Notes” newsletter editor for several years, I have been vaguely aware of the existence of a rare clematis collection taking root outside Portland, Oregon. But I’d never visited the garden where it was housed.

Then last year, I met Phyllis McCanna while speaking to the Portland Garden Club, and she asked me to visit — more than once. Phyllis was gently persuasive with her warm invitations and about a month ago when I found myself driving to Portland for a series of scouting appointments, I arranged to meet Phyllis and see the clematis I’d been hearing about. As it turns out, Phyllis is the board president of the Friends of the Rogerson Clematis Collection, which is located at the historic Luscher Farm, part of Lake Oswego’s Park and Recreation system, outside Portland.

The modern clematis collection at the Rogerson Clematis Collection. I love the way it’s organized like a vineyard!

The display gardens are arranged around the historic Lescher Farmhouse and feature clematis paired with ornamental landscape plants.

Clematis with conifers and ornamental shrubs.

The Friends group was formed in 2005 to ensure that Brewster Rogerson’s amazing collection of clematis would be maintained and nurtured over time. Since then, the collection has grown from a group of beautiful plants in pots to an assemblage of beautiful plants in a delightful garden, now North America’s foremost collection of the genus Clematis.

Clematis, with lavender!

Linda led me on a tour of the modern clematis display.

Its mission is to preserve and foster the Rogerson Clematis Collection in a permanent home, observing its longtime objectives of assembling and maintaining as comprehensive a collection of the genus Clematis as possible, for the advancement of botanical and horticultural research and education and pleasure of all who visit.

I was delighted to reconnect with Phyllis and with my guest today Linda Beutler. Linda is a fifth generation Oregonian and lifelong gardener, who left floral design in 2007 when she signed on as the curator of the Rogerson Clematis Garden.

She is the author of several books, including Garden to Vase, Growing and Using your own Cut Flowers, which Timber Press published in 2007, now out of print but available used on Amazon and at Powell’s Books online. She also wrote Gardening with Clematis in 2004 and The Plant Lover’s Guide to Clematis, which Timber Books published last year.

Clematis with cotinus.

Clematis with barberry.

Clematis with witch hazel.

Linda’s love of gardening began with harvesting strawberries with her grandfather at the age of three, and being given her own plot for radishes and string beans at age five. Her home garden in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon reflects her garden passions, including old garden roses, herbaceous perennials and shrubs for cutting, and her 200 favorite clematis. Linda has been an adjunct instructor of horticulture at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, OR since 1996. She is the current President of the International Clematis Society and has also been known to dabble in Jane Austen fan-fiction!

Please enjoy this conversation — and stay tuned for a bonus tip from Linda at the end of the interview. Does she or doesn’t she use rubbing alcohol to extend the vase life of her cut clematis?

Enjoy my gallery of photos from my recent visit to the Rogerson Clematis Garden. Find more clematis at these social places:

Rogerson Clematis Garden on Facebook

Download the Clematis for Beginners list from International Clematis Society

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 212,000 times by listeners like you.

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

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.

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Today I’m excited to introduce you to Leslie Bennett, an Oakland-based landscape designer specializing in aesthetically pleasing food-centric gardens. Leslie is the owner of Pine House Edible Gardens, which designs, installs and maintains delicious gardens for private & community clients in the Bay Area.

We’ve been friends for a number of years and it is my pleasure to share a recent conversation we recorded for today’s podcast. Consider this a preview of Leslie’s participation as a Slow Flowers Summit speaker.

She will be one of four panelists who will share insights and perspective during the Inclusion/Diversity dialogue led by Chantal Aida Gordon of TheHorticult Blog, last week’s guest. These two women will be joined by Nicole Cordier Wahlquist of Grace Flowers Hawaii and Riz Reyes of RHR Horticulture. Together, these innovators and creatives are telling a narrative that we can all benefit from, especially as we desire more meaningful, authentic and ethical lives.

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Leslie about her design work for a number or articles, including a Los Angeles Times piece.

