https://youtu.be/xuhf4DJpX2o?si=wyTAMBP3B1B8qw9t

Take a deep breath and inhale the intoxicating fragrance of a sweet pea. Who wouldn’t want to grow this stunning annual flower – beloved for its dreamy petal hues, evocative scent, and popularity in both the cottage cutting garden and the florist’s vase? Meet Marryn Mathis, whose students and customers call the Sweet Pea Queen, a Stanwood, Washington-based flower farmer who raises tens of thousands of sweet peas. She’s just published Sweet Pea School, an essential book based on her successful workshops. Marryn leads us down the fragrant path of sweet pea selection, growing, seed-harvesting, and arranging – and guaranteed, you will join me in wanting to grow many more sweet peas this season!

I’m not sure whether it’s a hard and fast rule, but I was taught to plant my sweet pea seeds on St. Patrick’s Day, which is also when the food gardener who shared this advice with me plants her edible peas. Traditionally, of course, I direct-sowed those seeds in my garden. And, depending on the vagaries of spring weather, some never sprout, while others happily flourish and climb their trellis support to bloom like crazy.

Marryn Mathes of The Farmhouse Flower Farm and author of Sweet Pea School

But there are much better ways to have a successful yield of gorgeous, perfumed sweet peas and it helps if you learn from Marryn Mathis, author of the brand-new book Sweet Pea School.

Marryn Mathes of The Farmhouse Flower Farm and Debra Prinzing of Slow Flowers Society

Marryn was recently our Slow Flowers Member Expert at the February meet-up, and she had attendees enthralled with her story of building a unique sweet pea business at The Farmhouse Flower Farm. Her family business grows tens of thousands of sweet peas to harvest their seeds for flower farmers, farmer-florists, gardeners and flower lovers to purchase for fall and spring planting. The Farmhouse Flower Farm is also known for selling dahlia tubers, but that’s a story for another day. Because we’re here to talk about Sweet Pea School, the gorgeous guide, which will be published on February 25th – next week.

Marryn Mathes and her sweet peas

Inspired by Marryn’s popular “sweet pea school” workshops, the gardening book is a master class in the romantic bloom, including:>sweet peas and their history;>best practices;>step-by-step instructions for designing floral arrangements with sweet peas;>a color-organized overview of popular varieties;>and Marryn’s personal story of becoming a flower farmer and building The Farmhouse Flower Farm.

Sweet peas at The Farmhouse Flower Farm

Order your book hereFind and follow The Farmhouse Flower Farm on Instagram and FacebookSign up for The Farmhouse Flower Farm newsletter and course updates

And congratulations to new Slow Flowers member Regina Grubb of Pintsized Posies – her name was selected in the random drawing of those who attended the Member Meet-Up on February 7th, and Regina will receive a copy of Marryn’s Sweet Pea School book.

Last Chance for Slow Flowers SUNDAY at the NW Flower & Garden Festival (February 23rd)

In other important news, don’t forget – the clock is ticking and there are only a few more days to register to attend Slow Flowers SUNDAY at the NWFGF on February 23rd, 9:30 am to 1 pm. Slow Flowers SUNDAY is designed for YOU -- flower farmers, farmer-florists, floral designers, flower lovers, and gardeners! TICKETS are just $99 per person, and include Continental Breakfast, Networking, three inspiring lectures and demonstrations, Door Prizes, a Gift Bag, plus complimentary admission to the NW Flower & Garden Festival.

Reserve Your Seat TODAY for Just $99

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.

https://youtu.be/Qr-Di1slgMQ?si=sHuKvg69KD_g4MIf

Join Quynh Nguyen, the paper artist behind Pink and Posey, as she shares her decade-long journey in paper artistry, from crafting her first floral arrangement to co-creating the Papertalk Podcast. Quynh is the author of The New Art of Paper Flowers – just published in late 2024. She has produced fine art paper floral installations for Nordstrom, Creative Live, Fran's Chocolates, and many more commissions, including collaborations like Greenwood Rising in Tulsa, Oklahoma; plus, CBS Sunday Morning and a recent book talk at Portland's iconic Powell's Bookstore. Quynh inspires creativity within the floral community and you’ll enjoy our conversation today -- a glimpse into one woman’s artistic journey and her enduring passion for creating beauty through paper.

