The Organic Flower-Growing, Gathering, and Design Guide
A Fresh Bouquet is a flower book for today — inspiring, beautifully photographed, filled with timely advice on buying, growing, harvesting, and arranging blooms that are truly fresh, locally-grown. – Kathleen N. Brenzel, Garden Editor, Sunset Magazine
A Fresh Bouquet Seasonal, local and sustainable flowers
Debra Prinzing Text copyright © Debra Prinzing Photography copyright © David Perry
Photographed by David Perry Foreword by Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential
The Organic Flower-Growing, Gathering, and Design Guide
A Fresh Bouquet Seasonal, local and sustainable flowers
Debra Prinzing
Photographed by David Perry
Foreword by Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential
Contents
Introduction
Follow your flowers from field to vase section One
The Freshest Blooms How to enjoy fresh flowers year-round, even if you aren’t a gardener. section two
Seasonal Harvest A seasonal approach to growing and gathering floral design ingredients. section three
Artful Arranging The basic tools, design theories and professional techniques. section four
Weddings, Celebrations, and other Festivities How to achieve high style with seasonal and local blooms. section five
A Year in Flowers Floral arrangements for each month of the year, including wild-gathered ingredients. section six
Flower and Foliage Directory Floral ingredients organized by bloom time, flower and foliage color, and design function. Appendix
Flower Resources, Ingredients, and Supplies Including a Glossary of Terms.
I n t r o d u c ti o n
Follow Your Flowers from Field to Vase Do you enjoy flowers in your life? Are you drawn to a voluptuous old garden rose like a bee is to honey? Is burying your head in a just-picked garden bouquet and inhaling its perfume a joy-inducing experience? You are not alone. Our love affair with flowers is ancient and visceral. But lately something has been missing from everyday flowers. The clutch of gerbera daisies or bunch of tulips from the supermarket seems disconnected from the less-than-perfect, but incredibly romantic flowers growing in my own backyard. The mixed bouquet delivered by a floral service looks stiff or lifeless. These blooms feel far removed from the fields in which they grew. Unless you’re a flower gardener who grows perennials, annuals and roses to fill vases throughout your home (or give as gifts to others), to many, the flower has lost its soul. The common ingredients of most florist arrangements seem sterile and rigid, as if they were produced in a laboratory and not a flower patch, nurtured by sun and rain.
Above:
The fading allure of
field-grown tulips is reminder of the fleeting nature of a garden flower. They are to be enjoyed and cherished in season..
Grown by a $40 billion worldwide floriculture industry whose goal is a uniform product durable enough to withstand long shipping times, these “freight flowers” are altogether different from zinnias, peonies and cosmos you clip from the garden for a vase on the windowsill. The $100 bunch of long-stemmed roses may look close to perfect, but it has been off of the farm for two or three weeks. Those scentless creations were likely grown in a foreign field and shipped on a dose of preservatives to travel here – poor substitutes for heady, abundant bunches gathered from grandmother’s cutting garden. They have lost the fleeting, ephemeral quality of an old-fashioned, just-picked bloom.
Opposite:
Diane Szukovathy
of Jello Mold Farm in Washington’s Skagit Valley is a sustainable grower whose practices are safe for the earth, the flowers she plants and the people who ultimately enjoy them. She brings blooms from the field to market within 48 hours of harvest, to the delight of
A Greener Way
floral designers and flower lovers alike.
“Green” floral design is only recently appearing in the sustainable living lexicon, but the term suggests using flowers that have been grown with eco-friendly methods. To us, it conjures up thoughts very similar to the slow food movement. Why can’t we have flowers that are very local and highly seasonal? Isn’t that a more sustainable approach?
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“
Here you’ll find inspiring and creative resources and how-to ideas and information to enjoy sustainable and seasonal flowers in your daily life, even if you aren’t a gardener.” Anecdotal evidence from our interviews with organic flower farmers, green floral designers, and retailers who market VeriFlora Certified Sustainably Grown flowers supports our belief that many consumers want to bring home blooms that are fresh, local and safe. Whether or not they consider themselves environmentalists, flower lovers are beginning to ask whether the beautiful roses, lilies and tulips they purchase at the local supermarket were grown domestically or a few continents away. They are looking for labeling that guarantees flowers have been produced in an environmentally and socially responsible manner – and finding it at an increasing number of outlets as diverse as Sam’s Club, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and even the neighborhood grocery store.
