The Slow Flowers Podcast is the award-winning show known as the “Voice of the Slow Flowers Movement.” Launched in 2013 as the original flower podcast, we’ve devoted more than 10 years to covering the business of flower farming, floral design, and the Slow Flowers sustainability ethos. Listen to a new episode each Wednesday, available for free download here at slowflowerspodcast.com or on iTunes, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.
Today, we’re commemorating the 200th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast. It’s an amazing milestone worth celebrating!
For 200 consecutive weeks, ever since our first episode on July 23, 2013, we’ve brought you original programming about local, seasonal and sustainable flowers and the people who grow and design with them.
That means you’ve received nearly four years of meaningful and informative content — delivered through your ear-buds — my engaging conversations with flower farmers, floral designers, cut floral and plant experts, authors, entrepreneurs and innovators in the Slow Flowers Community.
And I thank YOU for joining me!
Max Gill, captured by Alicia Schwede’s camera, while teaching at the design Master Class held recently at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market
I’ve scheduled a very special guest to share with you for this 200th episode: Berkeley, California-based designer Max Gill.
I first met Max during the summer of 2011 while working on The 50 Mile Bouquet. Photographer David Perryand I were in SF shooting a chapter of the book with Susie Nadler and Flora Grubb at Flora Grubb Gardens . . . and Flora asked if I knew Max. I told her no, and she immediately made a connection, introducing us by phone. It was one of those serendipitous threads I am so often given and frequently follow . . . not sure where it will lead but eager to discover that answer.
This is a dark photo, but I love it! I snapped it in July 2011 while on location with Max Gill at Chez Panisse, enjoying a pot of just-brewed tea while observing his design process.
Max invited David and me to meet him a few days later and what resulted was nothing short of beautiful. We were able to tour and ultimately photograph Max in his Berkeley studio and personal cutting garden . . . and then he invited us to follow him to Alice Waters’ famed bistro Chez Panisse Cafe & Restaurant, just blocks from Max’s home, to capture him on camera while he created the first of that week’s major floral displays for the restaurant’s interior.
After we wrapped up, David Perry (far right) and I posed for a photo with Max and his friend Wynonah (center)
It was an unforgettable experience for all of us. Later, Alice shared this quote for the story:
“Max is an amazing forager – he brings a sense of aliveness and seasonality, reinforcing the principles of the restaurant.”
And his friend, design mentor and occasional collaborator Ariella Chezar told me this:
“Max, with his heart of gold, is a genius at creating small, magical worlds that you cannot help but be drawn into. With tenderness and skill, he assembles his elements, resulting in the most perfect balance of haphazard wildness and clear purpose. His arrangements always look just right.”
Max spent a few days in Seattle, touring local flower farms and meeting the folks behind SWGM, including Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm (right) (c) Alicia Schwede
Lush and Seasonal: One of Max’s compote arrangements from his workshop at SWGMC. (c) Alicia Schwede. Check out the palette and diversity of just-picked botanicals!
Max recently visited Seattle to teach a very popular Master Class, followed by an unforgettable design lecture at Seattle Wholesale Growers Market – and while he was in town, I recorded this short conversation with him.
Here’s a bit more about Max, from his web site’s “about” page:
After receiving his degree in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley, Max was compelled by more creative pursuits, eventually finding floral design the perfect medium as it seemed to him to draw from all of his greatest passions: gardening, sculpture, painting and art and theater history.
Originally from upstate New York, Max has called the Bay Area home for almost 35 years. Perhaps best known for his work at Chez Panisse where he has done the flowers for over a decade, Max started Max Gill Design in 2005 and now offers full floral services for weddings, special events and private clients including Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Lauren McIntosh.
Informed by natural process, Max’s work is distinguished by his reliance on specialty blooms and botanical rarities gleaned from local growers, his own formidable cut flower garden in North Berkeley, and a long list of Bay Area nurseries.
He writes this:
My work is always botanically inspired. What I find most compelling in nature is when plants are struggling to find their place in the environment. As they fight to overcome the challenges of space and light, often surprising us with their juxtaposition, they create beauty through adaptation.