The Summer issue of Garden Design magazine features an extensive spread about Leslie’s edible-ornamental design for a Bay Area family.

This summer, you can find two beautiful and informative stories about Leslie’s projects that I was honored to write — one appears in the SUMMER Issue of Garden Design, called “Bearing Fruit,” about a landscape in Atherton, California, part of the magazine’s Great Gardens Across America series, and the other appears in the July issue of Better Homes & Gardens, on newsstands this week, called “Dyed & True,” about an urban backyard filled with plants that produce textile pigments, which Leslie designed for her Berkeley clients.

Leslie Bennett forged a holistic life for herself as a garden designer, speaker, author and advocate for edible landscapes.

There was a portion of one of my interviews with Leslie that landed on the cutting room floor, thanks to an editor’s space crunching tendencies, but it is too fabulous not to share it here. I think this will help introduce Leslie to you and give you insights into what makes her tick as a creative individual:

Leslie Bennett trained as a lawyer and turned her professional life upside down to learn organic food farming, emerging a landscape designer who specializes in stylish edible gardens.

With several years of experience in other horticulture and design ventures, she launched Pine House Edible Gardens in 2015. Growing food originally influenced Leslie’s search for a connection with the land, one that led her away from corporate law to study permaculture in the U.K. and work on a series of organic food and biodynamic farms in Jamaica and Northern California.

“I loved growing food, but I rejected the idea that it had to be strictly utilitarian,” Leslie recalls. “I remember wondering where the beauty was. It seemed like the organic movement sometimes rejected frivolous things like incorporating beauty alongside food production. One afternoon in the bean fields, I realized, ‘I’m not into this. This reminds me of my law firm,’ so I put a stop to that and started doing what I wanted to do.”

Since leaving row crops behind, Leslie has pursued edible and ornamental harmony in her design work. Her enthusiasm is contagious, attracting clients who yearn for the bountiful environments she helps them attain.

“I’m motivated by making a space meaningful for those who live there,” she says.

Here are some of Pine House Edible Gardens’ recent flowery Instagram posts!

You’ll love hearing from Leslie in today’s episode and if you’re heading to Seattle for the Slow Flowers Summit on July 2nd, you’ll love meeting her in person. Our event bookseller will have copies of The Beautiful, Edible Garden (Ten Speed Press, 2013), a guide to incorporating edibles into the ornamental landscape, of which Leslie is a co-author, and she’ll be signing copies after her presentation.

And if you follow Leslie’s Instagram feed @pinehouseediblegardens, you will soon realize she is as much a floral designer as a foodie. Her landscapes are filled with useful and beautiful plants to harvest, not just for the body but for the eyes and soul. Leslie makes it a practice to give her clients cutting garden options in all four seasons; I wish more landscape designers took this approach and I love that her firm is showing the way.

Here’s how you can find Leslie at her social places.

Pine House Edible Gardens on Facebook

Pine House Edible Gardens on Instagram

Pine House Edible Gardens on Twitter

Get out your crayons: Our American Flowers Week Map of State Flowers!

American Flowers Week launches one week from today on June 28th — and it’s not too late to jump onboard and use this social media and promotional campaign to put you and your local flowers on the map! You can 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. Please join in and help spread the word — let’s get trending on Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms!

The Slow Flowers Summit is one of our major events that will take place during American Flowers Week and you’ve heard me talking about it for quite a while. I really can’t believe the day is almost here. We have registrants coming from Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, California, Oregon, Iowa, Alaska and, of course, Washington State. I’m blown away by the response from the Slow Flowers Community. We have a limited number of tickets left, so it’s not too late to come to Seattle for a jolt of ideas, inspiration, innovation, instigation and more! Grab your registration tickets here.

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 202,000 times by listeners like you. We hit this big milestone earlier in the week — thanks for helping us reach it!

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:

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.

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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:

@chantalaida_garden

@thehorticult

The Horticult on Facebook

The Horticult on Pinterest

The Horticult on Twitter

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!

