The Cut Flower Podcast

Building a Sustainable Floral Business with Ellen Frost

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 119

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

In this episode, Roz sits down with Ellen Frost, owner of Local Color Flowers, to explore the world of locally sourced, sustainable floristry. With 17 years of experience, Ellen shares her journey from gardening enthusiast to floral business owner and the challenges of maintaining a 100% local sourcing model.

They dive into the environmental impact of imported flowers, the logistics of working with local flower farmers, and why education is key to changing industry practices. Ellen also discusses the growing demand for sustainable flowers, her ideas for improving flower sourcing efficiency, and how community engagement is shaping the future of floristry.

Whether you're a florist, flower farmer, or flower lover, this episode is packed with insights on how to build a sustainable floristry business while staying true to your values.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

🌸 How Ellen’s journey into floristry began with a love for gardening
🌿 Why sustainability has been a core principle of her business from day one
📚 The importance of educating customers about local flowers
✈️ The carbon footprint of imported flowers and the waste in the floral industry
💐 How building relationships with flower farmers improves quality and supply
🚛 The logistics of sourcing locally and the challenges florists face
📈 The financial realities of running a local flower business
🤝 How community engagement and education are shaping the future of floristry
💡 Why florists should share knowledge and resources to strengthen the industry

Connect with Ellen Frost & Local Color Flowers:

📍 http://locoflo.com/

Make the most of your garden by visiting bramblecrest.com and use the code FIELDGATE at checkout. See website for full details.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow florists and flower lovers!


Roz (00:00)
So hello and thank you. I'm so delighted to welcome Ellen Frost to our podcast today. Do you tell us a little bit about you, where you're from, what you do? Tell our listeners all about you, Ellen.

Ellen Frost (00:11)
Sure. My name's Ellen Frost. I'm the owner of Local Color Flowers. We are a floral design studio located in Baltimore, Maryland. And this is our 17th year in business. So we've been doing this for a little while and always still enjoying it.

Roz (00:31)
Wow. So can you share your story, your journey into floristry? What led you to focus on exclusively on locally sourced flowers? I mean, like you, I'm a member of the Association of Speciality Cut Flower Growers and I've been to a conference over in Boston was my last one. But it's very interesting to see what the market's doing about locally sourced flowers. And I know there were lots of cooperatives and so on, but what's actually happening in that market?

Ellen Frost (00:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. well, would say my journey to local flowers is, through gardening. I didn't grow up really with flowers, grew up in cities and lived in cities until I was almost 30 years old and started gardening when I bought a little house and came to flowers through gardening. So I became a master gardener and, started working part-time on a vegetable farm here in Baltimore.

and got really interested in working at the farmers markets and really fell in love with flowers just from meeting a flower farmer that worked at the market and seeing his flowers, buying his flowers, using his flowers, designing with his flowers. You know I wasn't really trained in design then. And I love doing it just for fun as a hobby. And I decided I liked

Flowers better than my regular job. So I tried to find a way to do flowers. So the first thing I did was really take on weddings and try to become sort of a bridge between people in Baltimore city who wanted to do more sustainable weddings and farmers who had flowers but were not really connected.

Ellen Frost (02:12)
that's how I got started, just doing weddings with local flowers. And it was really a novelty then, 20 years ago, there weren't a lot of people using local flowers in weddings then. So today it's a totally different story. I feel like local flowers in the last 20 years have really expanded and sort of...

become more than a trend. I think they are here to stay. with the increase in interest, we've increased our interest in doing more things with local flowers too.

Roz (02:45)
That's interesting, isn't Because I didn't know what the market was doing. Because in the UK, I've been flower farming for 15 years. And I think probably for the first maybe even 10 years was like, it's an education. These are what flowers are. These are just flowers. This is why they're different and so on. And in the last five years, there has been movement. It's still tough. The education is still a long way from because the flowers on our supermarkets in the UK are not labeled. So we can't tell where they come from. So

Ellen Frost (02:58)
Yes.