Two of Max’s floral creations, from the pages of In Full Flower (c) Gemma and Andrew Ingalls
Here’s a peek at two of Max’s alluring botanical designs that appear in the just-released new book, “In Full Flower,” by photographers Gemma and Andrew Ingalls for Rizzoli Books. It’s stunning work that will leave you wanting more.
And you can find more by following along with Max on his Instagram feed.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Back when the 100th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast aired in June 2015, I noted that listeners had downloaded episodes 53,000 times since the start of the show.
Having reached the second-hundred-episode mark, even more fans are engaging with the show, with a total of 193,000 downloads to date — meaning today we have nearly triple the number of Slow Flowers Podcast listeners than for the first 100 episodes.
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.
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/light 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.
I can’t wait for you to join us in Seattle on July 2 in the heart of American Flowers Week!
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.
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.
The countdown for American Flowers Week and the Slow Flowers Summit has begun — we’re only five weeks away from the June 28th kickoff of American Flowers Week 2017 and just shy of six weeks from the Slow Flowers Summit, which will take place on Sunday, July 2nd in Seattle.
You’re invited to participate in both — and you can find all the details and links here in this post.
I’ll be previewing as many of our Slow Flowers Summit speakers as possible over the coming weeks. First of all, please meet James Baggett, science and horticulture writer, garden editor at Better Homes & Gardens and a true pioneer in garden media.
I captured this photo of James Baggett in his “happy place” — in a garden. It was the White House Kitchen Garden, which made the moment all the more special! Our colleague, photographer Bob Stefko, can be seen working in the background.
James Baggett, showing off the many titles he creates with coworker Nick Crow, his art director. It simply mind-boggling to grasp their huge productivity – and it’s an honor to be one of their writer-producers.
I’ve written and produced stories for this incredibly generous and talented man for years and I count him as a friend. In fact, as I mention often, if given a choice, I’d rather be his friend for life than ever write a single story for him in the future.
James is definitely demonstrating his friendship and support for my passion by agreeing to be our master of ceremonies during the Slow Flowers Summit.
He’s flying to Seattle from his home town, Des Moines, Iowa, where BH&G and its parent company Meredith Corp. are based. As luck would have it, my travels took me to Des Moines last month when Meredith sponsored my lecture at the Wonder of Words festival on Earth Day. While there, I grabbed a short interview with James to share with you.
James A. Baggett has been a garden editor and writer for more than 20 years. In addition to his new role as BH&G’s garden editor, he shaped content at Country Gardens® magazine as its editor in chief for nine years after serving previously as editor of PerennialsTM and as the founding editor of Nature’s GardenTM magazines, both Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications.
Early in his writing career, James wrote Martha Stewart’s “Arranging Flowers” book, which was released in 1999.
James also is the former executive editor of Country Living Gardener and Rebecca’s Garden magazines. He is the author of Flower Arranging, a Best of Martha Stewart Living Book (Oxmoor House) and the former garden editor of American Homestyle & Gardening.
James formerly gardened in New York City — where he tended a 10-x-20-foot garden behind an 1850 brownstone — and he now gardens in Des Moines, where all the available land surrounding his Arts & Crafts bungalow has been given over to flowerbeds, specimen trees and shrubs, and containers.
James has a Bachelor of Journalism degree, from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s famed School of Journalism. In 2015, the American Horticultural Society honored James with the B. Y. Morrison Communication Award, which recognizes effective and inspirational communication – through print, radio, television, and/or online media — advancing public interest and participation in horticulture.
“Garden writing is science writing with Jazz Hands” — James Baggett
Click here to download the James Baggett Profile, “Charming, Disarming and Engaging,” written by Maryann Newcomer for to the GWA Association of Garden Communicators newsletter. His curiosity and passion about everything in the natural world comes through in all aspects of his work and his life, and I’m thrilled that he’ll be joining us as the emcee for the Summit.
Emily Ellen Anderson of Seattle’s Lola Creative.
