Debra Prinzing

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Episode 675: Lexi Richards of British Columbia’s Twiggage & Bloom on developing corporate and public art commissions as a floral studio’s specialty niche  

Wednesday, August 7th, 2024

After building her studio’s wedding and event portfolio, Lexi Richards knew she wanted to pursue channels that combine her floral art with commerce and civic commissions. Join me as we discuss her branding approach to attract corporate bookings and public artist-in-residency work.

Lexi Richards of Twiggage & Blooms
Lexi Richards of Twiggage & Blooms

Today’s guest, Lexi Richards, owns Twiggage & Bloom, where she and her family grow beautiful, sustainable flowers on their Mission, British Columbia micro farm and provide those blooms to couples and clients in the Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver area.

Bouqet Workshop for Volvo Canada
Twiggage and Blooms’ Bouqet Workshop for Volvo Canada

Flowers have always been part of Lexi’s life growing up and learning from the women in her life to whom growing flowers came easily and naturally. She explains that when she started working in a traditional florist shop, it was the fragrance and variety of the flowers grown at home that she missed.

As a creative individual and a lifelong learner, Lexi knew she wanted to grow a huge variety of flowers with delicious colours, romantic forms, and soul- stirring fragrances – rather than just the basics.

Twiggage and Blooms for Fleurs des Villes
Twiggage and Blooms for Fleurs des Villes

She has invested her time, energy, and resources to acquire the skills to successfully grow exquisite flowers or source them from fellow growers to create Twiggage & Blooms’ signature floral designs. Whether it’s for a wedding, a corporate event, or enthusiastic flower club fans, the focus is on designing arrangements tailored to the client’s needs. From the smallest boutonniere to a large scale floral installation, Lexi want her designs to be fresh, unique, and rooted in time and place.

Twiggage and Bloom ceremony arch
Twiggage and Bloom ceremony arch

Poetry & Posy

Poetic Posy artist in residence project

This exhibition is the beautiful result of a Poetry & Posy workshop with City of Abbotsford Artist in Residence, Alexandra Richards at the Kariton Art Gallery on August 10, 2023.  Participants made a posy (a small bouquet) and matched it to words using floriography (the symbolism of flowers) to create short poems. Each of the posies and poems were photographed to create this collection. 

Find and follow Twiggage & Blooms at these social places: Facebook and Instagram


Thank you to our Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 750 florists, shops, and studios who design with local, seasonal and sustainable flowers and to the farms that grow those blooms. It’s the conscious choice for buying and sending flowers.

Royal Anthos Lily Bulbs

Thank you to our lead sponsor, Flowerbulb.eu and their U.S. lily bulb vendors. One of the most recognizable flowers in the world, the lily is a top-selling cut flower, offering long-lasting blooms, year-round availability, and a dazzling petal palette. Flowerbulb.eu has partnered with Slow Flowers to provide beautiful lily inspiration and farming resources to help growers and florists connect their customers with more lilies. Learn more at Flowerbulb.eu.

Thank you to 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. Visit them at seattlewholesalegrowersmarket.com.

Our next sponsor thanks goes to Longfield Gardens, which 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. Check out the full catalog at Longfield Gardens at longfield-gardens.com.


Slow Flowers Podcast Logo with flowers, recorder and mic

I’m so glad you joined us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeavor, downloaded more than one million times by listeners like you. Thank you for listening, commenting and sharing – it means so much. As our movement gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of our domestic cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious. I know you feel it, too. If you’re new to our weekly Show and our long-running Podcast, check out all of our resources at SlowFlowersSociety.com


Debra in the Slow Flowers Cutting Garden
Thank you for listening! Sending love, from my cutting garden to you!
(c) Missy Palacol Photography

I’m Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Show & Podcast. The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Brenlan. 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. Next week, you’re invited to join me in putting more Slow Flowers on the table, one stem, one vase at a time. Thanks so much for joining us today and I’ll see you next week!


Music Credits:

Drone Pine; Gaena; Long Await
by Blue Dot Sessions
http://www.sessions.blue

Lovely
by Tryad 
http://tryad.bandcamp.com/album/instrumentals
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In The Field
audionautix.com

Our British Floral Friends win RHS Chelsea Gold medal and New Design Award

Tuesday, May 24th, 2016

New Covent Garden Flower Market wins RHS Chelsea Gold medal and New Design Award with ‘Behind Every Great Florist’, the show-stopping debut design by Veevers Carter

Chelsea pensioner Dewi Treharne poses with a floral tribute to Britain's Queen Elizabeth for her 90th birthday desinged by florist Veevers Carter on the New Covent Garden Flower Market stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 in London, UK Monday May 23, 2016. RHS / Luke MacGregor

Chelsea pensioner Dewi Treharne poses with a floral tribute to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth for her 90th birthday desinged by florist Veevers Carter on the New Covent Garden Flower Market stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 in London, UK Monday May 23, 2016. RHS / Luke MacGregor

·      The Flower Market travels a mile up stream to the RHS Chelsea Flower show to win Chelsea Gold & New Design Award with design by Veevers Carter, one of London’s most innovative floral design and  event styling companies

·      Flower Market’s floral tribute to HM the Queen is the most published image of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

·      360˚ floral installation illustrates the bond between London’s Flower Market and its customers

In its first ever Chelsea appearance as an exhibitor, New Covent Garden Flower Market has scooped an RHS Chelsea Gold medal and the New Design Award for the dramatic floral installation – ‘Behind Every Great Florist’ – that is taking the RHS Chelsea Flower Show by storm, and making the news pages worldwide.  Designed and created by Veevers Carter, one of London’s leading florists, event companies and a devoted customer of the Flower Market, the exhibit illustrates the close ties that bind Flower Market traders and their customers in flowering London and is a spectacular tribute to HM the Queen.

