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Chet and Kristy Anderson are flower farming pioneers, having operated The Fresh Herb Co. for more than four decades, supplying farmers’ markets and Whole Foods shoppers in the Rocky Mountain region, selling their flowers direct to local customers, and hosting weddings and events at their beautiful farm in Longmont, Colorado. Joined by their adult son, also called Chet, they continue to expand The Fresh Herb Co., including its impressive, year-round lily program. Next week, they will open their farm to fellow growers as part of the regional meeting for the ASCFG – and today’ you’ll enjoy a preview.

I am especially excited to talk today with the Anderson family – parents Chet and Kristy, and their eldest son, Chet. His brother Nick is also involved in the family business. This is a forty-one-year-old operation, beginning with culinary herbs and salad greens, and for the past 20 years, having a focus on specialty cut flowers, hanging baskets, succulent bowls, and yes, of course, those beautiful herbs. The year-round greenhouse program produces 6,000- to 8,000 Asiatic and Oriental lilies each week, which is nothing short of mind-blowing.

I first met Chet and Kristy when I was invited to speak at the Denver Botanic Garden in 2011. Their embrace of my passion for Slow Flowers led to an invitation to tour their farm, and my collaborator, photographer David Perry, and I immediately knew we wanted to include their story in the book we were creating – which eventually became The 50 Mile Bouquet, published in 2012. Read that story below:

I’ve been back to lecture and teach at DBG, but also was privileged to attend two of the Field to Vase Dinners that Chet and Kristy and their family hosted during my years helping to get Certified American Grown’s farm dinner program off the ground.

What a delightful chance to reconnect today, get caught up on what these talented flower farmers and entrepreneurs are doing, and to include a discussion specifically about growing lilies in crates, under glass, for a massive year-round sales program.

Those of you who will attend the ASCFG regional meeting on September 11-12 are in for a huge treat. For the rest of you, we have a bonus video tour that the two Chets dad filmed and recorded for us.

Listen: Chet and Kristy Anderson on the Slow Flowers Podcast – Episode 177 (January 20, 2015)

Watch: Slow Flowers Member Meet-up with Chet and Kristy – April 8, 2022

Bonus: Lily Tips from The Fresh Herb Co.:
Asiatic and Oriental Lilies are some of the world’s most popular cut flowers…..and for good reasons.

They have been grown around the world for centuries, they come in a dizzying array of forms and colors, and they have an exceptional vase life of 10-14 days. A value flower if there ever was one!

Asiatic Lilies are characterized by their slightly smaller bloom size, warm tone colors (yellow, orange, red), and little to no fragrance.

Oriental Lilies, by contrast, have far larger blooms, are typically cooler tone colors (white and light to dark pink), and have an exquisite vanilla/nutmeg-like fragrance!

If you have never tried lilies before, now is the time to buy a few bunches and see if they don’t become your new favorite cut flower!

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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.

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 Rooted Farmers. Rooted Farmers works exclusively with local growers to put the highest-quality specialty cut flowers in floral customers’ hands. When you partner with Rooted Farmers, you are investing in your community, and you can expect a commitment to excellence in return. Learn more at RootedFarmers.com.

Thank you to 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. Find the full catalog of flower seeds and bulbs at johnnyseeds.com.

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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

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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!

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Music Credits:

Drone Pine; Gaena; Don Germaine
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

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Today, I have two interviews and this is Part One. First up, a delightful mother-daughter design duo shares their story. Owner of Belle Pétale, a Seattle-based studio, Teresa Rao is an avid gardener and flower lover who in 2020 transitioned from a 16-year corporate training career to floristry. She has based her boutique design studio at home, where she can clip foliage and blooms from her garden while also parenting Priya, her eight-year-old daughter.

The studio name, Belle Pétale, comes from a childhood love of petals (Teresa and her sister were frequent flower girls for relatives’ weddings) and a passion for all things French. Teresa’s home interiors reflect her floral styling and a recent kitchen remodel was designed with her floral studio in mind. As it turns out, Teresa and Priya recently invited me to tea, so Priya and I could celebrate our shared birthday, February 28th. I asked them to design their signature floriography posies after tea. We had so much fun and I can’t wait for you to watch along.