Next up, past guest of this podcast, Emily Ellen Anderson of Seattle-based Lola Creative. If you missed my interview with Emily (episode 168) you’ll want to go back and hear her entire journey of arriving at a floral career drawing from a background in landscape architecture.
It’s inspiring and it’s one of the reasons I asked Emily to speak at the Slow Flowers Summit on the topic of “Reinvention: Professionally, Artistically + Sustainably.” She will share her story and talk about how creatives are morphing with the changing cultural scene, changing aesthetic tastes and changing values.
And a huge bonus of having Emily involved in the Summit will be her “live” demonstration of building a foam-free floral wall.
It was during our recent walk-through of the Surf Incubator Event Spacewhere our Summit will be held, that I recorded our short audio conversation. Our mutual friend Liz Browning of Laughing Girl Flowers was with us and we were all so excited to see the environment that will house the Summit gathering. We also discussed logistics of building a mini version of the massive floral wall that Emily and her team created for the2016 Seattle Art Fair.
Her business, Lola Creative, is comprised of a team of art-minded, world-wandering, endlessly curious event and visual art professionals and ready to get obsessed with their clients’ projects. They specialize in design and production of bold events with a focus on brand enhancement and generating a meaningful connection between guests and a host organization, styled photoshoots and creative direction for online content and marketing campaigns, exceptional weddings for excellent couples. Lola Creative includes craftspeople, architects, project managers, marketers, writers, painters, organizational master-minds, and bold thinkers. Lola operates out of a light- filled studio in Edmonds, Washington, serving the entire state and Northwest region.
Lola promotes sustainable flower growing, low waste events, and low-impact practices of all kinds, including composting plant waste, reusing materials, and sourcing locally and responsibly. Lola Creative has ceased the use of floral foam for its toxicity and non-biodegradability. A portion of profits benefit scientific research, creatures, and kids’ education in entrepreneurship, art, and technology.
Check out Curious Lola, Emily’s blog where she shares tips, stories and videos about building, running and designing an event design and floral business.
Thanks for joining us today. The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 191,000 times by listeners like you. THANK YOU to each one of you for downloading, listening, commenting and sharing. It means so much.
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/light 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.
I can’t wait for you to join us in Seattle on July 2 in the heart of American Flowers Week!
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.
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.
Above, I’m seated on the sofa with fellow Flower Power speaker, Aimee Newlander of the Slow Weddings Network. Flower Power’s members often meet in one another’s homes, gardens and studios. These photos were taken by Sarah Gonia, an Olympia-based photographer (c) Sarah Gonia.
Sarah captured this hellebore (from Maura’s garden) in a centerpiece that welcomed us to Maura’s home. (c) Sarah Gonia
Another lovely moment from Maura’s floral arrangement (c) Sarah Gonia
We’ve been talking about networking, collaboration and community quite a bit lately and this week’s topic continues that thread with Seattle’s Flower Power.
This intentional cohort of floral designers and farmer-florists formed in early 2016 with a core group of new friends, many of whom met while taking a large-scale installation workshop with Lisa Waud of Pot & Box when she came to town.
Flower Powers’ monthly gatherings rotate among different member’s homes or studios and focus on business topics and face-to-face social networking . . . today, only 18 months after forming, the list of Flower Power members has grown organically to more than 35 participants.
Maura Whalen of Seattle’s Casablanca Floral shared this portait from her collection. She’s seen in front of her beautiful design studio.
Tammy Myers of First & Bloom, based on Seattle’s Eastside, at work in her home-based design studio (c) Missy Palacol Photography
Many Flower Power members are also involved in Slow Flowers and so somehow I was added to the mailing list . . . every time their monthly meeting notice lands in my in-box, I open it curious to discover the topic and host. I have felt very included but never had a chance to attend until May 1st. Maura Whalen invited me to speak about Slow Flowers when she hosted the group in her beautiful home and garden in Seattle.
Before our evening’s program began, I sat down with Maura and another early Flower Power member Tammy Myers to talk about the reasons why they started the group and how it has served their evolving floral careers.
Maura’s Casablanca Floral began in 2014 when she hauled a wreath-making machine into her children’s tree fort and filed for a license to pursue her lifelong dream of a floral business.
