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The Zweifel Family enjoys the nearby Oregon Coast, From left, daughter Nina, and Monika and Patrick Zweifel.

In the fall, there’s a pretty fun Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze at Oregon Coastal. Here, Patrick poses with his daughter Nina.

Patrick Zweifel’s Oregon Coastal Flowers – his 64-acre, Tillamook, Oregon-based farm – has been well received by florists who shop at the Portland Flower Market, the Los Angeles Flower Market District and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market where you can find permanent stalls filled with his gorgeous hydrangeas, calla lilies and Oregon forest products.

Feast your eyes on the Hydrangea Fields at Oregon Coastal Flowers. Field-grown, true-blue hydrangeas! You can’t get it any better!

Here’s that awesome new Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Pistachio’ that Patrick talked about in our interview. 

Here’s an arial view of Oregon Coastal Flowers where you can spot the full-size competitive race track amidst the fields. 

Check out the Crocosmia borders! 

Patrick’s message is that if you can find your niche and be the very best in that niche, you *might* succeed. Being the best means producing excellent, high-quality botanical and floral elements. It also means the type of customer service you provide and the relationships you build with customers.

But no matter how beautiful or fresh the bloom, domestic farmers face competition on price, especially from importers who buy from low-wage countries, Patrick says. “I was the first person in the U.S. to sell colored calla lilies in a big way. I couldn’t have bought my farm without them. Then the South Americans started selling callas for 30-cents-per-stem against my $1-per-stem product. And they had added incentives, like buy one box, get a second one for free.  I just can’t compete with South America on callas, even if my quality is great.” Patrick describes how cheap imports nearly ruined his core business – colored calla lilies. By 2008, he was faced with devastating losses of 85% of his total revenue and Patrick was driven to save his company.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t see that he had a choice. With a mortgage on his farm and family and employees to support, Patrick searched for a way to diversify Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The wedding pavilion at Hydrangea Ranch, a gorgeous event space at Oregon Coastal Flowers.

The romantic Alder arbors created at Oregon Coastal Farms from alder poles harvested on local forest land.

Hear the optimistic story of how he’s survived and moved beyond that episode to become even more solid in knowing his niche. This is a story of never giving up – and being smart and resourceful enough to find a solution that satisfies your customers, to provide products that meet a need in the floral marketplace, and to find new marketplaces for those products. 

Mossy branches – a signature product offering.

Here are those little log “cake plates” that Patrick has popularized among the floral, wedding & event world.

Oh, wow, those Alder logs!

All kinds of goodies from the Oregon forest: mosses, ferns, gnarly surprises!

Patrick credits his ability to quickly change direction for saving his business. He noticed a few years ago that floral designers were snatching up his offerings of Northwest forest products, such as lichen-clad branches, soft green mosses, cone-laden conifer boughs and other woodland items, infusing their bouquets with a naturalistic feel. In the past three years, Oregon Coastal Flowers has increased the variety of specialty forest items, while at the same time shrinking its acreage devoted to calla lily production. With forest service permits that allow him to legally harvest everything from birch saplings to decaying tree trunks, Patrick has seen his sales double from 2010 to 2011.

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Holly Heider Chapple, in one of her favorite places on earth: Her own backyard flower garden. “The Answer is in the Garden,” she says.

We’re getting the New Year off to a fabulous start with today’s guest, floral designer, social media maven, educator and mentor to studio and wedding florists around the globe, Holly Heider Chapple.  Based in Leesburg, Virginia, she is active in the wedding and event industry serving customers in the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland areas. 

Like many people who know and follow this talented and engaging woman, I met Holly “virtually” through Facebook or some other social media channel. As soon as she “friended” me, I wrote to Holly and said: let’s have a phone date. We realized our mutual connection is Alicia Schwede of Flirty Fleurs and Bella Fiore, a past guest on this podcast and a new transplant to the Pacific Northwest.  

Well that phone date with Holly morphed into today’s podcast – a whirlwind conversation that follows Holly’s life from a childhood helping her parents grow, tend to and sell plants to an amazing family of her own. 

Holly shared several of her designs featuring mostly ingredients from her own garden. Here is one yummy creation.