Thank you so much for joining our conversation. And thank YOU to Teresa and Priya for sharing their mutual love of and talent for floriography! If you have a copy of Where We Bloom, the book we produced last year to showcase creative floral spaces owned by 37 Slow Flowers members, you saw Teresa in the pages, with photography by Missy Palacol.

In that chapter, she told me, “I want to make sure I’m supporting farmers who are growing domestic flowers. I always share where my bouquets are sourced and I use hashtags like #supportyourlocalflowerfarmers, drawing attention to the mission that my business is part of while educating my clients and the public about why it’s important.”

And now, with her new studio space at a neighboring property, Teresa will soon have a much-expanded Belle Petale cutting garden to help her keep things hyper-local. 

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Here’s some timely news! Coming up this Friday, April 8th, at 9 am Pacific-Noon Eastern, you can join the Slow Flowers Member Virtual Meet-Up on Zoom! Enjoy a Greenhouse Tour with our special guests, Chet & Kristy Anderson of The Fresh Herb Co.

For more than two decades, The Fresh Herb Co. has produced Colorado-grown flowers, plants and herbs for the region’s Whole Foods floral departments. Based in Longmont, Colorado, the 15-acre farm grows gorgeous sunflowers, elegant lilies and peonies, bodacious hanging baskets and bowls of fresh herbs that delight market shoppers each weekend.

Chet and Kristy Anderson are featured in The 50 Mile Bouquet, written 10 years ago by Debra Prinzing and still in print. We’ll visit this gifted flower-farming couple for a virtual greenhouse tour narrated by Chet, and enjoy a peek at their prolific early-season crops, including lilies galore, hanging baskets and culinary herb planters. Come with your greenhouse growing and marketing questions!

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Thank You to our Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 880 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.

Thank you to our lead sponsor, returning for 2022, Farmgirl Flowers. Farmgirl Flowers delivers iconic burlap-wrapped bouquets and lush, abundant arrangements to customers across the U.S., supporting U.S. flower farms by purchasing more than $10 million dollars of U.S.-grown fresh and seasonal flowers and foliage annually. Discover more at farmgirlflowers.com.

Thank you to 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.

Thank you to 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.

Thank you to Red Twig Farms. Based in Johnstown, Ohio, Red Twig Farms is a family-owned farm specializing in peonies, daffodils, tulips and branches, a popular peony-bouquet-by-mail program and their Spread the Hope Campaign where customers purchase 10 tulip stems for essential workers and others in their community. Learn more at redtwigfarms.com.

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Thanks so much for joining us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeavor, downloaded more than 834,000 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 and consider making a donation to sustain Slow Flowers’ ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right at slowflowerspodcast.com.

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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. 

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Music credits:
Entwined Oddity; Turning on the Lights; Gaena
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

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A few weeks ago, I spent three wonderful days in Denver, where I reconnected with my Slow Flowers friends and met many new ones.

I was there as a guest of the Denver Botanic Gardens, returning for a second time as a featured presenter in the 2018 Bonfils-Stanton Lecture Series, “The Edge of Art and Gardens.”

Hats off to the educational staff, including director Matthew Cole and associate director Sarah Olson and the other amazing staffers for making me feel welcome and for running such an excellent program.

Slow Flowers was the program in September and it involved a lecture that I presented titled “American Beauty.”

As part of DBG’s commitment to bring its members into the larger community of horticulture and nature, the educational team asked me to help develop a series of field trips and workshops on flower farms during my time there.

I was so pleased to showcase three farms that mean a lot to me, including Slow Flowers members Red Daisy Farm and CityGal Farms, and The Fresh Herb Company, which is featured in the pages of The 50 Mile Bouquet.

We spent one day at The Fresh Herb Company in Longmont, Colorado, home of Chet and Kristy Anderson, for an extensive farm tour and catered lunch from a local farm-to-table purveyor.

