Summary: I have exciting news to share this week: The New York Times published a piece by former food columnist Marian Burros entitled: "My, What Lovely Flowers. Who Lobbied for Them? -- after a push by growers, U.S. products adorned a White House Dinner." More than two months ago, I wrote about this exciting event -- a stop on the Slow flowers journey in which the White House acknowledged for the first time ever its use of American Grown flowers for a public function. That was the State Dinner for the French President on February 11th. You can read my February 21st blog post, and my analysis of that event here. I'm gratified to see that NYT's follow this story and give it the gravitas it deserves. Shining a positive light on American flowers is important, but there is much more that needs to be done in order to change the broken floral industry. One thing YOU can do is to join me in simple floral activism. You can do this by visiting a compelling new web site: VOTE FOR FLOWERS. There, you'll be able to identify your member of Congress and send him or her a letter urging support and engagement in the new Congressional Cut Flower Caucus. Like others in the pro-domestic flower movement, I do NOT want the White House's use of American flowers to be a one-time gesture. Like the presidential commitment to serve local, American-sourced food AND wine at White House functions, it is only right that domestic flowers grace the tables of all White House events. Stay tuned for ongoing updates on this story. Now let's turn our attention to today's fabulous guest: Amy Stewart. I first learned about Amy in 2001 when a local bookseller here in Seattle told me about From the Ground Up, a memoir by a young Texas native who wrote about her first grown up garden. The bookseller called it "heartwarming and said I had to read it. Amy was that author. She wrote From the Ground Up as a journal documenting her post-college Santa Cruz garden. When I reviewed in 2002, I wrote: "There's something very endearing and charming about Stewart's self-effacing writing voice. She truly wants us to experience the same emotional highs and lows, the essential passion of gardening, that she lives through. It's a wonderful late-night read . . . Pick it up as an alternative to moonlight gardening." A few years later, I met Amy at the SF Flower & Garden Show. We were back-to-back speakers and met during that "changing of the guard" thing that happens when one speaker wraps up her book-signing and another takes that seat warmed by her predecessor. It was just a casual introduction, but there was a familiar recognition of a kindred spirit in the garden-writing world. Since then, our friendship has been based on mutual admiration, similar professional interests and occasional collaboration. In fact, in 2011, Amy and I teamed up with three others to launch GREAT GARDEN SPEAKERS.COM, an online speakers bureau for our profession. And so it goes. My world changed when Amy Stewart wrote Flower Confidential in 2007. At the time, I had already begun interviewing American flower farmers and florists, unaware that she was writing an expose about the Global Floriculture Industry. Things happen like that in our worlds - after all, how could you explain the proliferation of vegetable gardening books that flooded the marketplace over the past five years? But back to Flower Confidential. It truly was a book ahead of its time. When Amy wrote about the huge machine that relies on cheap floral imports, she started a conversation that resonated with me and with so many others - it was a dialogue I wanted to join. I was inspired to continue seeking out and telling the stories of American flowers and the people who grow and design with them. When The 50 Mile Bouquet was published in 2012, I was honored that Amy agreed to write the forward, her generous show of support for the next chapter in the American Grown story. In that forward, Amy wrote:
