Hoosier Gardener: Slow flowers boost local blooms
Just like slow food, there’s a slow flowers movement that promotes growers and florists who embrace and market blooms and branches grown in their area, region or country, as well as serve as a resource for consumers.
SlowFlowers.com declared June 28 to July 4 American Flowers Week as a way to encourage all of us to cut or buy a locally grown bouquet for our holiday celebrations.
Begun in 2015, the goal is to engage the public, policymakers and the media in a conversation about the origins of their flowers, said Debra Prinzing, founder of American Flowers Week. About 20 percent of flowers sold in the U.S. are grown here.
“The Fourth of July is a perfect time to support domestic U.S. flower farms by choosing local, American-grown bouquets. It’s also the time of the year when local and seasonal cut flowers are being grown and harvested in all 50 states,” said Prinzing, who founded SlowFlowers.com in 2014.
On the Eastside, Indy Urban Acres devotes 1 1/2 acres of its 9 1/2-acre organic operation to growing mostly annuals, said Lauren Brown, cut flower manager of the not-for-profit. Indy Urban Acres is an initiative of Indy Parks Foundation and is on park land. Proceeds from cut flower sales support the food-growing operation, where all produce is donated to area food banks, soup kitchens and other groups that feed the hungry.
The flower-growing operation started with annuals in 2014. Brown has been planting perennials, such as coneflower, campanula and black-eyed Susan, to add to the selection. She sells her cut flowers at the Market at Hague at Lawrence North High School, and for weddings and special events. Consumers like that the flowers are organic and grown locally, she said.
Well-known florist, event planner and peony grower, Pam Parker, owner of JP Parker Flowers in Indianapolis and Franklin, also grows sunflowers and zinnias, staples of summer cut flowers on about 14 acres on farms in Shelby and Johnson counties. She’s added ornamental corn, celosia, hanging amaranth and marigolds to the mix, and sells her flowers at Broad Ripple, Carmel and Franklin farmers markets.
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Parker said many of today’s brides are interested in what she calls “American garden” bouquets, loose arrangements of field flowers.
In northern Marion County, Molly & Myrtle Indianapolis Vintage Weddings uses cut flowers as part of its event planning services, which includes curated period furnishings and architectural elements. Owner Amy Beausir farms just under an acre, growing annuals, perennials, and greenery, which she sells at Abundant Life Market at 82nd Street and Hague Road.. She’s been in the cut flower business for seven years, and she includes shrubs, such as blueberry, viburnum and magnolia, for year-round arrangements. When flowers are cut the day they are sold or the day before, they last much longer in arrangements, Beausir said. “Slow flowers have an authenticity, are habitat friendly and they don’t look like they are grown by a corporation.”
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp (hoosiergardener.com) is treasurer of Garden Writers Association and co-author of “The Indiana Gardener’s Guide.” Write to her at P.O. Box 20310, Indianapolis, IN 46220-0310, or email thehoosiergardener@gmail.com.