Blooms and Bouquets 2018

Dear Readers,

Put 50 flower farmers in the room and you're bound to have a wonderful day. 

Julio Freitas of The Flower Hat was our guest speaker, all the way from Montana! Ellen Frost from Local Color Flowers and Dave Dowling, President of the ASCFG, and I spoke too, on topics like building flower walls, growing good lisianthus, using Instagram to market your business, and planning your season.

We had three breakout sessions: the Business of Farming (me), Principles of Design (Ellen and Julio), and Success at Farmers Markets (Dave). It was our first time doing breakouts at this workshop and we'll definitely do it in the future! I loved my group!

This is my face when I talk about spreadsheets.

We usually hold the full day workshop in the barn, but due to heavy rain, we moved over to our landlords' house for much of the day. Now they have 50 more grateful farmer friends!

The day began with a farm tour and ended with the flower wall design. Volunteers from the group made the wall go up before our eyes, while Ellen and Julio narrated.

I say it every year when we do this workshop and it feels true again: this is the best day of the summer for me! Flower farming is a labor of love, and these amazing women (and 2 men) are doing great work out in the world. Their energy is infectious!

Thanks for the photos, LA Birdie Photography!

Aaaaand we went to get ice cream after, as one does...

Behind the scenes heroes of the day were Jess (on the right) and Jascha (to her left) and Eric (holding the camera). Couldn't have done it without you three!!

I wish you all happy day!

Laura Beth