Quynh Nguyen and The New Art of Paper Flowers. Portrait (c) Kelly Lemon

There are so many ways that artists of many media are engaged with florals, from fashion and interior design, to two- and three-dimensional interpretations of the botanical universe.

I first met today’s guest, Quynh Nguyen of Pink and Posey when we both spoke at a virtual Flowerstock event that Holly Chapple produced during the pandemic. Which is somewhat ironic, since Quynh and I both live in the greater Seattle area – so we’re here in the same floral world.

Paper flowers in a gorgeous spring arrangement by Quynh Nguyen

When planning our February 23rd Slow Flowers Sunday, a live gathering taking place at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, I knew I wanted to invite Quynh to be one of the day’s featured speakers. We like to cross-pollinate at Slow Flowers events and we’ve had great feedback for past artistic speakers, including Lorene Edwards Forkner, Ronni Nicole Robinson, and Amy Stewart. It makes sense to view the floral landscape as much larger than growing and designing, because our Slow Flowers world serves people yearning for a life and lifestyle filled with plants and flowers in many expressions.

The New Art of Paper Flowers

So, we’re going to learn a lot from this serial creative entrepreneur today. Quynh believes strongly in sharing what she has learned about making paper flowers and being an entrepreneur. Through speaking engagements and online courses, she shares insights from her background in marketing and finance, as well as the invaluable experience of working as a paper artist for nearly a decade.Please consider making the investment to join Slow Flowers SUNDAY at the NWFGF on February 23rd, 9:30 am to 1 pm. Here's a description of Quynh's presentation:

Paper floral artist Quynh Nguyen in her studio

11:15 a.m.-Noon - Discover the Art of Paper Flowers: A Journey of Creativity and ConnectionJoin Quynh D. Nguyen, the paper artist behind Pink and Posey, as she shares her decade-long journey in paper artistry, from crafting her first floral arrangement to founding The Posey Box and co-creating the Paper Talk Podcast. Hear about her most remarkable projects, including fine art installations for Nordstrom, Creative Live, Fran's Chocolates, and many more, including collaborations and features like Greenwood Rising in Tulsa, Oklahoma, CBS Sunday Morning, and a recent book talk at Portland's iconic Powell's Bookstore. Quynh will also share future plans, such as her Lilac Branch workshop at the Hudson Valley Workshop in New York and how she continues to inspire creativity within the community.This presentation offers a glimpse into Quynh's artistic journey and her enduring passion for creating beauty through paper. She wraps things up with a beautiful paper flower display. Note: You will receive exclusive crepe paper samples and other paper flower supplies with your purchase of Quynh's book.

SLOW FLOWERS SUNDAY - February 23rd

Slow Flowers SUNDAY is designed for YOU -- flower farmers, farmer-florists, floral designers, flower lovers, and gardeners! TICKETS are just $99 per person,

https://youtu.be/xo0eJsPkCKQ?si=JQMfrx44CujdC8ys

Last weekend I was invited to Vancouver, British Columbia, where two floral luminaries, Hitomi Gilliam and Per Benjamin, were teaching an in-person workshop for students of their Floristic Dialog courses. I wanted to interview Per to learn more of his about-to-be-published book, Sustainable Floral Design – A Sustainable Future found in History. This beautiful new book, co-authored with Max van de Sluis, draws inspiration from different periods through history and translates them into our present time, reviving forgotten techniques, materials, and styles while also generating new ideas from the past. As Per points out, the Egyptians and Renaissance period floral artists were not using floral foam, so why can’t we emulate some of their methods?