Lunch under the cottonwood trees — what could be a better way to cap off Chet’s personalized flower tour of the fields, greenhouses and pack house?! As you may know, in addition to appearing in articles and books I’ve written, Chet and Kristy are past guests of this podcast.

The following day, we had two tours on the schedule. I’ll tell you about our visit to Red Daisy Farm in Brighton, Colorado, first. Meg McGuire and Terry Bauman own Red Daisy Farm, where they grow cut beautiful flowers to sell to florists and DIY brides, operate an equally beautiful Air BnB on the farm, and open up the barn for regular sales of antiques, collectibles and Meg and her sister’s regular vintage finds.

The DBG group gathered for a farm tour with Meg, followed by a delicious lunch and a hands-on floral design workshop that I taught, using gorgeous flowers, herbs and foliage from the farm. Meg is a past guest of this podcast.

We had sold-out attendances at The Fresh Herb Co. and at Red Daisy Farm and I’m so pleased that more people in that community connected with locally-grown flowers in a significant way by meeting the people behind the flowers. That’s authentic and beats any expensive marketing campaign, folks.

Our final tour was set for CityGal Farms, owned by Kim Burton and her husband Ken in Lakewood, Colorado, just outside Denver’s city limits. I was so excited to see Kim’s operation, because she had invited us to visit during harvest and production for CityGal’s regular bouquet-making session.

Denver Botanic Garden has been promoting this Slow Flowers programming for months, which is why we were so devastated for Kim when one week prior to the tour a summer hail storm hammered CityGal Farms.

She posted photos of the hail damage on her Facebook page and wrote this:

Late Wednesday, our farm got hit with hail, rain and wind. Most of our orders had thankfully been harvested, and while not everything was destroyed, our plants took a pretty heavy beating. Thankfully we have a good team that jumped into action, and we are babying them back to health. Getting hit with hail is never good for farmers, and we join the roster of many Colorado farmers who have been affected by hail this year; getting hit in the biggest wedding month of the year and our opportunity to turn a profit is painful. Still, we love what we do, and the little bit of beauty we bring. Thanks to our amazing crew and customers who continue to support our farm. We are humbled by your dedication. 

The tour was regrettably cancelled, but the good news is that CityGal Farms is bouncing back, like so many others have done. In fact, similar wind and hailstorms have hit Red Daisy Farm twice this year — last spring and early summer, damaging their hoop houses and destroying huge swaths of flowers. And at The Fresh Herb Company a few years back, flooding and the residual mud flow from that disaster wiped out nearly a full season’s production.

There is passion and true grit behind what flower farmers do — day in and day out. And I’m so proud to be in this community where we can support one another, share ideas, dreams, resources, experiences. I am also committed to helping those in the Slow Flowers Community tell their stories.

Today, that story comes from Kim Burton of CityGal Farms. She has taken a path that will resonate with many of you. One that is a deeply personal narrative that led her from a corporate background to a life connected with the land.

I love how Gina Hemmings of Mossflower, a CityGal floral design customer and Slow Flowers member, describes the farm on her web site’s “meet the grower” page. Gina writes:

Hidden in plain sight, CityGal Farms is an urban farm and farmhouse retreat (available via Airbnb) located just 5 miles west of downtown Denver. Kim grows classic and beautiful focal flowers such as dahlias, lisianthus and garden roses utilizing organic methods. She’s also growing interesting foliage and accent flowers including bells of Ireland, raspberry and blackberry vines, scented geranium, herbs and delphinium. On summer weekends, you can find Kim at the Union Station and Pearl Street Farmers Markets in Denver.

Please enjoy my conversation with Kim Burton. Here’s how you can find and follow CityGal Farms:

CityGal Farms on Facebook

CityGal Farms on Instagram

This week, I’ll be in Raleigh, N.C., with the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, annual symposium — where I will be presenting a preview of the 2019 Slow Flowers Floral Insights & Industry Forecast. I’m eager to connect with so many of you! And you can be sure that I’ll have my audio recorded and microphone with me to capture more interviews to bring to listeners. Stay tuned!