READ MORE…

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Arizona Grown, folks! From left (front row): Anne, Cory, Shanti, Terri, Debra, Dani & Morgan; (back row): Melissa, Les & Lindsay. We’re posing in front of the Self-Serve farm stand at Whipstone.

UPDATE: If you want to learn more about the once-vibrant history of Arizona’s cut flower farming community, read this January 2016 article by Kathy Nakagawa that appeared in the Arizona Republic, “When Phoenix Bloomed.”

I’ve had Arizona on my mind quite a bit lately and it’s not only because Seattle, like most of the rest of the country, has been cold, wet and dreary for months. So when my travels brought me to Scottsdale, Phoenix and Mesa for family reasons, I followed through on my promise to myself to visit a flower farm.

Shanti led us on a tour of Whipstone Farm, including this pristine high tunnel where stock and ranunculus were blooming.

Lucky for me, I’ve been collecting Slow Flowers friends in Arizona. We all agreed to meet at Whipstone Farm in Paulden, where Shanti and Cory Rade and theor family grow CSA food crops AND lots of flowers. The farm is a Slowflowers.com member and I was so happy to visit there on March 1st, along with a diverse and super passionate cadre for our informal Slow Flowers Arizona meet-up.

Terry and Dani, two of Whipstone’s floral team members, pictured inside Shanti and Cory’s kitchen.

They included Terri Schuett of Happy Vine Flowers, a freelance floral designer and horticulture student-turned-flower farm intern at Whipstone Farm, and Dani Baker, Whipstone Farm’s flower manager. It was fun to reunite with all three of them having met in the past.

Dani, Terri, Lindsay and Morgan evaluate the Whipstone stems, arranged by Terri for our luncheon centerpiece

The drive from Scottsdale to Paulden takes you sort of in the northbound direction toward Flagstaff and then at some point you head west toward Chino Valley. It’s pretty remote and pretty beautiful. Who would think that agriculture lives here?

Melissa Saltzman found herself a baby lamb (named “Fern”) while Lindsay looks on; right – anemones in the high tunnel.

My fabulous driving companions included Anne E., a Scottsdale micro flower farmer who specializes in garden roses, herbs and citrus, among other things at Tre Soli (who I first met, by the way, when she attended a Field to Vase Dinner in Carlsbad, CA in 2015), and Morgan Anderson of the.flori.culture, based in Scottsdale, who you heard on this podcast last year when she was finishing up her PhD in Floral Design/Floriculture at Texas A&M. Morgan and I hopped into Anne’s car and the 120 miles passed quickly while we gabbed away about all things floral.

yes, yes, and YES!

You just can’t get enough of these stunning Ranunculus!

Check out the petal count!

Others who met us at Whipstone included Lindsay Statler of Green Creek Gardens in Dewey, Arizona, a Slow Flowers member whose farm is about 30 miles away from Whipstone, and Melissa & Les Saltzman, friends and flower farmers I’ve met through the Alaska Peony Growers Association because – yes – they live in Scottsdale, Arizona and own a peony farm called Alaskan Legacy Peonies, in Homer (talk about a commute!) I wanted them to meet and learn from flower farmers in their home state where the conditions are probably 180 degrees opposite from Alaska’s peony fields.

Leafy greens for the winter Farmers’ Market.

When we arrived, Shanti took us on a wonderful walking tour of Whipstone Farm before lunch. She told us the story of how the farm got started, so I’ll let you listen to the interview to hear more. With 15 acres and more than 100 varieties of vegetables and cut flowers, Shanti and Cory have made a life for themselves, their four children and countless CSA customers who buy shares each year.

The promise of spring peonies.

As they write on the Whipstone Farm web site: “We farm with our heart and health in mind.  We do not use any synthetic fertilizer or chemical pesticides.  We enjoy growing food for our community not only as a means of providing healthy sustenance, but also as a way to bring people together. We welcome you to come out and see our farm, to learn about where your food comes from and meet the folks who grow it.”