Per Benjamin and Max Van de Sluis

Today's guest is world class floral designer, Per Benjamin. Hitomi invited me to visit her in Vancouver, B.C., which is just about a 3-hour drive north of me, and I arrived there last weekend. She enticed me with news that Per Benjamin would be in town to co-teach with her and mentioned that his new book on Sustainable Floral Design would be published soon.

Debra Prinzing, Hitomi Gilliam, and Per Benjamin (c) Jim Martin

I don’t need much of an excuse to take the Slow Flowers Podcast on the road, as you know, so this past Saturday, I arrived at the Floristic Dialog workshop and sat down with Per to chat. I’m excited to share our conversation with you.

Per Benjamin at the Nobel Prize banquet

Title Page: Sustainable Floral Design Book

ORDER LINK: Sustainable Floral Design by Per Benjamin and Max van de Sluis. The cost is equivalent to about $68 US dollars and Per’s studio is set up to ship worldwide.

Hitomi Gilliam has been a past guest of the Slow Flowers Podcast and was a featured Slow Flowers Summit speaker when we gathered in Banff in 2024. I recently interviewed Hitomi about her approach to sustainable floral design for the 2025 Slow Flowers Floral Insights & Industry Forecast, drawing from her use of natural mechanics and decorative structures for floristry – we called this insight “Show Your Work.”

Per Benjamin

Per Benjamin, Benjamin's Botaniska

Let me tell you a little more about Per. I first encountered him at the 2019 World Cup in Philadelphia where he was an emcee during the competition. Through his Stockholm, Sweden-based company Benjamin’s Botaniska, Per’s work ranges from demonstrations, workshops, seminars, teaching, judging, business and marketing, team and leaderships courses, shop makeovers and coaching, large-scale events and the occasional day in a flower shop. Since his World Cup victory in 2002, Per has worked all around the world, in over 80 countries. For many years, he has designed the florals for the Nobel Prize Awards Banquet in Sweden and he is the author of dozens of books.

Let’s jump right in and meet Per Benjamin and welcome him to the Slow Flowers Podcast. And as a bonus, at the end of our conversation, Hitomi Gilliam joins Per and the two briefly discuss their collaboration with future Floristic Dialog workshops both online and in person.

I want to close with a quote from the opening pages of Sustainable Floral Design: We must change our way of thinking. Sometimes, we must forget what we have learned and done for many years and embrace the new world with respect for our children and future generations. This means letting go of materials and techniques that are harmful to the environment and finding more sustainable alternatives. We rely too heavily on single use plastic-based materials that end up in landfills or even as microplastics in our oceans. However, there are alternatives and it is important for us to make the switch if we want a future at all.

Thank you for your advocacy, Per!Find and follow Per on Instagram and FacebookSign up for future Floristic Dialog notices

Join our February Slow Flowers Member (Virtual) ...

https://youtu.be/7SxS3vDHrQo?si=EkE5x41RdrS5V0qn

Showcasing floral agriculture as a valuable farm crop in an area surrounded by ranches and alfalfa farms, Kim and Kylie operate Yellow Petal Flower Farm in Fallon, Nevada. Let's hear how they created a multi-generational, woman-led flower farm and floral design business serving Reno, Lake Tahoe, and the surrounding region. The Nevada Department of Agriculture, along with Made in Nevada, recently presented Yellow Petal Flower Farm with the 2024 Nevada Agriculture, Food and Beverage Small Business of the Year Award – and we’re here to celebrate! 

The Nevada-grown flowers of Yellow Petal Flower Farm

Kim Urso’s flower farming journey started in 2018 on a 2-acre property in Dayton, Nevada. Joined by her daughter Kylie Pack, a young mom, the women combined passion and dedication to launch Yellow Petal Flower Farm. In 2020, knowing they needed more land, and despite a global pandemic, they found a perfect location in nearby Fallon, Nevada, where now, four generations of their family make their home at Yellow Petal Flower Farm.