Yes.

Totally. Great.

Roz (03:14)
It's a whole education piece before people even know there's a difference.

Ellen Frost (03:16)
Yeah. And

I didn't really realize when I got started how much education there would be. I would say, you know, in the beginning, the majority of my job was education, even more than floristry was just explaining to people the difference between our local flowers and, you know, shipped in commodity flowers and why it was important to source locally. And we still are doing that education, but

I feel like customers are much more educated now. They're much more tied into the buy local movement and they're seeking out local flowers more than ever before.

Roz (03:53)
That's good news because you normally lead and we have a trend and it follows. And so we're hoping the same thing because I have certainly noticed more more flower farmers joining as a career transition maybe. Loads more than ever has been before. The association, the flowers from the farm in the UK has got bigger. Hoping that word is getting out. But for us it's still a tough message. But if it happens, if it's happening more for you, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Ellen Frost (03:56)
Uh-huh.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't

think that we'll ever, you we will not ever be without imports again, you know, that we're not going back to a pre-import time. But I think if, you know, the more people that are interested in buying local, the more farmers that are telling the story, you know, the more inroads I think we can make in, you know, putting a little bit more of a dent in that, in that commodity import number.

Roz (04:43)
Yeah, I mean, our commodity imports about 90 % of the UK, floral industry is massive. And so if you think only 10 % of it is locally grown, that's really very small. And that's really being quite optimistic. We will never get away from the commodity market either. know, people will still want roses on Valentine's Day. And you know, we don't have flowers in January and February. We can get to about December and we can get astroe through the year and we can get some things through the year, but not much.

Ellen Frost (04:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

them.

Yeah.

Roz (05:12)
and January and February is really quite poor for us. And then we've got Mother's Day in March and we've still got an issue there. And yeah, by the time we get to the end of March, we're raring to go. So it's kind of, I don't think we can get away from it.

Ellen Frost (05:18)
Right.

Right. Yeah,

we've had a big push recently, I would say in the last four or five years for tulips for Valentine's Day. A lot of the American farmers, at least on the East Coast where I am, are forcing tulips. there has been some movement on that. There was actually just, think, New York Times or Washington Post article saying,

Roz (05:39)
Yes.

Ellen Frost (05:51)
there have been some strides in turning tulip into the flower for Valentine's Day instead of roses. even just that anyone is acknowledging that we are trying to push tulips as an alternative is great.

Roz (06:02)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I did the course. I can't remember who ran it now. Somebody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I did it because I wanted to do it here. I think if you're to go into it, you've got to go big scale and you've got to you've got to get all the refrigeration and everything. I wasn't ready for that. But now I know I can do it. You could get in February. So it's possible is the answer. So.

Ellen Frost (06:07)
right, the TULIP workshop.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Roz (06:27)
So what was the turning point that made sustainability non-negotiable for you? What was it that, you just, did you find out that the horrors of floral foam and use it for so long and then decide what, I mean, all of us, all went and decided.

Ellen Frost (06:33)
Yeah.

No, you know what?

I went into this business with sustainability as a pillar before we even started. I was, and I didn't, and because I was not trained as a florist, I didn't really have even a concept of like floral foam or things that traditional florists did that I shouldn't do. I had read Amy Stewart's book, Flower Confidential, and that was,

Roz (06:48)
Wow.

Ellen Frost (07:06)
really the first time I understood like the global market and how sourcing locally could be sort of like the starting point for a sustainable flower business. And so before I even started, I thought, you know, when you don't know what you don't know, you just think, okay, I'm going to just, that's what it's going to be. And so I didn't really know that it was a challenge or would be hard or,

Roz (07:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna do that.

Yeah.

Ellen Frost (07:35)
And then some things fell into place. You know, I had read the 50 Mile Bouquet by Deborah Prinzing and that was also, I think, important for me because I was seeing California and West Coast florists who were like, I don't use foam. I use recycled containers. I use sustainable mechanics. And I was just like, okay, that's what I'll do too. I just globbed it on and I didn't really think much of it.