We have a vital and vibrant community of flower farmers and floral designers who together define the Slow Flowers Movement. As our cause gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of the American cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious.

I know you feel it, too. I value your support and invite you to show your thanks and with a donation to support my ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right.

The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 363,000 times by listeners like you. Thank you for listening, commenting and sharing – it means so much.

Thank you to our sponsors who have supported Slow Flowers and all our programs.

Florists’ Review magazine. I’m delighted to serve as Contributing Editor for Slow Flowers Journal, found in the pages of Florists’ Review. It’s the leading trade magazine in the floral industry and the only independent periodical for the retail, wholesale and supplier market.

Arctic Alaska Peonies, a cooperative of passionate family farms in the heart of Alaska providing bigger, better 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 longfield-gardens.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

Mayesh Wholesale Florist. Family-owned since 1978, Mayesh is the premier wedding and event supplier in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to partner with Mayesh to promote local and domestic flowers, which they source from farms large and small around the U.S. Learn more at mayesh.com.

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.

And the Team Flower Conference – a professional floral event where flower lovers from all over the world gather for networking, learning, and celebration. It’s a special time for the floral industry to come together and whether you’re a farmer, designer, wholesaler, or just love flowers, you’re invited to attend as Team Flowers dreams big for the industry’s future. Head to teamflower.org/slowflowers to learn more about the 2019 conference in Waco, Texas!

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 soundbodymovement.com. 

This week’s Slow Flowers Challenge comes to you from the flower farms of Colorado!

I spent several days last week as a guest of Chet and Kristy Anderson, owners of The Fresh Herb Co., based in Longmont, Colorado. We featured the Andersons and their beautiful farm, flowers and philosophy in The 50 Mile Bouquet – in a chapter called “Rocky Mountain Flowers.”

You can learn more about this couple in our Slow Flowers Podcast episode that aired earlier this year.

Returning to Colorado was a delightful excuse to play with flowers picked from fields just steps away from the back door. I was there to co-host the fourth Field to Vase Dinner of 2015 – farm-to-table dining experiences held on flower farms across the country.

Chet and Kristy graciously welcomed this very special gathering at The Fresh Herb Co. Eighty lucky guests enjoyed a delicious meal, local wine and an unparalleled setting next to the gurgling Left Hand Creek. Flowers were on the table and the conversation was all about American grown flowers, the Slow Flowers movement, and the important reasons to focus on domestic, local, seasonal and sustainable flowers. Check out this beautiful and engaging blog post about the dinner from Boulder photographer Kirsten Boyer, “Slow Flowers and Slow Friendships.”

When Chet was asked to speak, he uttered a very simple sentence that resonated with me: “Without people buying our flowers, we wouldn’t exist!”

I deeply believe in his statement. And this is what motivates me, to honor and value the lives and work of flower farmers like Chet and Kristy.

I share this lovely bouquet and I really can’t take credit for the design. This is a market bouquet similar to those that they harvest, gather and sell each week at the Boulder and Longmont Farmers’ Markets. 

While in Boulder, I had a fun chance to speak about the Slow Flowers Movement and local, American-grown flowers at an evening sponsored by the Boulder Co. Farmers’ Market.

The Market also promoted the Field to Vase Dinner by giving away two free tickets. The winner was Matt Carson of 934 Farms LLC, based in Milliken, Colorado. A relatively new flower farmer, Matt and his wife Jonie grow gladiolas and also sell them at the Boulder Co. Farmers’ Market.

I couldn’t make it to their farm, about 45 minutes outside Boulder. But I did get to shop at Matt’s stall and purchase some gorgeous glads from him on Saturday morning. It was a treat to add those tall, elegant stems to the bouquet given to me by Nick Anderson, Chet and Kristy’s son.

I’ll try and list all of the flowers included below.

Colorado-grown LOCAL and SEASONAL bouquet:

From The Fresh Herb Co.: Oriental lilies, zinnias, goldenrod (Solidago sp.), bachelor’s buttons and MINT!!! Boy, does it smell glorious!