In truth, a passion for flowers and the natural world has been with Maura her entire life, beginning with time spent with her Italian grandmother Flora who had a glorious garden in which Maura loved to play. At home as a child, her mother made her a deal: if she weeded the garden, she could create an arrangement for the family table. Later, Maura worked in a floral shop to pay her way through grad school. Casablanca Floral is the culmination of one woman’s lifelong love for expressing creativity through flowers.
The word Casablanca denotes Maura’s favorite flower and her favorite classic film and to her, Casablanca has always signified ultimate elegance.
Casablanca Floral has bloomed into a thriving business serving the Seattle metropolitan area. Operating out of a beautiful backyard studio rather than a storefront allows Maura to keep her work personal, close to home, and close to the heart. It’s no surprise that being a mother to two fabulous teenagers entwines and overlaps with Maura’s life as a florist.
Tammy Myers of First & Bloom
And here’s more about Tammy Myers. She writes this on First & Bloom’s web site:
If you had asked me 10+ years ago about owning a florist business, I might have laughed! Who knew I would be here today. Like most young twenty-something’s, I was headed to the big city and wasn’t ever going back to the country! Growing up in a small town outside the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington, I was drawn to the city like most- the fast pace, the glitz, the glam, and the opportunity. And it’s all true. Those years were fun and still are when I get a chance to sneak away. But there’s nothing better than the sheer glimmer in my son’s eyes when he discovers something new out in the country. As parents, we’ve all been there. We start to live again- better, through our children.
What I’ve learned over the years is to love what you do. Surround yourself with passion, integrity, perseverance, and ignore anyone who says otherwise.
What I’ve learned in the past couple years is that I’m not really selling flowers. I’m selling feelings. The emotion of one person passed to the other as a feeling through the tangible package of flowers. That’s why it’s so important I get it right. Getting it right means everything to me and most importantly it means everything to my customers. It means I played a tiny little part in someone feeling comfort about the life jolting news they received from the doctor or the feeling of celebration for the ass-kicking mountain they conquered called cancer. It also means I get to see a glimpse into some of the most important days a couple experiences like walking down the aisle or welcoming another amazing person into this world. And the best part is, someone chose me to help convey those priceless thoughts and feelings. What a gift that touches me right to the core!
Flower Power member Katie Clary Githens of Clary Sage Studio (c) Sarah Gonia
Guest book (c) Sarah Gonia
Slow honey, shared by some guests (c) Sarah Gonia
Maura Whalen’s “of the moment” bouquet featuring elements clipped from her garden and foraged in her Seattle neighborhood. (c) Sarah Gonia
As we mentioned during the episode, I have two past episodes to share with you that relate to today’s guests:
I hosted Tammy as my guest on Episode 201 as she discussed her all-American/all-local sourcing philosophy; and I featured Tammy, Maura and several other designers who are now involved in Flower Power on Episode 230 during the workshop with Lisa Waud when the seed of an idea seemed to be forming for this group.
Flower Power doesn’t officially have a web site or Facebook group but you can get to know Maura and Tammy at their social places:
As special thank you to Sarah Gonia of Olympia-based Sarah Gonia Photography. She attended Flower Power as a guest and generously shared these photos with permission.
Thanks for joining us today. The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 189,000 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 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.
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.
Local flowers grown and designed by Kelly Morrison, co-founder of Piedmont Wholesale Flowers. (c) Kissick Weddings
Many of you feel that pull — the desire to come together with like-minded Slow Flowers folks and create community, cooperation — and commerce — around local flowers. It’s a powerful urge, and I’ve been fortunate to observe and come alongside individuals all around N. American who are making something happen as a response to that pull.
Some of the ideas I’ve been tracking in my annual Slow Flowers Floral Insights and Industry Forecasts, since our first report in 2015, embody these themes. I just shared my thoughts about this with a group of Michigan flower farmers who are exploring a new wholesale model, so the timing is ideal given today’s podcast topic.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m here to tell you: New, Farmer-Driven Wholesale Hubs are meeting the growing demand for local, seasonal and sustainable flowers coast to coast.