A floral design by Yellow Petal Flower Farm

Yellow Petal Flower Farm branding

The mobile flower stand

Thanks so much for joining me today! Find and follow Yellow Petal Flower Farm on Instagram and Facebook

You're Invited to Slow Flowers SUNDAY

In this week’s news, I want to invite you to Slow Flowers SUNDAY, our first-ever Slow Flowers gathering at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival in Seattle, Sunday, February 23rd. Our friends at the NW Flower Show invited us to host a special event, and I’m delighted to say we’re producing a mini-version of the Slow Flowers Summit for a live, in-person, half-day symposium called Slow Flowers SUNDAY.

Slow Flowers Sunday includes Continental Breakfast, Networking, three inspiring lectures and demonstrations, Door Prizes, a Gift Bag, plus complimentary admission to the NW Flower & Garden Festival. You’ll learn from Four amazing speakers on flower farming, floral design, and sustainability. I can’t wait to see you there. The details are in our show notes and can be found at slowflowerssociety.com.

WHO should attend? This special event is designed for YOU -- flower farmers, farmer-florists, floral designers, flower lovers, and gardeners!TICKETS: $99 per person, plus all the perks I just mentioned.

Reserve Your Seat at Slow Flowers SUNDAY

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 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.

And 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.

Thank you for joining me today! The Slow Flowers Podcast is a member-supported endeav...

https://youtu.be/cHpC0UiCDzA?si=fdpuerpqG-mQ63Xk

Experienced plantswoman Sue Dykstra has operated nurseries for decades. She opened Creekside Growers in 2001, expanding the Middleville, Michigan business from a small plantstand to a full-service garden center with 65,000-square-feet of covered greenhouses. Over the past several years, Sue and manager Kelly Lewis have transitioned the nursery to a cut flower farm with indoor and outdoor production, retail flower shop, and the wholesale hub for West Michigan Flower Market. Their story offers a case study for the nursery industry, highlighting the economic benefits of providing a rare (but in-demand) supply of seasonal, sustainable, and locally-grown cut flowers to consumers and florists alike.

Flowers from Creekside Growers and Flower Farm

Slow Flowers Floral Insights 2025: Winter Farming

A few weeks ago, we published the 2025 Slow Flowers Floral Insights & Industry Forecast, our 11th annual report on the emerging themes and topics influencing our movement. Today’s episode perfectly highlights one of the seven insights: Winter Farming. In our report, which you can find in the Winter issue of Slow Flowers Journal, my collaborator Robin Avni and I observed that more Slow Flowers growers are beginning to experiment with cold-weather crops, as they cheat the season with high tunnels and other bloom-forcing techniques. Innovation meets demand as more growers experiment with winter farming. And as a result, florists who have built their brands around domestic flower sourcing have more botanical options closer to them.

Inside the Greenhouse: Workshops at Creekside Growers

The timing of that insight is perfect for today's episode. I originally reached out to Sue Dykstra of Creekside Growers and Flower Farm in order to share her story with you, but I thought that the big story was around her potting parties that for years she has offered Michiganders as a way to jump-start their container gardens. When I last interviewed Sue and her partner Kelly Lewis, it was for a chapter in our 2021 book, Where we Bloom – a collection of the artistic studios and design spaces of Slow Flowers members.

Creekside Growers inside Where We Bloom

In that chapter, which you can see above, Sue and Kelly discussed their hybrid model of operating a retail garden center and a cut flower farm. Now, as you will hear in today’s interview, Creekside Growers shifted to a 100% cut flower farming and floral design operation. It’s an exciting chapter in the nursery and garden center world. I’ve long advocated that retail nurseries should put an emphasis on cutting garden plants, and stock plant collections, offer design workshops, and encourage gardeners to grow professional-grade cut flowers. What’s happening at Creekside Growers and Flower Farm is instructive and inspiring.