But for us, it just became a way for us to differentiate ourselves in the market and a way to find the right customers. So when we told the story, those people who understood the story and valued the story really found us. So it was really right from the beginning. We didn't really have any sort of stretch of doing

doing it a traditional way or a conventional way and then switching. Which is partly why we do so much education today because I always think like, if we can do it, most people can do some of it. You can at least try and it's not really that hard. I know that people who use foam, they think it's hard to get away from foam.

Roz (08:35)
Yeah.

I belong to. Yeah.

Ellen Frost (08:59)
But now there's so many alternatives that I just feel like it really is an easy transition now.

Roz (09:03)
warm.

Yeah, I think it's becoming a lot easier. I can't wait to get my hands on Floam Obviously that's the West Coast. No, I've asked for a few samples too and I've not got it yet. She's been on my podcast. Dundee's actually been on my podcast and I want to have a look at that and see what that does. You know, obviously there's pouches and there's agri-wool, but the best mechanics are always back to chicken wire and water and tape and so on. Yeah.

Ellen Frost (09:08)
Mm-hmm.

we have not gotten it yet. Yeah, we have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree. That's our go-to. It's just, you know,

the old ways, floral frogs, chicken wire, you know, those things work great for us. They're reusable. You know, we're not throwing anything out or even composting those kinds of things. We're just reusing them. those, you know, are the easiest things for us for sure.

Roz (09:49)
I think so. I think it's just a lack of I mean, unfortunately, in floristry school still today in the UK, where they're still teaching floral foam. And then there's a bit of greenwashing around bio, which we know it's not.

Ellen Frost (09:57)
Yeah.

Yes. Which is disappointing

because I feel like they are doing such good greenwashing that people really think that's like a good alternative when it isn't. Right.

Roz (10:13)
It's it says it's bio, you see, these

words. But, you know, when you go into it, you think, yes, bio in certain conditions, in certain landfills that are never met. No, no. So I find that quite, I think they've come out with a new product, but I'm still not convinced. But I mean, as big as Oasis is globally, it should be at the forefront really, because actually their business model, they have all the resources of anybody.

Ellen Frost (10:21)
that are never gonna be your backyard compost. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah, I mean they have all the resources. Yeah.

Roz (10:43)
And if I was looking, if I was them I'd be looking over and going, there's this new product called Floam. Where's that? look at that. And what are these pouches? Surely someone's going to come up and come up with something. But yeah, there's lots of greenwashing. So what's the biggest environmental issues do you think in the florist industry today that most people don't even realize besides foam? I mean, there are loads of other things. I mean, you could go on a wholesalers and you go,

Ellen Frost (10:48)
Yeah, exactly.

I know there's so many. think the, gosh, I know.

You know, I think that there is still a lot of, I don't think that people still understand the extent of the carbon footprint of travel, the getting flowers from place to place. So, you know, if your flowers are traveling from another country,

Roz (11:27)
Yeah.

Ellen Frost (11:32)
5,000 miles away, the amount of natural resources that are going into moving those flowers is just enormous. And I always try to tell like a story of like, okay, if flowers start in Columbia, here's all the steps that have to happen. They've got to go on a refrigerated truck and an airplane and another refrigerated truck. And you know, there's so many resources being used to move flowers around.

that I just feel like that's one of the big benefits of local that I think is not talked about enough is that the travel miles are so low and we really are just reducing the carbon footprint by so much by buying closer to home. So for me, that's like one of the big pieces. Of course, trash, I feel like is also a huge issue. Just all of the packaging that comes

with commodity flowers, every sleeve, every plastic wrap. There's just so much of that. And then I think the other thing for me too, and we've really moved away from large scale events partially because of this, is just how much waste there is in big scale events and how a lot of these products, people source thousands and thousands of dollars for these big events and then they're up for a couple hours and then they get

thrown in the trash. They are not being composted, they're not being reused. There's just a lot of trash being generated by our industry. And I think that's something too that people are not talking as much about.