You can find their produce and flowers every week at the Prescott, Flagstaff and Chino Valley Farmers Markets. Whipstone also has an on-farm self-serve stand where friends, customers and neighbors purchase products on the honor system.  The farm stand is open year round and customers are welcome to stop in during daylight hours – no doors, so it’s always open. Quick, self-guided farm tours often occur when people come to buy veggies and flowers.

Shanti and Cory with three of their four children.

Shanti came into farming by chance through a high school internship and after working on several different farms around the country, she returned to school for a degree in Agroecology from Prescott College. At Whipstone, she oversees crop planning, seed starting and everything to do with flowers. She also handles office management and marketing, even though it’s not always her favorite part about farming.

Cory is a self-taught farmer, learned through lots of trial and error and even more determination.  What he really loves about farming is food and how it brings people together; growing the food is the first step in making that happen. The resident repair man on the farm, Cory is busy, since something seems to break on the farm almost every day.  But, he says “getting to eat the chiles I grow makes it all worth it.”

After our wonderful farm tour, we gathered around Shanti and Cory’s kitchen table, a long, wooden trestle-style table with room for everyone, which I’m sure they need when the entire family is together. Anne served us a delicious homemade meal of lentil soup, salad, veggies, breads, spreads and Arizona-made wine. Thank you, Anne, for being our wonderful caterer!

Shanti (left) and Dani (right)

I know you will enjoy this interview I recorded with Shanti, and you’ll also hear bonus audio, recorded when Terri Schuett took us on a quick tour of the horticulture and agribusiness program at Yavapai College in Chino Valley. She has definitely been smitten with the flower-growing bug, a path I see more and more florists taking as they become curious about the flowers they design with. Even though our conversation is brief, you’ll learn a thing or two about aquaculture and floriculture in the desert, of all places!

Flowers and Food — Arizona-grown!

Here’s how to find and follow these intrepid Arizona Slow Flowers Folks!

Find Whipstone Farm on Facebook

Follow Whipstone Farm on Instagram

See Whipstone Farm on Pinterest

Discover Whipstone Farm on Twitter

Find Terri Schuett/Happy Vine Flowers on Instagram

Find Dani Baker on Instagram

Find Anne on Instagram

Find Morgan Anderson on Instagram

Find Lindsay Statler on Instagram

Terri led us on a second tour of the ag program at Yavapai College in Chico Valley, not far from Whipstone. She’s studying horticulture there.

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 168,000 times by listeners like you.

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 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.

We’re also grateful for support from 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

And welcome to our newest sponsor, the 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 has returned as a 2017 sponsor, and we couldn’t be happier to share their resources with you. 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.

And finally, thank you 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.

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As I mentioned last week, I traveled to Corvallis, Oregon, recently to join the 3rd annual Pacific Northwest Cut Flower Growers “meet-up,” and that’s where I encountered the three guests you will hear from today.

I’m going to keep the intros short, because you’ll want to hear the heart of these conversations.

Today’s guests include Dave Dowling of Ednie Flower Bulb Co. and current board president of Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, and Lennie Larkin, a farmer-florist and owner of B. Side Farm & Floral Design in Sonoma County, serving as the west and northwest regional director for ASCFG.

But first, please meet Elizabeth Bryant of Rose Hill Flower Farm, located just outside Portland. Elizabeth is a past guest of this podcast; she appeared with floral designer and friend Kailla Platt a few years ago. Here’s a link to their episode.

Elizabeth is a person with big ideas and beyond that; she’s a big idea person who acts on them. I remember when I first met her and she reached out to me with an unsolicited offer to connect me with people she knew at Slow Food USA . . . she felt they should know about Slow Flowers and hear what I was doing.

That led to an invitation from Slow Food for me to write an article for their newsletter, allowing us to reach the huge Slow Food community with the Slow Flowers message.

Later, Elizabeth instigated the first PNW Cut Flower Growers meet-up, bringing together a core team of volunteers to host the one-day session in early 2015. The vision she held is continuing on today with a dynamic cadre of fellow leaders in the Northwest region’s flower farming and farmer-florist world.