Find and Follow Creekside Growers:InstagramFacebookWest Michigan Flower Market

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 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czmwuwa6XG4&feature=youtu.be

Yes, you can grow gorgeous cut flowers in Alaska. Just ask Misty Vanderweele, anAlaska native who founded All Dahlia’d Up in 2013, a boutique flower farm in Palmer. There is a magical effect on the intense color palettes and robust health of Misty’s blooms, as the short growing season is balanced by up to 22 hours of endless sunshine-a-day during the peak summer months. Misty believes that all that sunshine fills the flowers with good medicine, as she has personally experienced their healing properties and witnessed in her customers and guests when they visit her farm. Today, learn how Misty’s series of one-hour walking tours, immersive floral retreats, and special Alaska-grown farm-to-table dinners draw guests from around the globe.

Misty Vanderweele of All Dahlia'd Up, a Palmer, Alaska-based flower farm

Welcome to Misty Vanderweele, owner of All Dahlia’d Up Flower Farm in Palmer, Alaska. Misty is a past guest of the Slow Flowers Podcast – she appeared on Episode 413, recorded in August 2019. I’ll share the link in our show notes in case you’d like to go back and listen to her beautiful, story of how deep, personal loss and the grief that followed led to her life in flowers. It’s poignant and may just be the hopeful story you need to hear right now.

https://www.slowflowerspodcast.com/2019/08/07/episode-413-meet-misty-vanderweele-of-alaskas-all-dahliad-up-plus-our-state-focus-new-jersey/

Frolicking in the flower fields at All Dahlia'd Up (Palmer, Alaska), from left: Christina Stembel, Misty Vanderweele, and Debra Prinzing

In August 2023, I flew to Anchorage with Christina Stembel of Farmgirl Flowers to attend one of All Dahlia’d Up’s flower farm dinner tours. It was a magical and sensory-filled experience. Everything about the majestic scenery, the stunning flower fields, the hands-on floral design component, the delicious, all-local food, the live entertainment, and the camaraderie around the farm table – it was all unforgettable. We had a blast. I recently came across some video I shot during that evening, and so you’ll see a mini video at the beginning of my interview with Misty. She graciously voiced some of the footage to add more insights to the video clips.

Farm table adorned with DIY floral arrangements

That’s followed by a conversation about All Dahlia’d Up Flower Farm’s many channels for marketing flowers, but mostly, about floral tourism and how Misty is sharing her farm as a tourism destination. Let’s jump right in and get to that conversation! Misty is about to announce the 2025 tour dates and calendar of on-farm events, so follow the link to sign up for the newsletter so you’ll be the first to know!

Floral tourism at All Dahlia'd Up Flower Farm

https://mistyvanderweele.com/links

This Week's News!

We’ve just wrapped up a very successful, three-day Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit, which took place as a virtual/online conference over January 9th to 11th and involved 160 registrants, 15 amazing speakers, several great sponsors and partners, and the talented Slow Flowers team. Whew!

I’ll share much more in the coming weeks, but I just wanted to publicly thank everyone who joined us. We had incredibly high engagement of live participants who logged in to watch the sessions and interact with each speaker – that was so gratifying. But no worries if you registered and didn’t make it to all of the sessions – your registration entitles you to three months of replay viewing – through mid- April.

Our 600th Episode!!

I also have to pause for a moment to mention that today is our 600th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast! Our episode numbering is a little confusing because this is Episode 699, but back when I started the Slow Flowers Podcast in 2013, I just decided to start our first episode at 100 – not sure why, but I must have heard that was a good idea – ha! It’s confusing, but no big deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckPGJ2K-PVQ

This year, in recognition of Slow Flowers' annual focus on changing cultural and creative shifts in the floral industry, our Forecast hones in on seven key insights. In a year where Artificial Intelligence has become omnipresent, we find ourselves reverting to the Analog world of nature. Innovation and personal expression are being challenged by the AI-dominated ecosystem, and the authentic values of the Slow Flowers Community are its antidote. Nature’s perfection cannot be replicated by a chisel, paint brush, or computer generated image, as all these works draw from the original source. A flower produced from AI is generated from what already exists. However, a flower grown from seed is the perfect metaphor for our individual creativity.