Roz (13:12)
Yeah, I agree, I agree. It's loads and loads of wastage. If we've gone after a wedding, we've picked it up, we'll take it to a residential home or something. It's kind of like, I've seen massive events all over Europe where they're just trashing it into a skip and it's terrible. So yeah, I just think we've all got to be mindful of that. And it was nice to say that you say that you're seeing it more mainstream, that gives me hope.

Ellen Frost (13:20)
Yeah.

It's terrible. Yeah.

Nah.

Yeah.

Roz (13:39)
and that people were moving away. Do you think the customers are driving it? Do you think customers are asking for sustainability or do you think not yet?

Ellen Frost (13:47)
I don't think yet. I mean, some, but not on a large scale. I think it's the farmers and some florists that are really driving home the message and also providing such high quality products that people, even if they don't care so much about the sustainability part of it, they recognize, these flowers are high quality. These last longer. These...

Roz (14:01)
Yes.

Ellen Frost (14:12)
they're starting to recognize that. And I think that is what people are liking. And the sustainability piece kind of comes with it.

Roz (14:17)
Yeah, more beautiful.

Agreed, more beautiful, more natural, more elegant in style, more varieties. I mean, there's so many flowers that we grow here that you couldn't import because there wouldn't some, you know, all your small annuals, your Nigella, your Scapers, forget all that, corn flowers, you get any of that. No. And so there, and you know, the dahlias we know have only got a vase life and we're picking them here.

Ellen Frost (14:24)
more varieties, more interesting. Yeah.

yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You'll never see that at a wholesaler. Yeah.

Roz (14:46)
you know, and then it's quite small, and you're lucky if you've got five days. So if you've sent it halfway across the globe, I'm not quite sure what you would have sprayed it with.

Ellen Frost (14:47)
yeah.

and

you wrap it in plastic and it's bruised and the petals are broken and just, yeah, it's all, it's all bad.

Roz (15:03)
Yeah,

I think it will change. I hope it changes in my lifetime. Anyway, I hope it starts moving. Leave my legacy, you know. My children joke about the fact, you know, if it was me, they'd go and get funeral flowers from the garage, you know, which is always really brightly coloured chrysanths that will have, or gerberas, that will have come in from Colombia. And the answer is, yeah, right, I'll come and haunt you. But yeah, so it's like...

Ellen Frost (15:06)
I, yes.

Yes.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Roz (15:31)
So what are your favourite mechanics for using if you're 100 % foam free? Do you go to Dishney for the chicken? What do you do? What do you use?

Ellen Frost (15:37)
Yeah,

usually chicken wire is our number one, whether that's for centerpieces or for installation. So we still are pretty heavy on chicken wire and whether that's, you know, in a vase just by itself or in an installation, you know, stuffed with old greens or something just to have something in there. But chicken wire is our number one. And we do use a lot of floral frogs if we're doing

Centerpieces for weddings like compotes or things like that. You know, we do use a lot of frogs We do use We use tape a little bit probably not as much as we used to but we do still use tape a little bit and We have used some more natural mechanics like curly willow or you know some other willows in there and Then depending on the situation we have used the ocean pouch

And I actually prefer the ocean pouch. We've used the agra wool, but to me, because I didn't go from foam to something else, I didn't use it anyways. So it seems kind of awkward to me. Like the agra wool, the ocean pouch is a little more, you can manipulate it a little more easy. So if you have like a container that's a weird shape or something like that, the, the, the, the, the pouch is a little bit easier.

Roz (16:36)
Yeah, it's no point. Yeah.

Ellen Frost (16:57)
So those are like the main ones. know, we use, I know that there are like, you know, the Holly Chapel pillows and eggs, which are basically just a fancy chicken wire. You know, I can make the same shape for cheaper. But yeah, any of those, we're really open to trying, you know, any of the old mechanics and new mechanics, frankly.