And a garden-inspired wedding dinner, bride and groom included!

We all need a jolt of optimism for the seasons ahead. Whether you’re a floral designer seeking inspiration or an American flower farmer who wonders if the floral industry really cares about all the attention you give to the botanicals you produce . . . I think you’ll find it here. 

Holly has a totally fresh take on the world of flowers and I think that’s why she is so successful with some of her new ventures, including the Chapel Designers conference and forum, now in its 4th year. Plus, by her own admission, she is a sharer. She is one of those people who isn’t afraid that sharing her expertise and knowledge with YOU will somehow diminish HER. I subscribe to this approach to my own life and work, which made it so easy to converse, long-distance, with Holly.

Garden flowers in an urn; all the elements grown in Heidi’s garden.

Another luscious bridal bouquet. Everything but the roses come from Holly’s Garden.

Here is her bio:

A dedicated mother, wife and entrepreneur, Holly is the creative visionary behind Holly Heider Chapple Flowers. A longtime resident of Loudoun County Virginia, Holly is a highly recognized and sought after floral designer who’s work has been published in a number of prestigious publications and can regularly be found in top industry blogs. With 21 years of successful business experience behind her, Holly now serves as a teacher, speaker and mentor for other professionals in the wedding industry. Having raised 7 children, and recognizing her most important life role as a mother, Holly appreciates also being known as “Flower Mamma” among her network of industry professionals. Additionally, based on her incredible and unique sense of style, the term “Hollyish” emerged in 2011 as a way of describing designs that possess the elegance, beauty and creativity of those that leave Holly’s studio.

Armed with a strong desire to help other floral designers and event professionals be successful, Holly established the Chapel Designers (a division of Holly Heider Chapple Flowers) in 2011, as an international network of florists and event designers who gather together every year in New York City to collaborate, learn, and create.

What started as a desire to network with other like minded business owners, has blossomed into an incredible group of professionals comprised of longtime designers, up and coming designers, and people just starting their design journey. The Chapel Designers is growing every day and is proud to have members from all over the world.

Remaining dedicated to quality of design and service has allowed Holly Heider Chapple Flowers to be recognized over and over again for exceptional products and client experiences while maintaining an unrelenting desire to drive industry trends. Holly describes her business in her own words: “I have had the privilege of training with great designers across the country and in Europe. One of my most favorite and unique experiences recently was volunteering with the installation of the White House Christmas decorations. All of these experiences combined with running a business from my home, where I can spend quality time with my husband and children has made me into the business owner I am today. I take each of my roles as a mother, mentor and designer seriously and continue to grow every day. My studio has been blessed to have our work published in Martha Stewart, Southern Living Weddings, Weddings Unveiled, Brides, The Knot, Washingtonian, Southern Weddings, Virginia Living, In Touch Weekly Magazine, Elegant Bride, Engaged Magazine, and many local publications, and I can’t wait to see what the next few years will bring. I know there are still big things to come.”

My conversation with Holly was super inspiring and I will thoroughly enjoy2014 as I watch all that she achieves. Please be sure to add her to your “follow” list if you haven’t done so yet.

A lovely tabletop of home-grown florals.

And a seasonal zinnia bouquet that’s inspired by a vivid color palette.

Here are Holly’s platforms to follow:

Her Blog: The Full Bouquet

Twitter: @chappleflowers @chapeldesigners

Facebook: HollyHeiderChappleFlowers

Instagram: Holly Chapple

And thank you  for joining me in this episode of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast with Debra Prinzing.

Because of your support as a listener, we have had nearly 5000 downloads in six months’ time – and I thank you for taking the time to join to my conversations with flower farmers, florists and other notable floral experts.

If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

Until next week please join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. 

As we heard from Holly,

The Answer’s in the Garden.

I couldn’t agree more.

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about her work at hhcreates.net. All photographs shared here,courtesy of Holly Heider Chapple.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every Sunday morning during 2013 I posted the Slow Flowers’ seasonal “bouquet-of-the-week” to share with you. We tracked the seasonal story of floral design, flowers, foliage and the farmers and gardens from which those ingredients came! It was a fantastic year in flowers, wasn’t it?

