Debra Prinzing, Founder of Slow Flowers

Please tell us a little about your journey to founding Slow Flowers.

I’ve been in and around the garden writing world for more than two decades, ever since I quit my business reporter job in 1998 after my second child was born and began freelancing. At the time, I wanted to pivot to features writing, particularly home and garden/lifestyle topics. Miraculously, I mentioned this idea over coffee to a professional contact, a friend who at the time ran one of the only woman-owned advertising agencies in Seattle. And she told me she’d just signed on a new independent nursery to be its media buyer and offered to make an introduction. That connection was my wonderful door-opener and I ended up freelancing for that nursery, Emery’s Garden in Lynnwood, Wash., for four years. The crash-course in horticulture couldn’t also have happened without my taking dozens of classes at South Seattle Community College’s landscape horticulture program, immersing myself in the subject.

I soon became the Northwest Horticultural Society’s newsletter editor and with my newspaper background, I landed regular gigs with several Seattle area dailies, including a weekly design column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I wrote a number of books and continued to “trade up,” as they say, with more reputable or sizeable publications, both magazines and newspapers.

During that period of time, I dabbled in writing about floral design, especially for Romantic Homes magazine, which had a standing feature called “Blooms.” The assignments involved the art director sending me film from a photo shoot and asking me to call the florist who had designed the arrangements (usually someone in Los Angeles) to interview and write the narrative. I remember being so surprised that I knew more about the actual botanical ingredients used in those photographs than most of the florists I interviewed.

I met several flower farmers and learned about the challenges they faced in the floral industry here in the Pacific Northwest; one that didn’t value local or organic flowers, but rather, based business on price alone. With my business reporting background, I saw a big story – one that was not pretty, actually. One in which small, sustainable farms could not compete successfully on an “uneven playing field” where imports always beat them on price. I learned through my friend Amy Stewart’s wonderful book Flower Confidential (published in 2007) that preferential trade policies, low wages and lax environmental regulations benefitted growers in South America, making it challenging for domestic U.S. flower farms to compete.  That inspired me to tell a different story, to pick up where Amy’s book left off and show readers – gardeners, really, who were my audience – a better way to beautiful.

I partnered with Seattle photographer David Perry and we developed the idea for a book, a documentary-style project that told the stories of the emerging renaissance in America’s cut flower farming and floral design industry. David and I self-financed the creation of The 50 Mile Bouquet, determined to even self-publish if we couldn’t interest a publisher. During 2007-2011, years of picking up the project and setting it aside for other demands; then picking up again; we gathered content (photography and profiles) for a book. Wherever one of us traveled, we tried to meet American flower farmers and their customers, impassioned florists who also cared about the origins of the stems and petals they used.

By 2011, our book already being designed by art director James Forkner, when we met Paul Kelly of St. Lynn’s Press. Paul picked up the production and distribution responsibilities and The 50 Mile Bouquet was published in the spring of 2012.

In that book, we used the term “Slow Flower” for the first time. Our publisher loved the concept and urged me to do more with it. In 2013, I published a follow-up book called Slow Flowers, and I launched the Slow Flowers Podcast, the first-ever flower-focused podcast. Those activities inspired a lot of questions from readers, audiences, and the media – questions about “how can I find a flower farmer or florist who supplies local flowers?” – inspired me to start a directory. Slowflowers.com debuted in May 2014 as a free, online directory to help consumers in the U.S. (and later, in Canada) to find local growers and florists committed to local sourcing.

That inspired me to tell a different story, to pick up where Amy’s book left off and show readers – gardeners, really, who were my audience – a better way to beautiful.

What does “Slow Flowers” mean?

Slow Flowers is a response to the dramatic changes that the U.S. floral industry has undergone over the past 25-plus years. It recognizes that there is a disconnect between humans and fragrant garden flowers or small-scale flower farming. It aspires to take back the art of flower growing and recognize it as a relevant and respected branch of agriculture. Slow Flowers aims to reconnect people – flower consumers and professionals in the floral industry – with the source of their flowers. I believe that when there is transparent origin labeling of all botanical varieties sold to consumers and florists, it causes us to place high value on local, seasonal and sustainably-grown florals in the art of floral design.

Slow Flowers commits to the following practices:

• To recognize and respect the seasons by celebrating and designing with flowers when they naturally bloom.
• To reduce the transportation footprint of the flowers and foliage consumed in the marketplace by sourcing as locally as possible.
• To support flower farmers small and large by crediting them when possible through proper labeling at the wholesale and consumer level.
• To encourage sustainable and organic farming practices that respect people and the environment.
• To proactively pursue equity, inclusion and representation in the floral marketplace, intentionally valuing Black floral professionals (farmers, floral designers and vendors) in our business practice with as much support as we give to environmental sustainability.
• To eliminate waste and the use of chemical products in the floral industry.

What does a typical day involve for you? What do you love most about your job?