Roz (17:06)
Yes, yeah.

Ellen Frost (17:17)
But we try to keep it simple. We also not trying to spend a ton of money on mechanics. If you can buy one roll of chicken wire for 10 bucks and use it for two years, then that to me sounds great.

Roz (17:30)
Yeah, we use a lot of moss, an awful lot. But we put, sometimes we put moss in recyclable poo bags, actually, nappy bags, and then we can wet it a lot, because then it can hold a lot of moist. It's almost like a pouch, but a cheap way of making a pouch.

Ellen Frost (17:32)
yeah.

yeah. I've seen that.

Yeah,

we went, I went to maybe last summer to a farm in southern England, Brothers Flower Farm, In Dorset And they had a designer who was doing a demonstration and she said, the ocean pouches aren't here yet, but we can just basically make the same thing. That's what she said with a poo bag and some moss. And I was like, perfect. Yeah, that's great.

Roz (17:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, you don't want to spend all your money on mechanics. You just need them to last. But yeah, we're a we're a moss fan here. And we're poo bags. Yeah. How do you ensure that sourcing locally remains viable, both for you financially and logistically? Do you do buy from hubs? Do you have? How do you do it? Because that's the biggest issue for us.

Ellen Frost (18:09)
Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it

is a big issue. mean, logistics of buying locally is always going to be, think, even with new co-ops and hubs coming on, it is just logistically more difficult. Because if you buy from a wholesaler, get everything delivered at once, it's one, it's so easy. It's so easy. Exactly.

Roz (18:43)
Yes, 100%.

I know. And until we make it as easy, we've

got a problem.

Ellen Frost (18:55)
Yes, so we have about within our network that we buy from, we have about 40 farmers. Some of them are just themselves, individual farms. Some are part of like a co-op or a hub. And I would say on average every week we buy from about a dozen of those, just depending on what the season is. And again, this is a little bit like, this is how we started. So I didn't really know the ease of a

Roz (19:14)
Yeah, it's a little...

Ellen Frost (19:25)
wholesaler. So I didn't really know. I mean, I knew it existed, but you know, I was like, OK, well, I just buy from a bunch of people and I go drive out to their farms and you know it. I worked it into our model. But you're right that like financially you have to really work that into the budget because if not.

Roz (19:25)
Nice.

How easy.

Yes.

No model.

Ellen Frost (19:51)
You know, you're spending 40 hours a week driving around picking up flowers for no money. And then, you know, you're bankrupting yourself. Yeah.

Roz (19:59)
And that's the problem because

here for you, this instance, you might go to one flower farm who's got, I don't know, Queen of Sweden roses that are great. And then someone else has got corn flowers and someone else has got amie And no one flower farmer generally has enough stock for you to have everything. So you're spending your day driving. So the only way that works is a hub really system, I think. We're really new to it. There's only a couple in the UK. They've not really taken off big time yet.

Ellen Frost (20:09)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

huh.

Roz (20:27)
I could see a hub on the outskirts of London that could source all the florists in London, you'd need massive scale, but that's definitely a business to be had.

Ellen Frost (20:32)
Yeah. yeah. I think if you model, if people

model, especially big scale, if they're modeled off of the wholesale model, but basically a local option. So like the Seattle wholesale growers market, you know, which is basically like a wholesaler that, you know, you can order online, you can pick up or have delivery, you you order from one place. They make it really easy. I think then you're going to start seeing.

more than just the small niche florist buying, you're gonna have conventional big scale luxury florists that are gonna be able to order more easily. But you're right, think farmers, you know, I'm always on the side of farmers. And I also know that until we all make it very easy for people to get local flowers, I mean, us too, our business, our shop,

Roz (21:12)
Yeah.