I sat down with Elizabeth during one of our short breaks and asked her to share details about her new project — called “Blooming on the Inside,” involving a flower farm and floral design workshops at Coffee Creek, Oregon’s only correctional facility for women. I know you’ll find it inspiring and I hope that you feel led to show your support by encouraging and even donating to the project.

I hope you’re moved to share your resources to support Blooming on the Inside’s campaign. Money isn’t the only way to help this project — you can follow the link to the funding page and just click on the Facebook logo to post this to your own page — making sure that more people learn about the opportunity. And as Elizabeth says, even a $5 donation makes a big difference!

Okay, next up, Dave Dowling and Lennie Larkin.

Dave Dowling, photo courtesy Butterbee Farms

Dave Dowling owned a successful cut flower farm in Maryland for several years. He placed great emphasis on introducing young people to horticulture through employment on his farm, bringing them to the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers conferences, and mentoring them as they moved into their own cut flower businesses. Dave is responsible for the success of many new growers across the country. His generosity and enthusiasm for sharing are unparalleled.

Annually, ASCFG awards the Dave Dowling Scholarship, open to all undergraduate or graduate students working toward a two- or four-year degree, or a graduate degree, in horticulture or floriculture.  Dave juggles president duties with his “day job,” as sales representative and warehouse manager for Ednie Flower Bulb, based in Fredon, New Jersey.

Lennie Larkin

About Lennie Larkin & B-Side Farm

B-Side Farm

About Lennie Larkin

Flowers and floral design by Lennie Larkin, B-Side Farm & Floral Design

Links:

Thanks so much for listening today. The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 162,000 times by listeners like you.

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 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.

We’re also grateful for support from 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

And welcome to our newest sponsor, the 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 has returned as a 2017 sponsor, and we couldn’t be happier to share their resources with you. 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.

And finally, thank you 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

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Slow Flowers designed by Bonny Doon Garden Co. for Aimée Newlander’s Slow Weddings clients

Valentine’s Day is over — are you ready to relax and celebrate your success?!

I hope so! If you’re looking  for a great way to invest in yourself and feed your creativity in a new way, please join Anne Bradfield and Jason Miller and me at the upcoming Slow Flowers Creative Workshop. It will take place in Seattle on March 6th and 7th and you can find a link to more details here. This intimate 2-day event is designed for creatives to boost their powers of language, narrative and storytelling — on the page and on video. We’re excite to share our expertise and help you develop your business and your brand – so check it out.

Before we get started with today’s interview featuring a fantastic guest, I want to share a big announcement with you.

Please put Sunday, July 2nd on your calendar and save the date to join me in Seattle at the first SLOW FLOWERS SUMMIT, a one-day conference that I’m calling a “TED talk for flower lovers.”

For years, I’ve been talking with a few of you about producing a “slow flowers summit,” essentially devoting time and space to gather thought leaders and change agents to discuss the momentum of the Slow Flowers Movement.

Now, the timing is right to hold such a forum. The 2017 Slow Flowers Summit achieves and recognizes many things.

First, it coincides with American Flowers Week, our third annual campaign to promote domestic flowers, farms and florists, scheduled again to take place June 28 through July 4th. Holding the Summit during American Flowers Week allows us to celebrate and recognize the mission of Slow Flowers.

Second, it allows people attending AIFD, the American Institute of Floral Designers annual conference in Seattle that week, to access high-quality, substantial American-grown educational programming that they will not obtain at their conference.

And third, this year’s timing allows us to bring in keynote speaker Amy Stewart to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her influential book, Flower Confidential. So many of you were inspired to change your own relationship with flowers after Amy published Flower Confidential in 2007 and we’re thrilled to bring her to the Summit.

Our other speakers are pretty amazing, too. We have Teresa Sabankaya of Bonny Doon Garden Co., a past guest of this podcast and the florist originally profiled by Amy in her book. We’re honored to welcome award-winning garden blogger and author Chantal Aida Gordon of The Horticult blog, who will moderate a panel on Diversity in the Floral and Horticulture industries. She’ll be joined by some great friends of Slowflowers.com, Leslie Bennett, principal of Pine House Edible Gardens in Oakland, Riz Reyes of RHR Horticulture in Seattle, also a past guest of this podcast, and floral artist Nicole Cordier Wahlquist of Grace Flowers Hawaii.