On the heels of recent podcast episodes featuring an update about the Sonoma Flower Market’s second year and the new Twin Cities Flower Exchange’s launch (featured in Episode 290) and the episode celebrating the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market’s successful 6th Anniversary (featured in Episode 294), today I am delighted to introduce you to two emerging wholesale flower hubs, run by flower farmers and tailored to their floral customers. Both flower farmers are Slow Flowers members and I’m delighted to share their stories with you.
Kelly Morrison, co-founder of Piedmont Wholesale Flowers
These conversations really underscore the following themes I’ve been tracking in my annual forecasts:
Cooperation and community – this idea needs no explanation other than to say, when flower farmers and floral designers convene, something explosive takes place – a harmonic convergence of nature and art, creativity and ingenuity. Wholesale hubs for local flowers foster that convergence.
Micro regionalism – across North America, as farmers and florists form unique alliances for commerce, marketing and promotion, the net benefit means more local flowers available to more consumers.
More farms selling direct – Flower farmers are increasingly taking power into their own hands to market their crops rather than abdicate to a wholesaler who may or may not represent their brands as they like.
And if you have any doubt about this cultural shift spreading far and wide, these two women’s stories will give you something exciting to consider, perhaps about your own marketplace.
I met Kelly Morrison in person when I traveled to the Triangle NC area last September as a guest of Jonathan and Megan Leiss of Spring Forth Farm and Maggie Smith of Pine State Flowers, where we held a mini version of the Slow Flowers Creative Workshop and had a blast designing with gorgeous locally-grown flowers.
So it has been wonderful to correspond with Kelly about what’s happened since — and that is the debut of a local wholesale flower cooperative instigated by Kelly and two other flower farmers, Jillian Mickens of Open Door Farm and Katy Thelen of Happy as a Coneflower Farm.
Here is a little more about Kelly: A first generation farmer, Kelly comes from a long line of southern gardeners going back as far as anyone can remember. Plants and their stories are passed down in her family like heirloom jewelry or antique furniture. They are something to be shared. They have a history and a story to tell. They are intimately tied to their season. This connection to time and place drives Kelly’s work as both a farmer and a designer. Her goal is to bring the story and seasonality of flowers to her clients’ special event and also to their lives.
This week’s guests include, from left: Linda Doan (Aunt Willie’s Wildflowers), Sarah Ervin (Southerly Flower Farm) and Tanis Clifton (Happy Trails Flower Farm)
It’s the first week of May and we have just announced details about the third annual campaign called American Flowers Week.
Set for June 28 through July 4, American Flowers Week started in 2015 as a grass-roots endeavor inviting flower farmers and florists to post images of their red-white-and-blue bouquets on Instagram, Twitter or other social media channels.
In that first year, the campaign stimulated 400,000 social media impressions. Last year, with more time to plan, we added beautiful collateral material, a free USA floral coloring map that participating florists and flower farmers could download and share with customers, and even red-white-and-blue stickers used by florists, flower farmers and retailers to label their AFW bouquets. Impressions on social media hit 1.3 million last year.
For 2017, I’m more ambitious than ever about American Flowers Week — and you’re invited to join in!
We’ve just released the press announcement and the gorgeous campaign graphic (shown above), featuring the most beautiful wearable sunflower gown you’ve ever seen!
These and other images are included in our free collateral material that you can download and use from americanflowersweek.com. At that site, you’ll also find inspiration about what creative activities Slow Flowers members are cooking up to promote local flowers in their communities — all ideas that you can borrow and personalize for your marketplace.
At the heart of American Flowers Week we are staging the first ever Slow Flowers Summit, a one-day forum for thinkers and doers in the progressive, sustainable floral world.
Taking place on July 2nd in Seattle, the Summit will feature pioneering voices and compelling topics to perhaps push you to a new level in your own relationship with American grown flowers.
All this for just $175 with a deep discount offered to Slow Flowers Members. We’ll have swag bags, giveaways and delicious local lunch and cocktail reception with speakers, all with a view of the Seattle waterfront from our venue, Surf Incubator Event Space in downtown Seattle. Please join us!
