Day 1 at the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Grower Conference

So, I’m finally here! When I agreed to speak at this year’s conference for the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, it was months and months away. But sure enough, weddings are over for the season and here I am in Reston Virginia spending a few days with some pretty amazing people.

When I first arrived, I headed straight to the Design Competition room. This was an ordinary hotel conference room filled to bursting with flowers that growers brought with them from all over the country…flowers I’ve never seen and all kinds of things I wish we had more access too locally like artichokes and safflower.  

The idea for the Design Competition is that everyone uses the flowers to create a design of their choice. This year, the theme was “Raising the Jar” and all of the designs were made in Mason Jars. It was a great time visiting with friends from Farmhouse Flowers, Love n’ Fresh Flowers and M and M Plants. It was also really inspiring to see everyone’s designs.

So here is my submission. What do you think? No real flowers. Mostly grasses and foliage but I still thought the colors and textures were so pretty.

After the design competition, I headed over to the welcome reception where there was a lively discussion about the future of the flower industry and the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.

Today I’m looking forward to a full day of conference sessions, seeing some of our growers like Bob Wollam of Wollam Gardens and meeting new people!

New Growers for LoCoFlo

This has been a great week for LoCoFlo! On Wednesday, I went  to Annapolis to the Mid Atlantic Growers meeting. This group of growers meets in the winter (November, January and February) to discuss best practices, share upcoming flower orders, listen to speakers, get trained on new techniques-and mostly just TALK about growing flowers.

Somehow…I get to go to these meetings even though I’m not a grower…which is AWESOME!  I learn so much in these meetings about new flower varieties, new design techniques and more. I also get to meet new growers that are close enough to Baltimore to sell to LoCoFlo.

This month, I especially enjoyed meeting and talking with  Madgie from M and M Plants in Montgomery County and Suzanne Montie from Red Chimney Flower Farm in Bowie.  I’m excited to have set up a phone meeting for next week with Wenfei Uva of Seaberry Farm.  I was also encouraged to hear about some young growers buying land and trying to make the transition from regular job to flower grower. The more people growing flowers locally the more options we have for our clients. So keep growing! Finally, through the magic of Facebook, I got connected to Plant Masters in Montgomery County. Check out their Facebook page to see beautiful photos of their locally grown flowers.

I’m so excited for 2011-to visit new farms and buy from new growers!