Episode 452: Let’s Talk Mother’s Day Flowers with Lindsey McCullough of Red Twig Farms and Tara Folker of Splints & Daisies

Josh and Lindsey McCullough, Red Twig Farms

Floral design by Tara Folker of Splints & Daisies (left); Tara (right)

Mother's Day is the mother of all floral holidays. According to industry data, it's larger even than Valentine's Day. Well, this year, is unlike any floral holiday we've seen before. Valentine's Day happened before the onslaught of Coronavirus in most places. Easter came early this year, so early that it was just the beginning of understanding how COVID-19 was going to impact the floral marketplace and many of us were immobilized, in shock or didn't have much to harvest in early April.

Yet, we've been racing toward a specific date on the calendar -- Sunday, May 10th. How are you preparing for Mother's Day? There has been a lot of discussion about what I'm calling "safe, slow flowers," and through conversations with our members, I'm learning how much creativity is behind our desire to fill our customers' vases with local, seasonal, and sustainable Mother's Day flowers.

Today, we have two guests who are sharing their Stories of Resilience for our ongoing series, designed to inspire and encourage you.

Now, more than ever, the message of sustainability and seasonal and locally-available flowers is top of mind -- among consumers, flower farmers and florists.

I want the Slow Flowers Podcast to be a companion to those of you in isolation, away from your physical community of peers, neighbors, customers and friends. And I believe that sharing personal stories is one powerful way to sustain ourselves and our floral enterprises.

Red Twig Farms' "Spread the Hope" campaign delivered more than 1,000 spring bouquets in the community

Our first guest is flower farmer Lindsey McCullough of Red Twig Farms in New Albany, Ohio, outside Columbus. She'll be joined by Heather Kohler, Red Twig's Farm Store Manager.

Splints & Daisies designed its Mother's Day floral campaign to benefit a fellow small business

Our second guest is floral designer Tara Folker of Splints & Daisies outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I wanted to chat with them all to learn how

they're supplying flowers in a new way, reinventing what may have worked well

during past seasons, and forging ahead during less-than-ideal conditions. Their

strategies are creative, community-minded, and designed to connect customers

who care about and want seasonal blooms with their flowers.

The Farm Store at Red Twig Farms during a typical Peony Fest

Here's a bit more about Red Twig Farms:

Owned and operated by Josh & Lindsey McCullough, Red Twig Farms is a small, family-owned and operated cut flower and branch farm located in Central Ohio. Their year usually begins with pussy willow branches in February/March, followed later in the spring, when you can find the couple and their crew harvesting Peony flowers morning to night. By fall they're harvesting dogwood and willow branches in a variety of color and textures for holiday containers and decor.

Flowers and Farmers from Red Twig Farms fill the farm's Instagram feed

Red Twig Farms was born in 2010, after the family bought 9 acres across the street from their existing nursery. The land hadn’t been farmed for two decades and Lindsey and Josh saw an opportunity to use their horticulture background in a new venture. Red Twig Farms took time to get up and running, in part because peonies take 3 to 5 years to mature before you can completely harvest them . . . the farm now produces multiple varieties of peonies,