Presenting American Flowers Week & Introducing Minnesota’s Len Busch Roses (Episode 199)

Summary: Today, we're celebrating the 100th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast, a weekly program that's all about American Flowers and the people who grow and design with them. Reaching ONE HUNDRED EPISODES represents a significant milestone, as we have brought you hours and hours of programming on the vital topics ranging from saving our domestic flower farms to supporting a floral industry that relies on a safe, seasonal and local supply of flowers and foliage. To me, it’s all about making a conscious choice and I invite you to join the conversation and the creative community. This podcast is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, nationwide online directory to florists, shops, and studios who design with American-grown flowers and to the farms that grow those blooms.  It’s the conscious choice for buying and sending flowers. To commemorate the 100th episode of the Slow Flowers Podcast, we're launching a very cool and I believe significant week-long education and outreach campaign that will kick off next Monday, June 29th and run through Saturday, July 4th. Inspired by British Flowers Week, which has been the subject of two recent podcast episodes, the Slow Flowers Podcast and the Slowflowers.com online directory present: AMERICAN FLOWERS WEEK. We're kicking off American Flowers Week with a fabulous logo identifying the campaign, designed by Iowa-based illustrator and artist Jean Zaputil of Studio Z Design & Photography. You are welcome to visit our new American Flowers Week web site where you can download and use the logo and other resources for your own promotional efforts efforts. Click here to find our Press Kit and links to a Flickr gallery featuring local flowers and floral arrangements representing all 50 states. I encourage you to join in the campaign by posting your own images of the beautiful American flowers you grow or the distinctive bouquets you design using domestic and local stems. Please tag your photos with #americanflowersweek and let's get this topic trending. Here's an encouraging thought: Last year the hashtag #britishflowersweek generated 1.5 million social media impressions - that's seriously powerful-- and there is no reason we can't do something similar to raise awareness of our farms and our flowers here in the U.S. Since this is just our first year, American Flowers Week will rely on grassroots efforts of everyone who hears about it. In future years, we expect to bring more partners into the campaign and spread the news widely throughout the media, industry, and at the consumer level. Please join me - as I always say - in the conversation and in the creative community. Our guest today is a man who helped me make good on a promise to showcase local flowers when I presented as a featured designer at Art in Bloom, an annual flower and art extravaganza at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. My presentation was scheduled for May 1st, with a morning design demonstration, followed by an afternoon design workshop for 25 students. When the program chairs invited me to be part of Art in Bloom, I specified that I would come and present on the condition that we feature locally grown flowers. In concept, that seemed like a good idea. But spring arrived late in the Twin Cities and when time came to start ordering flowers for my presentation and workshops (and I'm talking a lot of flowers because of the generous budget I had to work with), the local wholesaler informed me that the only thing LOCAL that I could be assured of were pussy willows. I went into a bit of a panic until Slowflowers.com member Christine Hoffman, owner of Foxglove Market & Studio in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a past guest of this podcast, gave me a few suggestions. Len Busch Roses was one of them. And with just four days notice - and only one week before the uber-busy floral holiday of Mother's Day, Jason Lenz made it possible for me to have a bounty of Minnesota-grown flowers!