SLOW FLOWERS JOURNAL: Slow Flowers Floral Insights & Industry Forecast for 2025

Welcome to 2025 -- a New Year that we hope brings joy, prosperity, progress, and growth for the Slow Flowers Community! This is the 11th year we’ve produced the Slow Flowers’ Floral Insights and Industry Forecast, which originated in 2015 as a series of presentations shared with the media, our members, and you, our listeners.

This episode is accompanied by an important free resource. You can find the link in today’s show notes for Episode 698 to read the Slow Flowers Journal’s Winter 2025 issue, titled “Floral Reality” – more on that title will follow. In addition, I recorded a video of this episode to introduce you the seven insights illustrated with visual examples. This is the video companion to today’s podcast. Click above to watch.

Hot off the press, the 48-page digital magazine-style report, produced in partnership with BLOOM Imprint, our Slow Flowers publishing venture. Huge thanks to our creative director Robin Avni for designing such a gorgeous issue – I can’t wait for you to see it. Through the pages, our insights become identifiable and relatable to your floral enterprise for 2025 and beyond.

Click to Read Slow Flowers Journal - Winter 2025 Issue (with Forecast)

ON THE COVER: I have to tell you about this beautiful floral image on the cover of our Forecast Issue. It is designed by Rizaniño “Riz” Reyes of Seattle-based RHR Horticulture and this image is featured in the forthcoming book, The Flower Farmer: Inspiration & Advice from Expert Growers, by Debra Prinzing & Robin Avni (which will be published by Abrams on May 6, 2025.

When Robin selected this image for our cover, she commented, “It is almost hyperreal, meaning it’s so beautiful it couldn't possibly be real -- but it is! It’s a design from nature and artistically composed, almost like a Dutch still life with flowers, but modern in its form. This design is real; touched by human hands, and intentionally designed – the epitome of Floral Reality, rather than computer generated artificial augmentation."Riz composed this stunning spring posy with hellebore, fritillaria, Siberian bugloss (Brunnera), grape hyacinth, daffodils, and rosemary and daphne for scent. Silver gray Brachyglottis, glossy Polystichum fern, and branches of flowering Ribes and bearberry hold the delicate flowers together. Thank you for sharing your talents, Riz!

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.

https://youtu.be/yOLV0XJX1ic?si=3ZxsB3shtvPOrquK

Jessica Stewart of Bramble & Blossom

Happy New Year! We’ve pulled one of our most popular episodes of 2024 to share with you today and I know it will inspire you with new sustainability ideas for the coming wedding season! Meet Jessica Stewart, a pioneering Slow Flowers floral designer, and learn how she leads with joy when communicating her values to wedding clients, while also infusing her aesthetic with sustainable values. This episode is called Secrets of a Sustainable Wedding Florist so get ready to be inspired.

New Year, New YOU at the Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit 2025

It’s a busy time over here at the Slow Flowers Society with all of our efforts focused on producing an amazing, first-ever Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit – coming right up next week over three packed days – January 9-11, 2025. This is an all online/virtual conference so you have no excuse to skip it! You’ll be able to log in and watch 15 hours of inspiring floral education and connect with each speaker personally – or, if your schedule doesn’t allow that, you will have access to the replay sessions for three full months that follow. By the way, if you’re listening on January 2nd, we’re still in the midst of our NEW YEAR NEW YOU $50 off flash sale, which continues through midnight PT on Friday, January 3rd. Click below to grab your registration and save! Slow Flowers members receive an additional $50 off as a member benefit!