Held in the hands of a child, there is an even sweeter innocence to this bodacious bouquet of field-grown
Faced with concerns about our food supply, the materials we use to build and furnish our homes, and the energy resources we consume, more people than ever are asking questions about the environmental impact of everything they use, drive, eat and even wear.
peonies and roses. These blooms are safe to hold and sniff.
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And yet, until recently, conscious consumers were unaware of the decidedly non-green aspects of their floral purchases. They bought bouquets without ever considering the source, or about the manner in which those flowers were grown (not to mention the environmental costs of shipping a perishable commodity around the globe). Comments like: “I don’t eat my flowers, so why should I care if they are organic or not?” or “How damaging to the earth is a $10 bunch of cellophane-wrapped mums anyway?” may seem innocent, but the cumulative results of such attitudes are unhealthy for humans and the earth. Lack of data exists on the harmful affects of pesticides and other chemicals used in the commercial floral trade. But given the choice, who wouldn’t want to hold and smell a flower that was grown organically?
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More flower shops and wedding designers are marketing themselves as “organic, local and sustainable,” and seeking healthy, artful ingredients grown in their own communities by small family farms. As demand for green flowers increases, the supply of alluring, fragrant and sustainable crops will also increase. As the seasons change, so do the blooms, allowing us to celebrate the full cycle of a calendar year in the garden. It may mean celebrating Valentine’s Day without roses, but you can instead embrace the moment with hyacinth blooms you have forced indoors to give your beloved. A branch laden with
As more flower consumers pose the “is it sustainable?” question, we’ve collected all the answers in the pages of A Fresh Bouquet. Here you’ll find inspiring and creative resources and how-to ideas and information to enjoy sustainable and seasonal flowers in your daily life, even if you aren’t a gardener.
crimson clusters of crabapples represents an autumn crop that’s uncommon and exquisite in seasonal floral
This book aspires to be the essential resource for savvy, eco-conscious consumers who may be aware that the flowers they buy at the corner market or order from a local florist or national wire service are not sustainable, but need a road map to guide them to better – and more beautiful – alternative practices. Rather than pointing to the perceived lack of choice or limitations of the floral industry, A Fresh Bouquet will inspire and equip gardeners, flower enthusiasts, floral designers, event planners and their clients to take a proactive, informed approach to the flowers in their lives and work. Consider it the organic flower-growing, gathering and design guide.
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arrangements.
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Change your relationship with flowers. Meet flower farmers, supermarket flower buyers, floral designers, wedding planners, farmers’ market vendors and creative gardeners around North America who are committed to growing, selling and designing with a “green” approach. Feast your eyes on David Perry’s evocative portrayals of the farmers, the designers, and some of the most fascinating gatherers you’ll ever meet. Get lost in his images of both the uncommon and the everyday – buds, blooms, branches, leaves and berries – as they grow and as they are ultimately used. Read Debra Prinzing’s intimate narratives of the growers committed to and passionate about sustainable farming and the creative floral artists who use ingenuity and innovation to source local and seasonal ingredients. Follow the story of A Fresh Bouquet, as she traces these beloved blooms from the field to the vase. We hope that this book connects you with a healthier, flower-filled lifestyle, one that helps you engage with nature, with the environment, and with the very blooms you desire. Enjoy safe and sustainable flowers whether you grow them yourself in a small cutting garden or in pots on your balcony. Gather bouquets with your children; share bunches with a neighbor who doesn’t have a garden. Source fresh blooms from sustainable flower growers in your neighborhood, whether you’re in the town or the country. And finally, learn how to design with confidence, as you create soulful, classic, and evocative “fresh” bouquets of your own. Above:
The heady scents,
evocative color and romantic appearance of old-fashioned lilacs are perhaps the quintessential symbol of springtime. Right:
Washington flower
farmer Erin Benzakein of floret plants her fields with perennials, annuals and old-fashioned roses, satisfying an eager customer base of brides, designers and enthusiasts who subscribe to her weekly flower delivery service. Opposite:
Breathtakingly
beautiful, the summertime arrangement designed by floret includes heirloom roses, garden geraniums and ornamental alliums.
