Celebrating local flowers

Over in the U.K., our flower friends recently wrapped up British Flowers Week, an impressive weeklong national celebration of local flowers that got lots of great press, tons of social media traffic and went a long way towards the goal of bringing “British Flowers Back into British Homes.”

I was eating up all of the beautiful photos on the British Flowers Week website, including the resources it created and the descriptions of the many local events that took place, including pop-up shops, tours of flower plots, make your own bouquet classes and other design workshops, plus  a “twitter-fest” and lots of social media posts promoting the fact that “British flowers have charm, grace, scents and sustainability.”  What a testament to the many hard-working British flower farmers and gardeners growing and selling British flowers.  Bravo!

Taking a page from the British playbook, Debra Prinzing, the author of the book and website “Slow Flowers” launched American Flowers Week, which started Monday and runs through Independence Day.  While in its infancy this year, the effort to promote the local and domestic flower movement is sure to grow here in the U.S. as well.  If the volume of email in my inbox and the length of the waiting list to buy Floret flowers or attend a Floret workshop is any indicator, the level of interest in seasonal, sustainably-grown flowers has never been greater.

It is such an exciting time to be part of the seasonal flower movement both here in the U.S. and around the world.  Join me in growing, buying, sharing and promoting the local flower love by photographing what’s in bloom in your corner of the country and adding the  #americangrown hashtag in celebration of American Flowers Week in addition to the #seasonalfloweralliance hashtag many of you are already using on social media.  There is a lot to celebrate this week….and what better way than with domestic flowers.