Join us at the Slow Flowers Summit -- Grab Your Ticket Today and Save $50

Romance in bloom by Bramble & Blossom

We pulled today’s encore Episode from the archives as one of our top shows from 2024. Stay tuned for the wrap up – when I’ll share a business update recorded with Jessica Stewart earlier this week – you’ll love hearing what’s happening with Bramble & Blossom these days!

Replaying this episode seems well timed, because it’s engagement season and many of our wedding and event designers are busy, consulting with prospective couples and pulling together concepts and proposals. For Slow Flowers designers, those who infuse their business values with sourcing and sustainable considerations, there’s an important added layer involved.

Jessica is well aware of the importance of educating clients about having a local and seasonal approach to designing their wedding flowers. We asked Jessica to unpack all the elements involved in running Bramble & Blossom, and to share her approach to communication during the sales process.

Jessica shared an incredibly detailed presentation for the January 2024 Slow Flowers Member (virtual) meetup and we recorded it to share, originally as Episode 646 on January 24, 2024. Whether you caught that episode or this is your first time hearing it, you’ll be treated to Jessica’s approach about how she designs for seasonality and sources from local flower farms to produce gorgeous, romantic, evocative weddings.

Jessica’s presentation includes details on how she prepares contracts + proposals; and how she sources and plans for weddings and installations. Her expertise is priceless and you’ll want to listen in.

Joy and Intentionality come across through florals

Here’s a little bit more about Jessica Stewart of Brambles & Blossom, an Eco-Friendly Pittsburgh Wedding Florist:

The tagline for Bramble & Blossom includes these guiding principles: Ethical. Sustainable. Anti-Racist. Inclusive. Accessible. Intentional. Stunning. You’ll notice these characteristics in each Bramble & Blossom design, and in turn, realize how special and rare these qualities area. As Jessica writes on her website: “This seems like a #HumbleBrag at first glance. But the truth is, we wish there was more competition.”

Here's a fun photo from our NYC-Brooklyn Slowflowers.com gathering. From left: Gloria Battista Collins of GBC Style, me, Jessica Stewart and Justine Lacy of Foxglove Floral Design Studio,

https://youtu.be/KzWJQWxQIkE?si=odYVvhdRI_2Z5hn7

For the past decade, I have kept an important annual ritual. Before I turn the calendar page to the New Year, I take time at the end of December to reflect back on the one that’s coming to a close. This exercise has become our recurring Slow Flowers Society "Year in Review," a habit that takes stock of the prior 12 months and considers how our many programs and efforts have supported the Slow Flowers Mission. You’re invited to join me as we review Slow Flowers Society in 2024 and discuss how it reflects our true priorities, passion, and purpose!

Twenty-twenty-five arrives in just a few days, so before we say good-bye to 2024, I want to reflect on this past year’s highlights. It’s an exercise that has become an important annual tradition and I have to say that it is always rewarding for me to pause and reflect on the achievements of the Slow Flowers Society and larger impact of the Slow Flowers Movement.

I believe our Year-in-Review can always be a predictor for the year to come. As Slow Flowers Society interacts with members, media, sponsors, and others in the floral industry, we gain important understanding and insights. For the Slow Flowers Team and me, we are so proud of what we achieved during 2024. We pay special attention to the values and benefits we deliver to you, our community, especially to our members who invest their resources in joining, participating, and engaging in programs both virtual and in-person.

You and your support are the reason why we continue to achieve our core goal -- to inspire the floral industry and its consumers to embrace local, seasonal, and sustainable flowers. Whether it's for personal or professional reasons, as this year comes to a close, I encourage you to take time to write your own Year-In-Review. I’ve learned that when we do so, a narrative emerges, one that can guide future decisions and priorities.

Slow Flowers Year in Review for 2024Download

Join us at the 2025 Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit

Our commitment to featuring a diversity of subject matter experts and experienced voices continues in 2025. The first WORLDWIDE Slow Flowers Summit is scheduled for January 9-11, 2025. This virtual conference takes place entirely online over three days – making it accessible and affordable for attendees everywhere. The program format includes 15 floral education sessions, as well as bonus content from special guest presenters.

