We were lucky to catch up with Debra Prinzing recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi DEBRA, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I have had a long career as a journalist, both as a newspaper business reporter and a home and garden features writer for daily newspapers and major lifestyle magazines. About 15 years ago, I began to write about flower farms for gardening magazines, telling their stories to help readers (gardeners) learn to grow their specialty crops and emulate their sustainable practices.
As a former business writer, I was enthralled by the flower farmers and their stories in which small, sustainable growers could not compete on an uneven playing field against lower-cost, imported flowers. That inspired me to tell a different story, to inspire readers – gardeners, really, who were my audience – a better way to beautiful.
In 2012, I authored The 50 Mile Bouquet (photographed by David Perry), a documentary-style book filled with stories of the emerging renaissance in America’s cut flower farming and sustainable floral industry. By then, I had also started a personal project called “Slow Flowers,” which I thought might become a blog series. I challenged myself to create one bouquet each week throughout a 12-month calendar year. I harvested flowers and foliage ingredients from my Seattle backyard and supplemented those with more flowers purchased from local flower farmers.
Slow Flowers, the book, was published one year after T50MB, in spring 2013. And as I led workshops, gave lectures and spoke with bloggers and writers about the idea of living seasonally with flowers the way a chef lives seasonal with her or his menu ingredients, I was often asked: “How do I find flowers that I know are local? How do I find farmers and florists who supply them?
I often told myself that “someone should start a directory of American grown flowers.” It took nearly one year of development to launch, and I unveiled Slowflowers.com in 2014, just before Mother’s Day. Slowflowers.com was funded with about $12,000 of my own money from a liquidated IRA and when it became clear that the amount wouldn’t cover our launch, I turned to Indiegogo with a campaign to raise another $12,000. The campaign blew my mind. It raised more than $18,000 from 229 backers, giving us the funds to finish the phase one development and get Slowflowers.com launched.
With the publication of the Slow Flowers book, Slowflowers.com, and our popular “Slow Flowers Podcast with Debra Prinzing” (launched July 23, 2013), my life has turned more passionately to flowers. I kind of fell down that flower-growing rabbit hole and I often ask myself “why?” I was by all accounts a moderately successful garden writer, with bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Metropolitan Home, Garden Design, Better Homes & Gardens, and many other titles. But I felt like a generalist. I wrote about design (architecture and interiors) as a specialty in addition to gardening, which is something very few of my peers could do. I delved into architecture even deeper in 2008 with Clarkson Potter’s publication of my award-winning book Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways (with photographer William Wright). But somehow, the traction I had hoped to achieve with a sequel to the shed book, with endorsements or co-branding opportunities in the “outdoor living” space, never happened.
I was really ready to go big and attach my name to something that mattered . . . and when I embraced domestic flowers, those flowers embraced me. The people in this industry (flower farmers, floral designers and farmer-florists) embraced me and saw me as their informal spokesperson.

DEBRA, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The Slow Flowers Movement plays an important role in giving domestic flowers a voice — connecting flower farmers with florists and their customers, anyone who wants to signify or commemorate a life event, or just have beauty and nature in their lives. By convening the conversation and amplifying the voices of flower farmers, I have created an important narrative, encouraging them to find their own unique stories, and to differentiate their flowers from commodity crops not grown in the U.S. Much like the Slow Food Movement became the anti-fast-food/pro-locally-grown cause, Slow Flowers is the pro-locally-grown flower cause. This has happened at a time when consumers are asking about the origins of their purchases in all consumer categories; they are concerned about saving local jobs; about preserving farmland; about stimulating economic development in urban, suburban and rural areas alike. When you know the farmer and her or his story, you have a different relationship with that bouquet in your hands or vase. And if you can make one small gesture to buy locally-grown and domestic flowers, then you feel empowered to direct the course of an entire industry. Certainly we are not going to eliminate imports, just as we can’t eliminate imported cars or imported fashion. Too many agricultural and manufacturing operations have been sent overseas. But there is an opportunity to differentiate in the crowded floral marketplace and Slow Flowers is giving progressive farmers and florists a new way to break through that clutter and be a better choice.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I simply can’t accept that consumers are spending millions, if not billions, to buy a perishable product that is grown far away and is shipped to us on jumbo jets using quantities of fuel that defy the imagination. As a gardener (that is my point of view, because I’m a gardener), this makes no sense. I believe floral consumers are driving this movement with their pocketbooks and practices. They know how flowers grow; they know the seasons, the bloom cycle; the benefits of having plants in our lives. So they “get” it and when I can connect the dots with my articles, lectures, podcast episodes and outreach campaigns like American Flowers Week, then there’s a newfound embrace of this movement. People are looking at labels, they’re shopping at the farmers’ markets, they’re asking florists to use only local flowers in weddings or events. They are searching for meaning and connection for their purchases.
As a bit of an outsider, I don’t adhere to the “rules” that exist in mainstream floristry. I am self-taught as a designer and I am able to say that the “emperor has no clothes,” when others are afraid to. If I can suggest alternatives to conventional florists who feel boxed in by Pinterest or Martha Stewart or their hometown wholesaler who opts not to build ties with local flower farmers, then I want to play that role. Ultimately, consumer preference will shift the marketplace. If that means each grocery store and wholesale florist in the country adds a “local” or “American grown” floral section then I’ll be happy. It’s choice that matters. And until I started asking the question about flower sourcing, there was been little or no desire to offer choice.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

The mission of Slow Flowers is to inspire the floral industry and its consumers to embrace local, seasonal, and sustainable flowers.

Our Goals:
• To change the flower sourcing practices of consumers and professionals through outreach and education that highlights the benefits of local, seasonal and domestic floriculture.
• To build a movement that promotes cultivation and sales of local, seasonal and sustainable flowers, while nurturing authentic connections between consumers, farmers and florists.
Slow Flowers gives a name and terminology to what was once considered a “fringe” or less-than-mainstream category in the floral marketplace. By presenting stories that put a face on and give voice to domestic flower farmers and help florists leverage their connections with domestic/locally-grown and seasonal flowers and foliage, Slow Flowers is accepted as a relevant floral industry niche and considered a viable branding and business option for professionals in the floral marketplace.
One of the most rewarding results of building a community is that our members become our brand ambassadors and our spokespersons across North America, in their own communities and regions and through their own channels. That multiplying effect of a passionate fellow advocates is priceless and impossible to measure.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.slowflowerssociety.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slowflowerssociety/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SlowFlowersSociety
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debraprinzing/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0fDtJBdqYyDIcJfCtad-hg

Image Credits

(c) Missy Palacol for Slow Flowers Society