So what’s up for 2014?

For now, I’m going to take a break from weekly floral postings, but that does not mean I’ll be sitting around with my feet up on the ottoman perusing seed catalogs. No, I’ve been busy for the better part of the past six months working on the upcoming launch of Slowflowers.com. 

Today, the funding campaign went live on Indiegogo and I invite you to check it out here. You’ll find lots of background information about why and how Slowflowers.com began.

I have many people to thank for helping me get to this point. Special thanks to Hannah Holtgeerts of HHcreates.net and her brother Luke Holtgeerts for creating the all-important video!

Preview it here: 

httpv://vimeo.com/83407503

 FRESH PICKED AND EVERGREEN

Local Washington tulips fill one of my favorite pedestal vases. The greenery and branches are all from my garden.

Here we are at the final week of the year. And I want to share with you a final look at my year-long project to create, photograph and write about 52 consecutive weeks of local and seasonal floral arrangements.

It was a fabulous ride – and one that rewarded me with so many gifts, friendships and experiences.

Today, I’m sharing a bonus bouquet – created during my one-year odyssey. It didn’t make it into Slow Flowers, but I’m not sure why. I truly love this arrangement, which was created with downed confier branches and bare twigs from my vine maple tree — all free for the taking! They’re paired with two small bunches of white and creamy-yellow tulips grown by Alm Hill Gardens and purchased at Seattle’s Pike Place Market just after Christmas.

The chicken wire is somewhat inelegant, but you’d never know it by looking at the finished bouquet above.

This is just the sort of shallow vase into which a conventional florist would stick a chunk of foam before arranging the branches and stems. But if you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know I am a big hater of foam.

A simple square of chicken wire, formed into a mushroom-cap shape and inserted into the opening of the vase, is the perfect alternative. I use this wire over and over again, rarely throwing it into the recycling bin until I’ve gone through multiple arrangements.

Enjoy! Not sure when I’ll resume this bouquet-a-week project, but I promise to share more of my local, seasonal and sustainable floral projects in 2014.

THE ALLURE OF AMARYLLIS

‘Joker’, a red-streaked amaryllis – perfect for a long-lasting holiday display

Ingredients:

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Meet Lynn Fosbender, owner of Pollen Inc., a Chicago floral design studio with a green ethos.

Lynn Fosbender is a Chicago-based owner of Pollen Inc., a sustainable floral design studio for weddings and events. This talented young woman is a leader in the sustainable floral and green wedding industry. And to me, she’s a true Slow Flowers hero!

Here’s a selection of her floral artistry, through the seasons of the year:

Lynn knows her local sources, having cultivated relationships with flower farmers in Illinois, Wisconsin and MIchigan – all of whom serve the greater Chicago marketplace. I photographed Lynn while shopping for a wedding client at her local farmers’ market.

We met in 2010 when I was on a college visit with my oldest son. While he was getting oriented, I invited myself to tag along with Lynn as she shopped for flowers at a local farmer’s market. Afterwards, we returned to the Pollen studio, which at the time was located in an old brick warehouse next to Chicago’s famous “El” trains. 

Lynn’s design philosophy is influenced by both horticulture and ecology. With a B.A. in Horticulture and graduate studies in Restoration Ecology, you might wonder why Lynn ended up working with flowers.

Her career choice can be credited to a love for great design combined with extensive experience creating bouquets and arrangements for conventional florists (including a 4-year gig managing one of Chicago’s top retail flower shops).

Seasonal and Sustainable Bouquets by Pollen

Yet even while working in the world of cutting edge-floral design, Lynn knew she wanted to use sustainable practices, something she hadn’t much observed in the industry.

“I was looking at all the stuff we were throwing away that should have been composted,” for example, she says. “For several years I thought I would like to own a full-service flower shop that was eco-friendly. I knew if anyone should do it, it should be me.”

Lynn’s vision was adopted by a group of MBA students at Loyola University who developed a business plan inspired by her ideas. Thus, Pollen Inc., was born in 2009.

A beautiful centerpiece.