Click to read more about the Program and Schedule

Click to read about our Speakers

Buy Your Ticket NOW!

As you may know, the Slow Flowers Movement has been emulated around the world – and emerging groups are eager for access to the same innovation, information, and inclusive approaches enjoyed by our members, but specialized for their own markets. The Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit is designed to provide inspiration for flower farmers, floral designers, and flower lovers, wherever they are based.

Ticket sales continue at slowflowerssummit.com – through January 8th. General admission is $279 US and Slow Flowers members receive $50 off for $229 . I hope to see you there!

Thank you to our Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 700 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.

And 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.

https://youtu.be/9bau3g6_h6A?si=a70BbD2OFYpQmrrW

Back by popular demand, we're hosting Johnny's Seeds' floral experts, Joy Longfellow and Hillary Alger, who will introduce some of Johnny's Selected Seeds' 40-plus new flower seed varieties for 2025! Hillary and Joy take us behind the scenes to learn more about the dazzling selections of floral varieties and mixes for 2025 – from the subtle to the vibrant, including four NEW introductions -- straight from Johnny's Exclusive Breeding Program. And learn from our bonus guest, Johnny's Senior Plant Breeder Lindsay Wyatt, who discusses what it takes to select and breed gorgeous new petal palettes and bring them to market!

New Zinnia varieties from Johnny's Seeds

Celosia 'Shimmer'

It's that time of year again, when the seed catalogs arrive and as the winter solstice takes place in a few days, we turn our dreams to our 2025 cutting gardens and flower farms. Today's show is a follow up to Slow Flowers Podcast Episode 640 from December of 2023, about one year ago, when Hillary Alger and Joy Longfellow unveiled Johnny's Selected Seeds' new flower seed varieties for 2024. The replay video of that show been viewed more than 5,000 times on YouTube – it was our most popular episode of 2024.

https://youtu.be/FEbEZgWQliE

But I'm delighted to report that there's even more exciting flower seed news for 2025, and that's the topic of today's show, with return guests Hillary and Joy. Hillary has more than 13 years of experience on Johnny’s Seeds’ research team, currently serving as the Product Manager for flowers and herbs, and Joy is the Flower Team Technician at Johnny’s, managing every aspect of Johnny’s flower trialing program. As a bonus, Lindsay Wyatt, their collaborator in new flower seed breeding, joins in the presentation to explain all about the "recurrent selection" method of breeding.

https://youtu.be/RLqedWQmvE4?si=a7cBz9ATznB3emJP

This episode covers some gorgeous and vigorous new introductions that the flower team has trialed, evaluated, and curated for 2025 -- including agrostemma, China aster, snapdragon, strawflower, celosia, pansy and viola, and lisianthus. But what's more exciting than that are the four new Johnny's introductions from the breeding program that began in 2016. You'll get to meet three lovely new zinnia introductions -- Aurora, Agave, and Ballerina -- and one beautiful new celosia mix called Shimmer.

https://youtu.be/JD2_YhPcLT8?si=nGa-iB5llCZCMAMu

Let's jump right in and welcome the talented floral team from Johnny's. Learn why their favorite standouts are worth considering!

More Resources:Follow Johnny's Seeds on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/johnnys_seeds/

Hillary Algerhttps://www.instagram.com/hillaryalger/

Joy Longfellowhttps://www.instagram.com/joyatjohnnys/

Lindsay Wyatthttps://www.instagram.com/lindsay564/

Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit 2025

And we’re just three weeks away from the Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit, so now is the time to grab your ticket! The SLOW FLOWERS WORLDWIDE SUMMIT takes place online – January 9-11, 2025 – and you will enjoy 15 hours of amazing floral education from Slow Flowers experts. Check out the details at slowflowerssummit.com. Slow Flowers members receive $50 off their registration!

Reserve Your Seat at the Slow Flowers Summit

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 ...