Cultivation Of Crops: Who is Debra Prinzing?

"...sweet flowers are slow..." ~William Shakespeare

"The day's prettiest blooms and just-unfurled leaves - gathered simply into a bunch and displayed in a jar of water - provide everything I need to start the day."

~Debra Prinzing, from Slow Flowers.

Have you been hearing the name “Debra Prinzing” a lot lately? It seems whether online, at industry events or even reading the Costco Connection magazine, Debra’s name and her efforts to promote the Slow Flowers Movement keep popping up.

I decided to track her down and learn a little bit more about this best-selling author and columnist. We have met before at industry events, and Sun Valley even hosted her at our booth at the International Floriculture Exposition this year, but I wanted to learn more.

We spoke last week and I have distilled this article from our conversation. When you ask Debra a question, don’t expect a one word…or one paragraph answer, it is clear that she sees the deep connections that run back and forth between the natural and man-made worlds. In talking with Debra, you find yourself joining in a discovery process, exploring where connections happen. It brought to mind one of my favorite (and often misquoted) John Muir quotes:

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

Debra Prinzing is an author and outdoor living expert based between Seattle and Los Angeles. She has written seven books to date, and serves as a contributing editor to Better Homes and Garden magazine and her work appears regularly in the Home section of the LA Times.

Her newest book is called Slow Flowers, and this book is sort of the guide to the Slow Flowers Movement. What’s Slow Flowers? Debra explained that she took a page from the Slow Foods culinary movement, and that Slow Flowers is short hand for “acting with intention, being responsive to the seasons and being conscious of your consumer decisions.” She asks the question of herself, “What is in my garden, that I can put in a vase and reflect the season?”

Trying my own hand at the "Slow Flowers"aesthetic, #1 Sun Valley Tulips with ferns from my backyard.

This project was an off shoot of her book, The 50 Mile Bouquet, which focused on small regional farms, producing sustainably grow flowers. For Slow Flowers, she took on the rather ambitious goal of doing a bouquet every week for a year, using only locally sourced flowers. She started November first in 2011 at her home in Seattle, and quickly realized that she was going to have to learn to design with evergreen branches, berries and other botanicals that had survived the first frost.

She recognized that even though most of the items in her garden were past their prime, there were still local growers, and regional growers producing flowers in greenhouses year round. So off she went, engaging the flower growing community in her area and this is where the Slow Flowers idea really solidified. She saw that consumers don’t know where their flowers come from, and aren’t making a conscious decision to buy flowers grown in their town, their state or even their country. She wasn’t comfortable buying roses shipped in from South America, when she could buy roses grown year round in Oregon at Peterkort Roses or buying tulips shipped in from Holland when she could buy tulips grown year round a few hours south at Sun Valley in Humboldt County, CA. This was a revelation, that in every community in the United States there are growers, big and small, creating high quality flowers and unfortunately, only a few consumers know this.

#2 My backyard Montbretia, with Sun Valley Tulips.

Debra’s primary audience has been gardening enthusiasts, and as she spread the Slow Flowers message to people interested primarily in horticulture, she found a very responsive audience. People interested in gardening, naturally had an affinity towards understanding the origin of the plants in their yard, as well as the flowers in their vase. Debra’s message has snowballed from there. If you haven’t checked out the book, you should, and if you keep reading you may get a shot at winning one right here at Flower Talk.

Debra puts on a very engaging presentation, make sure to see her in action if you get the chance. Here she is making a beautiful monochromatic arrangement with Sun Valley tulips, Dusty Miller, and she was about to add our Ornithagalum.

As Debra has traveled the country promoting the book, the biggest problem she found was that the floral professionals she spoke with didn’t have a resource to help them find local, regional or U.S. grown flowers. And Debra, being in her own words “The Queen of Multitasking,” set out to correct this problem and www.slowflowers.com was born; this website (still under development) will serve as a data base that will help connect consumers and floral professionals to U.S. grown flowers.

The first thing you notice about her book is the beautiful photography, as a bit of a photographer, I was impressed to find out she did all her own photography, with just natural light. I asked Debra my favorite question for anyone, no matter who they are,

“What’s your favorite flower?”

True to form, Debra answered with the lovely story of how the gardenia is her favorite flower, since they were in her wedding bouquet, and how they were likely grown in a greenhouse near Portland where she tied the knot.

Week 5 from Slow Flowers. Sun Valley has a stunning crop of hydrangea harvesting right now.

I asked Debra to elaborate on her personal floral design style, what kind of design work does she do for her own kitchen table? She went back to her gardening roots, talking about the “abundant garden” and that in her circles, if you can see the dirt in a garden, you don’t have enough plants. She described her arranging style as “controlled chaos,” with a reliance on voluptuous heirloom flower varieties and a strong nostalgic appeal.

So what’s next for Ms. Prinzing? She will be devoting a lot of time into the Slow Flowers website, seeing that there is such a pressing need to support the buy U.S. Grown flower movement. Creating this resource will be not only be a personal accomplishment, but it will be a tool to promote quality fresh cut flowers grown on U.S. soil by U.S. farmers.

California Flowers are America's flowers

CA Grown flowers are near and dear to Debra's heart!

…and getting back to “The Queen of Multitasking,” she will also be launching a podcast featuring interviews with thought leaders and opinion makers centered around the Slow Flower Movement.

On my desk, I have three copies of “Slow Flowers.” Please comment on this post, and I will pick three random winners, cheers and good luck!