From 934 Farm LLC: Eight variously-hued gladiolas

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It is my pleasure to introduce you this week to Chet and Kristy Anderson, veteran flower farmers and owners of The Fresh Herb Co., based in Boulder, Colorado.

If you’re a member of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers or if you’ve read the “Rocky Mountain Flowers” chapter in The 50 Mile Bouquet, you’re already familiar with the Anderson name — and their beautiful flowers.

The Fresh Herb Company is a specialty grower of culinary and ornamental greenhouse crops and fresh field-cut flowers, proudly serving the Rocky Mountain West local market for over 30 years.

Chet and Kristy grow fresh greenhouse and field-cut flowers May through October. They market field fresh bouquets, peonies, phlox, sunflowers, zinnias, delphinium, larkspur, and many more varieties to customers throughout the Rocky Mountain Region — including grocery chains, weddings and special events., as well as at the Boulder County Farmers Market,

Warm, intelligent, creative and engaging, this couple has been so generous over the years in sharing their home and time with me. I visited their farm in May 2011, after being part of a lecture series at the Denver Botanic Garden.

We reconnected in November 2012, when Kristy and Chet came to the ASCFG national conference that was held in Tacoma. And when it turned out that I was going to fly through Denver on my way to a conference for professional speakers this past November, well . . . I basically invited myself to Longmont, about 20 minutes from Boulder, where the Andersons live on the most picturesque flower farm.

Chet emailed me back almost immediately, saying “yes.” Hi Debra…..we would love to see you. Let’s count on seeing you here at the farm at 12:ish.  We’ll have a bite here and get you on the road in time to make it to the Springs by 4:00. Sound ok? Thanks, C.

I was eager to see Kristy and Chet and to get an update on how things had progressed in the previous 12 months.

You see, in mid-September of 2013, we got word that an autumn storm in their area caused devastating floods from Lefthand Creek, wiping out a huge portion of The Fresh Herb Co.’s farm. Right after the disaster, Chet wrote this in an email:

” . . . pretty bad here. House is fine; greenhouse is mostly OK. Barn and coolers are still taking on water but are mostly OK. Pump house is gone. The pond is FULLY silted in (very amazing!). All roads to and from our facilities are gone and there is only one way out of here to town. Flower fields very rough….not sure what will survive, though the peonies fared the best (ya gotta love peonies, eh?). Biggest bummer may be that I have 3,000 bunches of sunflowers and nearly 500 beautiful bouquets in the cooler with no place to go! Dang! . . . “

And then he concluded with a few words that tell you volumes about Chet’s rather upbeat outlook on life:

“As we all know, things could always be worse. Very thankful that family and friends, and house are all safe. Now simply the cleanup.”

I always say that American flower farmers are tenacious and resilient. Listen to our conversation as evidence.

After a delightful lunch featuring butternut squash soup (so beautiful that I had to photograph it!), we walked the farm, saw the enlarged and repaired greenhouse, now 17,000 square feet in size, admired all the new peonies and perennials that were in the ground, ready to hunker down through winter in anticipation of spring.

Then Kristy, Chet and I sat outdoors on their stone patio. Yes, it was early November in Colorado, and yes, it snowed just a few days later at the conference where I was, at least, in Colorado Springs. But I felt the sunshine on my shoulders and was truly warmed by our conversation. Thanks for listening in . . .

I’d love you to read the entire story about Chet and Kristy, as included in The 50 Mile Bouquet.

Download the PDF of their chapter here: Rocky_Mountain_Flowers_The_50_Mile_Bouquet

And if you are lucky enough to make it to Boulder, Colorado, make sure to schedule a day at their famous Farmer’s Market and stop by to say hello to these intrepid and passionate folks!

Listeners like you are downloading and listening to the Slow Flowers Podcast more than ever before! We have exceeded 30,000 downloads and every time that figure climbs, I’m encouraged that more people are learning about the farmers and florists who are keeping American-grown flowers thriving.  So I thank you!!! If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.

The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Wheatley and Hannah Holtgeerts.

Where have I been lately? Last week, I hopped on an airplane and flew to Denver, which surprisingly is only 2-1/4 hours away from Seattle.