Bottom line, I tell stories. So my typical day involves interviewing our Slow Flowers members about their floral enterprises, and then presenting those stories as “content” through various channels. Those channels include our weekly podcast, our digital magazine, our various websites, and through books and magazine articles for BLOOM Imprint and for other publishers. I love helping people share their knowledge and passion with others, so much of what I do is make connections. I am definitely a human Rolodex and gain great satisfaction making introductions and connections between people who (I feel) need to know one another!

Running the Slow Flowers Society is the only job I’ve ever had that feels like a purpose-driven role. I wake up excited to dive in and improve on what I’ve built over the past nearly 15 years.

What is the Slow Flowers Summit, and what was the purpose behind launching it?

Originally, the purpose behind the Slow Flowers Summit was to create an opportunity for our members to gather at a live, in-person symposium for learning and networking. Launched in June 2017, the Slow Flowers Summit is an alternative floral conference that provides participants and attendees an interactive “live” component to the virtual American Flowers Week campaign (June 28-July 4). We call it a TED Talk for Flower Lovers.

In 2024, we expanded the Slow Flowers Summit to Canada, featuring all Canadian-grown flowers and learning from Canadian flower farming, floral design, and horticulture experts. In 2025, we’re going global with the Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit, which will be virtual and online, designed for accessibility and affordability.

The conference brings together creatives, thought leaders and change agents and includes a lecture series, tours of flower farms and wholesale florists, design presentations and small business programming. Speakers include leading voices in the progressive Slow Flowers community. The audience includes designers, growers, farmer-florists, wholesalers, retailers and flower lovers supportive of or curious about the Slow Flowers Movement.​

Local, seasonal, field-grown flowers (ideally free of synthetic chemicals) are the preferred choice for sustainable floristry. Have you observed an increase the number of farmers growing to meet this market?

Yes, according to the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), the number of farms growing flowers is on the rise, and has been for more than one decade. I get asked this question often, so I have prepared a number of references and links below:

Historically, since the enactment of the Andean Trade Preference Agreement in 1991, the percentage of U.S. grown flowers has declined. Currently, about 80 percent of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported and 20 percent are domestically grown. There is a noticeable rebound taking place as more American consumers are asking about the origins of all products, including flowers.

2023 USDA Floriculture Report 

Floriculture as a Profitable Crop: USDA released a 2014 report that shows floriculture is one of the top 5 most profitable crops for small acre farming. Please see page 10 and the graphic below:

You are the queen of flower farmer interviews – what message pops up again and again that farmers want florists to know?

This is a great question. More than anything, flower farmers want florists to appreciate what they bring to the equation. The best partnerships occur when flower farmers and floral designers find mutual benefit as collaborators, and this approach requires intentionality and a commitment to build relationships with customers and vendors, respectively. Flower farmers want to know what types of botanical elements florists want to use in their designs; florists want flower farmers to provide consistent product quality, quantity, and variety – and value. It’s all about communication. Unlike conventional commerce, this interdependent business community is built on trust, and on the belief that your success means my success. It’s counterintuitive, but as we see more mission-driven entrepreneurs disrupt the traditional floral industry models, these changes are exciting to watch – and to shine a light on the successes.

What are your hopes for Slow Flowers going forward?

To sustain our original mission, which is to inspire the floral industry and its consumers to embrace local, seasonal, and sustainable flowers.

As I ponder my “hopes,” I think they are very similar to SFN’s hopes. We like to say our goals are:

• 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.

What are your favourite three flowers – and why?

This is such a difficult question to answer, but here is a start:

I love gardenias because they were in my wedding bouquet. I don’t grow them, but there is one winter-hardy cultivar I’ve seen growing here in Seattle. I also love everything I can grow in my own small cutting garden. The hellebores start the season and I’m gathering and planting seedlings everywhere. The garden roses sustain me through summer – I have more than one dozen – and I love viewing them in my garden as much as cutting them for arrangements.

Debra is the producer of SlowFlowers.com, the online directory to American grown farms, florists, shops and studios who supply domestic and local flowers. Each Wednesday, approximately 2,500 listeners tune into Debra’s “Slow Flowers Podcast,” available for free downloads at slowflowerspodcast.com, or on iTunes and via other podcast services.

Debra is editorial director and co-founder with Robin Avni of BLOOM Imprint, a boutique publisher that identifies and develops creative book ideas by and about members of the Slow Flowers Movement.

In 2016, the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farm-to-florist cooperative, honored Debra with the first Growers Choice Award for her “outstanding contributions to revitalizing the local floral community”. She is a 2016 inductee to the Garden Writers Association Hall of Fame and a 2019 inductee to Professional Floral Communicators International. Debra has authored 12 books, including Slow Flowers, The 50 Mile Bouquet and Where we Bloom.

Debra’s social places

Instagram, personal: @debraprinzing

Instagram, business: @slowflowerssociety @slowflowerssummit

www.slowflowerssociety.com