Emily Ellen Anderson of Seattle’s Lola Creative will speak about “reinvention,” sharing her transition from landscape architect to floral and event designer, and our favorite flower rebel Lisa Waud of pot & box will bring the insights from her experience with The Flower House and Detroit Flower Week to lead a conversation on nurturing creativity. Emily and Lisa are both past guests of this podast.

All of these important voices will be shepherded through the day by our very charming and charismatic master of ceremonies, James Baggett. He’s a top editor at Country Gardens and Better Homes & Gardens and is one of the most devoted to publishing my stories about flower farming across the U.S. We’re delighted he’ll be joining us as emcee and media sponsor.

In the coming weeks we’ll host many of these speakers as guests, so expect to hear more as we build momentum for American Flowers Week and the Summit. Tickets are $175 for the day and we have a special rate for Slow Flowers members, so check it out.

Aimée Newlander, wedding coordinator and creator of the Slow Weddings Network

Okay, let’s turn to the inspiring Aimée Newlander.

I first met Aimée in March 2015 while visiting Santa Cruz to spend time with Teresa Sabankaya. Teresa put together a little brunch and invited some of the area’s kindred spirits, people involved in the Slow Coast sustainable business community located along the fifty mile stretch of mountains & ocean in the midst of California’s famed coastline.

One of those attending was Aimée, a wedding coordinator with whom Teresa collaborates, when couples who work with Weddings by Aimée order locally-grown flowers for their ceremonies.

Aimée told me she was using “the mindful planner” as a hash-tag and that she planned to soon launch a Slow Weddings forum.

The two of us stayed in touch and continued to exchange ideas as her project took off and last August. When we held a Slow Flowers meet-up in Santa Cruz, Aimee joined us to share more details about the coming launch of the Slow Weddings Network.

Fast forward to last fall and what began as a Facebook Group with 100 members has evolved into the nonprofit Slow Weddings Network.

a SLOW WEDDING, Santa Cruz-style

Here is the description — I think the mission will resonate with many of you in the Slow Flowers community.

We seek to shake up the status quo of the wedding industry, to reclaim the sacred space for couples who are seeking authentic and “present” weddings. But, more than that we are the nexus for a movement that is long overdue. It’s about educating from the inside out.  Own what you are passionate about.  We are about having high standards, education and building and bringing awareness to the masses.  You don’t have to have a fast wedding…. you can be well, enjoy the process and end with a wedding celebration you are present for, participate in, enjoy and will remember for the rest of your life.

“Slow Weddings Network” is a not-for-profit membership organization made up of wedding vendors around the world. Its directory of vendors includes wedding professionals, artisans, musicians and Mom & Pop shops and other small businesses.  Wellness, adventure and other ‘experience’ vendors that will enhance destination weddings are also included.

Artisan sweets, from Slow Weddings Network bakeries and pastry makers.

As founder and executive director of the Slow Weddings Network, Aimée Newlander wears many hats. Here is a bit more about Aimée:

She left a very successful career in and around the health and wellness corporate world to pursue a long-standing passion for organizing and managing events. That led to the founding of Weddings by Aimée in 2009 and her ‘mindful planning’ approach.  She knows that educating couples on how to feel prepared and organized for their ceremony and how to prioritize choices is so important.  Her business quickly grew, thanks to creativity and possessing a true artistic flair that has helped organize all types of individualized weddings — from intimate and organic affairs to glamorous and opulent occasions.

Aimée’s professionalism, warm personality and superb eye for detail means that couples and their families are able to truly relax and enjoy the planning process without having to worry about a thing on wedding day. Aimée considers herself a “Destination wedding planner”, specializing in areas such as Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, Carmel, California coastline as well as International locations (Italy, France, Mexico).