At the invitation of the Denver Botanic Gardens, my collaborator David Perry and I spent three lovely days giving talks and workshops about some of our favorite topics. We met some wonderful new friends and were inspired by the DBG’s beauty as a public space for all of Denver to enjoy.

Last Wednesday evening, I spoke about the “Personal Outdoor Dwelling,” aka “stylish sheds,” featuring many of Bill Wright’s gorgeous photos from our book Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.

Then on Thursday, David and I made a joint presentation on “A Year in Flowers: Seasonal, Local and Sustainable Ingredients.” We split the talk into two parts, an illustrated lecture and a flower design demonstration.

I was so fortunate that Denver floral artist and designer Arthur Williams, of Babylon Floral, helped procure locally-grown cut flowers for me to work with. Not only that, but he lent me some vases to use. We so enjoyed meeting Arthur and visiting his colorful shop (he’s pretty colorful, too – check out his arms!).

The following morning, Dave taught a hands-on photo workshop that wowed his students with new-found skills for their point-and-shoot digital cameras.

While Dave was with his students, I wandered along the Botanic Garden paths and through the various themed displays, taking in early Rocky Mountain spring day.

We found that the pace of spring’s unfolding in Denver is quite similar to Seattle’s this year. In other words, cooler than normal and later than normal. You’ll see what I mean in the photos I took.

On Friday, we spent a delightful afternoon with my friend and former editor Marlene Blessing. Marlene was my editor on The Abundant Garden and she also created the Pacific Northwest Garden Survival Guide and asked me to write it in 2004. She is an awesome writing coach and an encouraging advisor from whom I learned a lot about storytelling and book creation. I gained much confidence as a writer while working with this dear woman.

Marlene is presently the editor-in-chief of Interweave Press Books. After all the hue and cry about the publishing world falling apart, we took great comfort in the inspired, aggressive and confident approach to niche publishing embodied by this Loveland, Colorado-based imprint. With an emphasis on fiber arts and craft books, Interweave is led by a highly creative and innovative group, including Marlene. You can only imagine the compelling topics we covered during dinner later that evening. Marlene calls Interweave Press founder and creative director Linda Ligon her “Sensei,” but we kinda want to call Marlene our very own Sensei — what a breath of fresh air in a world of book-making!

After eating a delicious meal at Sugarbeet, a hip Longmont restaurant, we retired rather late and incredibly satisfied with our productive day. Bright and early Saturday morning, I picked Dave up at his hotel and we drove about 30 minutes to Boulder. There, we met up with Chet and Kristy Anderson, owners of The Fresh Herb Co., at their Boulder County Farmer’s Market booth.

Chet and Kristy’s farm is actually in Longmont, and they sell most of what they grow through Whole Foods and other retail outlets, but they still bring herb plants, hanging baskets and cut flowers to this market every Saturday. It is the only market in this part of Colorado that requires its vendors to sell what they produce. No dealers or re-sellers here. You meet the growers, purveyors and farmers who have raised or produced their goods – from amazing mushrooms to colorful Easter egg-colored radishes, to beautiful bouquets and more.

It was fun to walk the market with Chet, who, I swear, could easily be called the “mayor” of the Boulder County Farmer’s Market. His popularity seems second only to his mother Belle’s popularity. She is there every week, helping at The Fresh Herb Co. booth, talking with new and returning customers, and greeting other vendors as longtime friends. It was fun to meet her!

We followed Chet back to the family’s homestead and farm so that David could do some photography before a tour group from Denver Botanic Garden arrived. Leesly Leon, the DBG’s adult program coordinator, lined up the field trip so that some of the students in our workshops could have a first-hand visit to a flower farm. Chet and Kristy are very successful at what they do, but they are also passionate and humble about their role in bringing flowers from their fields to the customer’s vase.

 “When you know and meet the grower, and when the flowers are fresh and locally grown, there’s no better flower bargain,” Chet told the group. We couldn’t agree more!

Here are some more photographs from our trip – I loved every moment, every visual impression, and the great people we met.