After our early-morning farmer’s market stop, I followed Lynn back to the studio. With her arms filled with pale peach lilies, a bunch of verdant millet seedheads and dozens of brilliant sunflowers grown by a local Illinois flower farmer, Lynn led me upstairs to her light-filled loft-like space. 

She processed the flowers while we discussed her green philosophy, the challenges of keeping brides (and grooms) happy with their flower choices, and the future for sustainable flower design.

It’s no surprise to learn that local farmers who sell to Chicago area floral designers are limited by a growing season that ranges from May through October.

A luscious color palette from Pollen.

In the colder months Lynn thinks beyond the obvious path and seeks to find sustainable options – even out of season. She orders Veriflora-certified California-grown flowers and also occasionally relies on a Chicago-area wholesale supplier for non-domestic Veriflora flowers as a second option.

 “Otherwise, I would be using twigs and moss – that’s what’s local in the winter,” Lynn says with a grin. But then, she pauses and mentions a favorite local source for orchids – a popular wedding flower that’s greenhouse grown.

“I try to offer people more eco-friendly alternatives; things they might not otherwise notice,” she explains.

Lynn avoids using oasis, glues, dyes or sprays, almost always using water-filled vases for arrangements. By offering an affordable vase-rental service for weddings and events, Lynn makes it easy for clients to make the eco-friendly choice.

She also promotes and markets her studio in the green wedding world, collaborating with other vendors such as caterers, photographers and invitation printers.

Here’s a short interview with Lynn. She discusses her motivation for using sustainable flowers, as well as The Chicago Green Wedding Alliance, a collaboration she launched with like-minded businesses and artists:

It is so refreshing to meet and connect with designers like Lynn and so many of my previous Slow Flowers guests. There is a renaissance going on in the floral industry and these are the people to watch – the progressively minded designers who realize that consumer attitudes and desires have shifted – and that delivering American-grown flowers and using sustainable practices is a priority to those consumers. That’s smart business not just smart values.

Thank you  for joining me in this episode of the SLOW FLOWERS Podcast with Debra Prinzing. 

Because of your support as a listener, we have had more than 4,000 downloads since July – and I thank you for taking the time to join to my conversations with flower farmers, florists and other notable floral experts.

If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

Until next week please join me in putting more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. 

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about her work at hhcreates.net. 

ILEX BERRIES AND PAPER WHITES

One must maintain a little bit of summer,
even in the middle of winter.
–Henry David Thoreau

Welcome to the Holiday Season, when flowers are less likely to originate – at least in my garden. This festive combination is a great option.

This is how all three ingredients appear together in a low tray.

Vase:

Here’s my creation, featuring a medley of white, red and various shades of green.

It was a merry ol’ time at the first Holiday Arrangement & Centerpiece Bar, which I hosted along with Whitney R. White and Erica Knowles (of Botany 101 Floral), a talented pair of floral designer friends here in Seattle. We teamed up to create two fun, hands-on design workshops for the busy holiday hostess. 

The classes took places this past Friday evening and Saturday morning, with 18 students who joined us for festive refreshments, old friendships and new connections, as well as an introduction to eco-friendly techniques and a dose of the Slow Flowers philosophy. Everyone went home with a gorgeous floral arrangement that will grace their homes now through the holidays.

Erica Knowles, Debra Prinzing & Whitney White.

The basic premise of our two workshops:

1. Get inspired by the abundance of natural beauty around us here in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere on the West Coast – all American Grown, of course!

2. Gain new skills in floral design, those you can employ throughout the coming seasons, as well.

3. Unleash your inner florist using an almost limitless supply of branches, boughs, berries and buds. 

The tables were laden with floral and foliage choices, including branches, berries, boughs and stems.

Once we set up the “Bar,” Erica, Whitney and I stepped back in total amazement. We wanted our students to be blown away by the incredible variety of garden foraged ingredients — all in season. We also wanted to add some juicy blooming treats from local Northwest and California farms and nurseries. And thanks to our friends at The Sun Valley Group in Northern California, we had the perfect bit of sparkle – Ilex verticillata branches with red berries — so much to share with everyone in the class!

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