After the success of its inaugural two-year session, the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers‘ Mentor Program is ready for another round of matching new growers with veteran farmers.
The main goals of the program are to help fast-track younger or inexperienced growers through the learning phase of beginning flower farming; build more successful growers and engage older or more experienced growers.
To learn more about program, I’m hosting several guests today.
Tanis and Rick Clifton of Happy Trails Flower Farm
Tanis Clifton of Happy Trails Flower Farm in Dennis, Mississippi. Tanis is the past southeast regional director for ASCFG who worked on the initial development of the organization’s Mentorship program. She provides the “big picture” thinking behind the formation of this farmer-to-farmer program.
In 2010, Tanis and Rick established Happy Trails Flower Farm at their homestead in the scenic hill country of Northeast Mississippi.
The couple grows hundreds of different flowers as well as greenery, vines, pods, cotton and other unusual vegetation, which they sell to discriminating florists, event designers, grocery stores, flower lovers and customers at Pepper Place Farmers Market in Birmingham, Alabama.
As Tanis writes on her web site, “Happy Trails Flower Farm is part of a growing movement to provide slow flowers all over the USA. We are committed and compassionate about supporting local flower farmers, like ourselves, thereby providing seasonal and local blooms to designers, florists, grocers and lovers of flowers.”
Six years ago this week, a band of intrepid Pacific Northwest flower farmers opened the doors at a cold, nearly empty warehouse in Seattle’s Georgetown District, and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Marketwas launched.
In the opening days of Seattle Wholesale Growers Market things were a little bare. Here is a photo I snapped on April 26, 2011
I have been along for the wild ride of this pioneering Market that has stimulated an entirely new way of connecting locally-grown flowers with buyers who value seasonal and sustainable botanicals grown with care and respect for the land.
“Brimming with Blooms” documents the origins of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market in The 50 Mile Bouquet.
Of that beginning, I wrote this in The 50 Mile Bouquet:
A seed germinates when it comes in contact with light, warmth and the nourishment of healthy soil. Similarly, good ideas sprout and take root when they are sown in ideal conditions. That was how the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market Cooperative came into being – a new farm-to-market enterprise that connects cut flower farmers with florists and their customers.
Illustrated by David Perry’s documentary-style photography, the chapter “Brimming with Blooms” tells the story of the origins of SWGMC in June 2010 and the ideas, people and circumstances that led to its actual debut by April 2011.
Today, the SWGMC is anything but an empty warehouse with just a few twigs and flowering branches.
The Market has come into its own as a vibrant, viable economic engine for sustainable agriculture, for offering high quality local products and excellent customer service to the floral community in the greater Seattle area. Beyond this, the Market has continued to instigate, influence and inspire others who have studied its model, adapting lessons for their own regional hubs for selling flowers.
So in honor of the sixth anniversary of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, I’ve invited two past guests of the Slow Flowers Podcast to sit down with me and reflect on all that has transpired and all that the Market still aspires to achieve.
Left: Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall; Right: Vivian Larsen (c) Mary Grace Long Photography
Please welcome Diane Szukovathy, co-owner with her husband Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm, based in Mt. Vernon, WA; and Vivian Larsen of Everyday Flowers in Stanwood, WA. Together they have been part of the core group that founded the SWGMC and they serve as co-chairs of the Market board.
Follow and find Seattle Wholesale Growers Market at these social places:
The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 182,000 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:
And 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.
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.
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.
Syndicate Sales is 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, anemployee-owned company that brings the best flower, herb and vegetable seeds — and supplies to farms large and small. Check them out at johnnysseeds.com.
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.
Today, we’re commemorating the 200th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast. It’s an amazing milestone worth celebrating!
Here’s a peek at two of Max’s alluring botanical designs that appear in the just-released new book, “In Full Flower,” by photographers Gemma and Andrew Ingalls for Rizzoli Books. It’s stunning work that will leave you wanting more.
It’s time to sign up for the Slow Flowers Summit and you can find the registration link here.