Ellen Frost (21:29)
We're only open one day a week for four hours. So we don't make it easy either. I understand that. But to make it financially viable, that's how we have to do it. we're all trying to work towards making it easier to have local flowers more accessible to people.

Roz (21:47)
Yeah, I think that that's, you know, if we get that cracked, we've got it cracked. Because a traditional florist who bought from a whole lot of money and went online at night and ordered what they wanted and nicked that it was delivered. That's easy. That's really easy. Easy peasy. Next, when they have to... Hello? Hello? The quality you've got, the tool stems, there's no communication. And then all of a sudden...

Ellen Frost (21:51)
Yeah.

Yes.

Easy.

and you get exactly what you ordered and you pay online and there's no communication.

Roz (22:13)
You've now got to speak to these flower farmers to see if they've got enough David Austin, Queen of Sweden,

Ellen Frost (22:16)
Constantly texting and

emailing and calling and yeah, it's a lot. It's a totally different way of being, but I always say for florists, like being in a relationship with a flower farmer, even if you're only buying from one grower, that can really be life changing. Like not just for the flowers, but like those relationships, the relationships that I have with farmers, like most of what I know about flowers.

Roz (22:39)
Yes.

Ellen Frost (22:44)
came from learning from flower farmers like those relationships are just so valuable that you know it can't compare to ordering online from a wholesaler and never talking to somebody. Yeah.

Roz (22:57)
no relationship at all. I mean,

I have no idea, with the wholesaler, I have no idea who runs it, who it is. It's Dutch, I think, because it sounds Dutch, but I've no, no, no idea, nothing. So it just takes more effort and you've got to build it in your business model. And you've got to have good relationships. And you know, I've got good relationships with Florists in London, for instance, and they all want different things.

Ellen Frost (23:02)
Raise.

or where the flowers are even coming from or nothing. Yeah.

Yes, totally.

Roz (23:22)
Depends what markets they're serving. You know, I've

got one florist in London who does not do any wedding work or funeral work. And all they do is big installations in very, very nice houses in Kensington, Chelsea. So they're doing big stuff, big stuff, but not pastel, not whites or greens, big, colorful stuff, big, unusual stuff. So we grow to that spec. go, you know, most people would say, I've never grown a Disneyland Paris tulip in my life because it's orange.

Ellen Frost (23:32)
wow.

Right.

Yeah. Color, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Roz (23:51)
And you go, huh, no, no, we do. Cause we need lots of those. So it's kind of like talk to them. Yeah.

Ellen Frost (23:53)
Yeah. And that's another benefit. That's another benefit

for florists is that if you have a good relationship with a farmer, they will grow the things that make your business look good. They will grow the stuff that allows me as a florist to set myself apart because I can say, hey, I have two burrows and nobody around here has it and you've never seen it and it's awesome. And that they helped me set myself.

So I think that is such a huge benefit of like good farmer-flourist relationships.

Roz (24:25)
Yeah, that's really good to know. So you do a lot of teaching. Why is education important to you? We do teaching too. Why do you teach? What's, you enjoy it.

Ellen Frost (24:31)
Yeah,

I do enjoy it. I also feel like as I was coming up in the flower world, so many people, mostly farmers, were so generous with their time and their knowledge and their excitement over flowers, like when we were starting. And I just really found that very unique in the world of business. Like you didn't really find that a lot

where people were really trying to help you. And I just feel like I always wanted to carry that forward. I always wanted to sort of be able to give back to what so many people taught me going, you know, when I started. I mean, I remember when I first got started, I didn't even have a business yet. And I reached out to a farmer about an hour away and she did weddings. And I said,

Roz (25:01)
No.

Ellen Frost (25:25)
You know, I'm thinking about doing weddings. I'm not really even sure. You know, I don't know how to make anything. I don't know how to make a wrist corsage. I don't know how to make, you know, I don't know how to make anything. Like, there any tips? I was so new. And she said, why don't you come down, stay at my house for the weekend, and I will tour you around the farm and tell you about like business stuff. And I went and I was like, this is amazing. You are amazing.