Why is this so cool?

Well, the Flower Market’s expert wholesalers have been quietly supplying the cut flowers, foliage, plants and floral sundries for award-winning Chelsea show gardens and exhibits for decades, but had never exhibited before this year. Every single stem on the ‘Behind Every Great Florist’ installation has come from the flower and foliage wholesalers at New Covent Garden Flower Market, including beautiful British-grown flowers.

“We are absolutely thrilled and proud to have won a coveted Chelsea Gold medal and the RHS Chelsea New Design Award on our first ever exhibit at the show,” said Helen Evans, Director of Communications at Covent Garden Market Authority (and past guest of the Slow Flowers Podcast–listen to our interview here).

“We wanted our exhibit to highlight the vital relationship between London’s iconic wholesale Flower Market and the talented independent florists who flower London. As a devoted customer of the Flower Market for over three decades, Veevers Carter instantly understood the concept and their design for ’Behind Every Great Florist’ encapsulates this in a spectacularly creative way.”

“We are absolutely overwhelmed that our installation for the Flower Market has been awarded not only an RHS Chelsea Gold medal but also the New Design Award,” said Ming Veevers-Carter, Creative Director of Veevers Carter. “’Behind Every Great Florist’ has been such an exciting and inspirational project, and our combined creative team of florists, designers and production staff have worked incredibly hard over the past six months to make it a reality. The response to our Chelsea debut has been just staggering, and I am so proud of what we’ve achieved.”

Britain's Queen Elizabeth views a floral tribute to her for her 90th anniversary, desinged by florist Veevers Carter, on the New Covent Garden Flower Market stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 in London, UK Monday May 23, 2016. RHS / Luke MacGregor

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth views a floral tribute to her for her 90th anniversary, desinged by florist Veevers Carter, on the New Covent Garden Flower Market stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 in London, UK Monday May 23, 2016. RHS / Luke MacGregor

On the Royal tour of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, New Covent Garden Flower Market was honoured by a visit by HM the Queen, who was photographed in front of her three-metre-high floral portrait, containing 10,000 cut flowers and and foliages.

The opposite side of the New Covent Garden display is covered top-to-bottom with buckets of flowers and foliage, as you would find on the floor of the wholesale flower market.

The opposite side of the New Covent Garden display is covered top-to-bottom with buckets of flowers and foliage, as you would find on the floor of the wholesale flower market.

‘Behind Every Great Florist’ is the story of two sides intrinsically bound together in flowering London: London’s famous wholesale Flower Market on one side and its customers, independent florists, on the other. On the Market side, the Flower Market is represented in a vast wall of 112 market buckets, iconic symbols of the Flower Market, each densely packed with fragrant green and white flowers and foliage echoing the massed displays at New Covent Garden Market. The uniformity of the rows breaks down towards the middle, as the buckets and flowers are pulled into a central core. Emerging on the opposite side, the Florist side, the flowers erupt in a breathtaking riot of colour; tiers of fragrant floral tapestry forming the iconic portrait of HM the Queen, representing the exquisite craft and creativity of London’s great florists.

Among the varieties of flowers and foliages on the Market side: philadelphus, freesias, arums, hydrangeas, lilies, guelder rose, lilac, freesias, tulips, phlox, lisianthus, phalaenopsis, hyacinths, carnations, roses, spray roses, gerbera, alstroemeria, euonymus, chrysanthemums, chincherinchee, skimmea, camellia, senecio.

On the Florist side, the massed tapestry of flowers includes hydrangea, delphinium, gladioli, clematis, sweet peas, anemones, lilac, carnations, lisianthus, gentians, phlox, cymbidium, gerberas, sweet williams, bouvardia, roses, arum lilies, chrysanthemums, snapdragons, ranunculus, alstroemeria, hyacinths, freesias, mokara and flag iris.

About New Covent Garden Flower Market        www.newcoventgardenmarket.com

New Covent Garden Flower Market is the UK’s largest Flower Market and supplies 75% of London’s florists. The Market flowers London and its customers range from small high-street shops, florist studios and flower stalls to high-end corporate, hotel and event florists.

New Covent Garden Market is currently going through an exciting redevelopment project. It will see the Flower Market relocate a few hundred metres down Nine Elms Lane where work has already started to build a new, better home for flowers. The new Flower Market will open in January 2017 and will ensure the wholesalers continue to flower London, and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, for many years to come.

About Veevers Carter      www.veeverscarter.com

Veevers Carter is one of London’s largest and most prestigious floral design and events companies. Established in 1984 by Ming Veevers Carter, the company has a fully-fledged team of florists, designers and operational staff that, alongside their sister company Event Concept, can realise an event of any size to an exceptional standard.

Veevers Carter works with some of London’s most sought-after venues and have built an enviable client list of corporate organisations, event organisers and private individuals both in the UK and internationally. This is among one of the most exciting projects the two companies have ever worked on.