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Portrait of a Flower Farm Cut flowers sustainably grown Berries, rose hips, pea vines, colorful branches. Perhaps not the typical “bouquet” fare you would expect to find at your local supermarket or even an upscale florist. But flower farmers Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall view everything that grows on their seven-acre farm in Washington’s Skagit Valley as a potential ingredient for a gorgeous arrangement, gift bouquet, or centerpiece.
The husband-and-wife team spent more than a decade creating elegant residential gardens in Seattle. When they purchased their land eight years ago and moved from the city to a semirural community, Dennis and Diane wanted to support themselves as farmers. They hoped to establish a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation and raise food crops for subscribers. After volunteering with a neighboring organic vegetable grower, though, the couple soon discovered the economics of vegetables didn’t work for them. “We couldn’t make our mortgage growing food,” Dennis points out. Admittedly a pair of “plant freaks,” he and Diane instead planted flowers. Four of the seven acres at Jello Mold Farm, named after a Seattle building covered in decorative copper Jell-o molds that Diane once created, are devoted to flower crops. The farm grows 150 varieties of annuals, perennials, flowering shrubs, ornamental grasses and even decorative edibles like grapevines, Cinderella pumpkins and heirloom squashes. Eight hundred peony shrubs and one thousand-five hundred dahlias produce an endless supply of gorgeous, romantic stems during peak season.
Above:
This just-picked gourd
vine will satisfy designers eager for uncommon seasonal floral ingredients. Opposite:
Diane Szukovathy
and Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm infuse their fields and crops with passion, playfulness and a sustainable
To these flower farmers, the term “sustainably grown” means a commitment beyond just using organic fertilizers and pesticides. Diane and Dennis consider themselves land stewards who share their acreage with an array of wildlife, including trumpeter swans, bald eagles, ospreys, several kinds of owls, hawks, and many songbirds. “We work hard to keep the soil healthy and natural balances in place,” Diane says. “That way, the critters make a living and so do we. Sustainability for us means leaving the land in better shape than we found it.”
business philosophy. In doing so, they inspire their customers to desire and value locally-grown floral ingredients.
Jello Mold Farm began supplying city flower markets in 2007, attracting interest from floral designers, brides and specialty shops. Soon they began selling to a number of florists and the Ballard Market Grocery Store, whose floral buyers recognize a renewed sense of nostalgia among customers. Best Buds, a tiny flower shop in Seattle’s upscale Madison Park neighborhood, was the first to sign up for Jello Mold’s twice-weekly deliveries. “They’re great about supporting local growers,” she says. “And customers know that our flowers are local and fresh, because we pick only one or two days before a delivery.” As advocates for sustainable flowers, Diane and Dennis have a high-touch approach. They tell a story about each alluring bloom and its must-have attributes, enticing designers to embrace unusual ingredients. In turn, the bouquets and arrangements using Jello Mold’s seasonal elements are uncommonly beautiful and sophisticated in palette and form. Designers reliant upon conventional flowers and foliage can enliven their work with Jello Mold’s bountiful and artful crops: The ninebark shrub’s sultry maroon foliage, raspberries blushing on the vine, or Ruby Silk Grass, with red tassels on tall stems are just some examples.
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Come autumn, the heirloom apple orchard is a source of unique and evocative floral design elements.