“Team” is a big part of who Aimée is, from her time playing international Soccer, to her passion for collaborating with other vendors at her events. She has managed budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, cultivated stakeholder relationships for large scale events, and offers expertise in venue sourcing and procurement.

One of Aimée’s passions is developing venues from a raw space, molding a larger vision from scratch. She’s applied her passion, vision, and skills to founding the Slow Weddings Network, and hopes to see the global movement grow into a well known organization.

Dreamy venues and beautiful attire for Slow Weddings ceremonies.

Follow and find Weddings by Aimée and the Slow Weddings Network at these social places:

Slow Weddings on Facebook

Slow Weddings on Instagram

Weddings by Aimee on Facebook

Weddings by Aimee on Instagram

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 158,500 times by listeners like you.
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 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.

We’re also grateful for support from 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

And welcome to our newest sponsor, the 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 has returned as a 2017 sponsor, and we couldn’t be happier to share their resources with you. 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.

More sponsor thanks goes to 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.

And finally, thank you 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 shellandtree.com.

Anne Bradfield, Floressence

I want to invite you to join Anne Bradfield of Floressence and me for a special two-day Slow Flowers Creative Workshop on Monday, March 5 and Tuesday, March 6 at Floressence Studio in Seattle.

This workshop draws from my florist-focused curriculum, which combines “floral memoir,” storytelling for web and digital media (including on camera). In 2016, I partnered with experienced design educators to lead the workshop in Santa Cruz, Sonoma County and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Many of our Seattle Slow Flowers members have asked when I’ll lead the workshop here. Now’s the time to sign up, folks!

The format’s success allows non-writers to unlock your voices as we use new techniques and exercises to communicate our values, mission, brand and aesthetic. The workshop is designed to give floral creatives more tools for everything from blogging and newsletter-writing to handling media interviews.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers

One of the very special elements of our workshop is the addition of video and audio interviews. We’ve asked Jason Miller, who has a background in film and documentary production, to partner with us.

You will leave our workshop having filmed a 1- to 2- minute autobiographical interview that depicts your floral design aesthetic/style, as well as you telling your story as a creative individual.

I’m so excited for you to have a short clip that you can use on your web site, on social media, and to share with potential clients. It will be a marketing tool designed just for you, with you as the star!

All the details are listed below, as well as the schedule.

On Day One, we’ll get down and dirty with our powers of observation, description, memoir- and narrative-writing with me.

On Day Two, Anne will lead our floral design exercise, sharing her story and creative philosophy to help everyone embark on designing an arrangement that expresses individual style.

During both days, Jason will be on hand and behind-the-scenes, capturing lovely footage that will ultimately be edited into his final video for your use.

The two-day workshop including everything outlined here is $1,150. Members of the Greater Seattle Floral Association and Slowflowers.com are invited to enjoy a Member Discount of $995. This is an incredible value — as you know, it’s hard to find a videographer who can work within that budget for an original, professionally-produced clip with music and graphics. We are also happy to arrange a three-part payment plan for budgeting purposes.

For more details, you can contact me at 206-769-8211 or debraprinzing@gmail.com

Stretching our floral vocabulary with a writing exercise!

What is the Creative Workshop?

This valuable experience is designed to help you clarify, document and communicate your personal artistic messaging as a floral/creative professional. In a safe, supportive and intimate setting, our small group will spend 48 hours focusing on YOU! We’ll go deep into Slow Flowers “brand building” as each participant finds his or her own voice as a floral storyteller. Here is what we will cover:

• Evoke and express your personal story as a creative individual
• Play with words to describe the natural world’s color, texture and form
• Tell your Flower Memoir as Metaphor for your Brand
• Flex your Sensory Muscles
• Enhance your brand with key distinctives in words and images that define you
• Storytelling on camera for unique online content
• Storytelling in a media pitch — learn how to be a resource for targeted media
• Storytelling on the Slow Flowers Podcast

Read more about past workshops here and here.

More details and your registration here.