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Selections reflect the fleeting nature of botanical ingredients, the inevitable seasonal changes that Jello Mold Farms celebrates rather than resists. Twice a week, Diane emails an availability list to 30 Seattle area customers. The “fresh list” informs and inspires, with items like: “Atriplex (Orach) – plumes of colored seed pods, available in bright green and deep maroon-red,” “Chasmanthium (Northern Sea Oats) – shimmering green flattened seed heads, tall stems,” or “Shoo-Fly – unusual Chinese Lantern relative, bright green lanterns with purpleblack crown, multi-branching.” These enticing descriptions gladden the hearts of flower buyers and designers who yearn for creative ingredients, just-picked crops and local flavor. Stems are gathered into “grower’s bunches” (five or 10 per cluster) and secured with a long twist-tie on which is printed: “Jellomoldfarms.com | Mount Vernon.” The tie itself is a subtle marketing and educational effort, because customers begin asking for Dennis and Diane’s flowers by name. The farm isn’t able to charge more for its floral products, even though costs can be higher to grow sustainably. Jello Mold basically matches the prices buyers expect to pay at a wholesale flower market (where there are some locally-grown flowers, but most arrive from around the world, having been harvested more than a week earlier and likely treated with preservatives and fumigants). Diane realizes this may eventually change if flower consumers see sustainable blooms as having an added value. She strives to infuse her deliveries with value nonetheless. “I always try and put something special in my bouquets to get a following,” Diane says. “Our quality is fabulous, and I want people to remember that. Quality is our best calling card.” Above, from top:
The sheer
diversity of rare shapes, textures and colors grown by Jello Mold Farm is awe-inspiring, including the unusual purple-streaked cardoon in the foreground; Blooms, berries and ornamental vegetables are equally enticing. Right:
A foggy morning on a
working flower farm. While Diane and Dennis make their living from the land, they also consider themselves environmental stewards of
She shares flower-farming techniques and marketing ideas with neighboring growers and around the country through the trade group Association for Specialty Cut Flower Growers. Thanks to a research grant from the ASCFG, Jello Mold Farm has been experimenting with methods to extend the growing season – earlier in spring and later in fall – in a hoop-house heated by an organic compost heap. Growing in a hoop-house allows Jello Mold to raise sweet peas, anemones, ranunculus and other spring flowers a full month earlier and to grow sunflowers until the first week of November, much later than if they were left in the fields uncovered. Dennis and Diane have introduced flowers and other ingredients that the floral industry rarely sees, much less uses in its designs. “We’re in the education business,” Dennis points out. The farm maintains a “trial garden” of new cultivars and varieties, tracking when and how plants bloom, as well as how they perform as cut flowers. Growing flowers in their season is a reality – and business philosophy – for Diane and Dennis. But this approach also means the flower farm’s most productive “window” occurs from March to November. In future years, Diane hopes to offer seasonal “winter” crops, such as cardoon foliage, winter-blooming camellia, witch hazel branches and some of the 40 varieties of unusual willow branches raised by a neighboring artist and basket weaver. Climate, weather, and seasonal issues including length of daylight, work to the farm’s advantage in spring and summer, but leave the late fall and winter less productive. That’s when planning, research and preparing for the following growing season takes place.
their farm, their crops and the creatures who coexist here with them.
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Above, from top:
Twice-weekly
deliveries to Seattle includes a stop at TerraBella Flowers & Mercantile, where owner Melissa Feveyear (left) sources fresh and seasonal botanical ingredients from Jello Mold Farm and other local suppliers; The ornamental cardoon
“Some years ago, we were gardeners in the city with a romantic notion of having a farm,” their website proclaims. “Little did we know the reality! Now we’re knee-deep in paradise, and lovin’ it.”
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has architectural stature and iridescent tufts of purple-blue.
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The Green Bouquet Eco-designers source sustainable and uncommon floral elements Like their counterparts in the culinary world, floral designers are seeking locally-grown and seasonal “ingredients” for their arrangements and bouquets. Whether motivated by environmental concerns, client demand or pure fascination with utterly gorgeous seasonal crops from organic flower farms, creative, eco-aware designers are leading the green-flower movement. “Chefs always talk about their relationships with farmers,” Diane Szukovathy of Jello Mold Farm observes. “And we’ve been noticing Old-fashioned and evocative, Erin’s garden peonies fill a
that the designers who use us best are adventuresome (often younger), and pushing past just replicating ‘the conventional bouquet.’ At the heart of
vintage pewter bowl. They are paired with scented sweet pea vines, flowering clematis, plum-colored smoke tree
Erin Benzakein, floret flowers: “I want to make every season as lush as summer,” Erin Benzakein proclaims. “My main crops include sweet peas, ranunculus, peonies, hydrangeas, old garden roses, Oriental lilies, sunflowers, and dahlias. But I harvest from spring to late fall, so there are some months when I cut branches, vines, berries, thistles, grasses and pods for my arrangements.” The young mother, certified organic flower farmer and floral designer tends to two acres rampant with delicious botanical ingredients. She supplies her regional Whole Foods stores with as many abundant, eye-pleasing mixed bouquets as she can harvest each week. Erin also creates and delivers seasonal flowers to weekly subscribers and designs for brides who want “green” wedding flowers. Inspired by memories of planting forget-me-nots as a child, Erin began growing sweet peas for their heady fragrance. When first starting out, she sold $5 bunches in Mason jars and was surprised by the power of such innocent blooms: “I have never seen anything have the affect that flowers do,” she says. “Watching someone cry over the memory a sweet pea can elicit is very moving.”
Above:
Erin Benzakein, an
American flower farmer and her bountiful, freshfrom-the-field bouquet. Below:
As with buying locally-grown honey, vegetables, milk, meat and eggs, Erin believes that consumers want local and sustainable flowers. By providing customers with the freshest, safest, most vibrant blooms that can be had short of planting a cutting garden of their own, this flower artist “connects people to the seasons again – in the deepest possible way.”
Creamy white garden
roses share the stage with a spring-green palette of fresh herbs, poppy pods, crabapples, alpine strawberries and ladies mantle in this lovely,
www.floretflowers.com
organic bridal bouquet.
everything are human connections and the ability to tell their customers: ‘I know the farmer who grew this flower.’”
foliage (Cotinus coggygria) and wild blackberries.
The connection between farmer and florist can lead to heightened expressions of creativity. By seeking out, learning from and patronizing enterprising cutflower growers in their community, a new generation of innovative wedding and event designers, studio florists and flower shops is redefining what is meant by the term “fresh flowers.” In their own voices, meet three floral artists who bring a “local, seasonal and sustainable” point of view to their work:
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Melissa Feveyear, Terra Bella Flowers & Mercantile: With the words “Organic” and “Botanical” writ large on the sign above its door, Terra Bella Flowers & Mercantile is a neighborhood flower shop that creates special occasion arrangements and supplies weekly bouquets to corporate clients. Many of Terra Bella’s customers have chemical sensitivities and specifically request all-natural blooms. Even those without such sensitivities prefer Terra Bella Flowers. “People readily seek me out for being organic,” owner Melissa Feveyear explains. “Brides want to know whether flowers are safe to hold or use on their wedding cake. Their organic values surpass their idealistic dreams of what may be available for their bouquet in a given season of the year,” she says.
Stacie Sutliff, Blush Custom Floral: Stacie Sutliff left a successful career with a major dot.com to follow the lure of flowers. She specializes in floral design for events with an emphasis on green weddings. Although the desires and wishes of brides vary widely, “I’m able to steer more customers towards what is locally and sustainably grown,” she says. “To me, it just makes sense that if you’re inspired by a beautiful place to get married, you’ll want to know that the flowers you hold will not harm that place.”
Melissa maintains close ties with hometown growers who deliver luxury flowers or surprise her with out-of-the-ordinary buds, stems and blades. Her mix of resources includes farmer’s markets and organic farms. Crabapples, berries, quinces and hop vines come from a local orchard. Melissa relies on an organic tulip grower who forces the bulbs in a greenhouse throughout the winter months. Out-of-season rose requests (a regular challenge for “green” designers) are filled by certified organic farms in California. Even though the roses are shipped from another state, they are domestically-sourced and organically-grown, which Melissa and her customers prefer over South American factory roses. “Customers who want organic flowers are concerned about their (carbon) footprint,” she says. www.terrabellaflowers.com
A studio designer, Stacie sources her flowers from local flower fields where “I know that every stem I get has been planted, cared for, and harvested in a way that maximizes its vase life and beauty.”
Above:
Melissa Feveyear
owns an organic flower emporium that combines sustainable practices with sophisticated design.
Blush Custom Floral’s arrangements and bouquets move customers beyond the everyday and ubiquitous hothouse blooms. “When they ask ‘where does that flower come from?’ I want to be able to say ‘it comes from the farm down the road,’” Stacie smiles. Above, from top:
The sultry colors
of late summer appear in farm-fresh blooms selected by Stacie. The arrangement includes burgundy ninebark foliage (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diabolo’), pumpkin-orange Chinese lanterns, and an array of
Left:
With the right
connections between farmer and floral designer, it’s possible to bring
She eagerly spreads the story of the farmers, growers and gardens responsible for the ingredients in her joyful bouquets. “I think it’s the responsibility of florists like me to build the (organic) market. If we create beautiful things that our customers value and want to buy again and again, then local flower farmers will naturally expand and innovate to meet that demand. Eventually, it will become economically feasible for them to grow some of those ingredients that today we have to import or truck in.”
organically-grown tulips and other flowering bulbs to the market, even in the off-season.
www.blushcustomfloral.com
richly-hued dahlias. Stacie Sutliff takes her inspiration from uncommon, seasonal crops sourced from local flower farms.
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