I cannot believe that people are so generous with their time and their knowledge. And I just, I've always kept that with me and tried to incorporate education as much as I could. And certainly now I think as I'm getting older and, you know, hands-on floristry just has become harder. Finding new ways to do education, I think, has been really fun and really exciting.

Roz (26:19)
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Yeah, it's tough. You know, big weddings and big events and big, big, well, physically are exhausting and you need a big team, big project management, and you're right. And it's all about whether we can turn something we've learned into an education. So yeah, I'm with you on that. So if you could change one major thing about the floral industry overnight, what would it be?

Ellen Frost (26:26)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

I guess just the ease of access of local stuff. I think that's number one. I mean, it would be a dream if people could walk into a grocery store and instead of picking up an imported bouquet of flowers, they could pick up a local bouquet. Like to me, just if I could, you know, wave my wand, I would just, you know, really replace all of the places that make it easy for people to buy local.

and have our local flowers there. Like, I think that's number one. Yeah.

Roz (27:15)
Yeah, agreed. It would be nice, wouldn't it?

So what's next for you and Local colour flowers, what are you going to do next? Any exciting projects?

Ellen Frost (27:25)
Yeah, have, we've got a couple, we've got a couple of fun things happening. So we do, you know, we write a weekly newsletter. It's a free weekly newsletter and we do free YouTube videos every week, all education based. And we are sort of taking the next step. About six months ago, we started an online community. And so that has been like really fun. And I think more fun than I...

realized it was going to be, because it is a mix of just people who love flowers, hobbyists, people who design from their gardens, some farmers, some florists, and we're just making a really fun atmosphere to learn about design or even get together in person. So I'm really jazzed about that community. It's called Flower More. And then also trying to do some more

teaching around the country. Our business has been so hyper local for 20 years. We source locally, we sell locally, and that's what we've done for all of these many years. And so now, sort of looking into the future, like sort of figuring out, can we translate this to a bigger world? Can we teach around the country, nationally? Can we?

travel internationally and teach, you know, like can we do partnerships? Can we take trips? Things like that. So really looking for ways to like continue the education, but also just to have fun, right? Like floristry it's fun, but it's also really hard. So just trying to like fit more fun into our work.

Roz (29:06)
Definitely more international. I I joined, I joined a retreat, a floral retreat to flower farm and doing floristry and so on, just because it was quite beautiful and it was quite nicely done by somebody from New Zealand. And they're actually hosting it in Italy. And they have 16 people from around the world. I thought that'd be really exciting. So I've joined. There's some Americans going through. So that's in June.

Ellen Frost (29:17)
Huh?

wow!

Amazing!

That's so great.

Roz (29:33)
But then I'm running, we're running our own floral retreat as well. But we're doing ours in Spain, beginning of May. And again, very visit a flower farm, do some floristry, do some large installation work and just absorb the local atmosphere and do some cooking with flowers and that kind of thing. And it's like, there is fun to be had too.

Ellen Frost (29:36)
Cool.

Yeah.

Yes, I agree. Yep, so just more of that,

more flowers, more fun.

Roz (29:58)
I agree. Maybe we should come to the US for our next retreat Come and do Baltimore. Yeah, that would be good fun, wouldn't it? Well, we should talk about that. So as a business, you need to be everything as we know, a marketeer, a social media whiz and accountant, a creative director, and a customer service guru. What do you find the most challenging of all of them? Which bit would you dump tomorrow if you could?

Ellen Frost (29:59)
Yes, we would love to host you.

Yep. Yep.

I've

tried to dump as many of the things I didn't like or that were hard for me. So I got a bookkeeper, someone to do the accounting. That was big. I like most of the parts of it. Probably the most challenging is just that there are so many parts and juggling those pieces. I feel like I love the marketing and the telling the stories piece.

Roz (30:31)
Yeah, me too.

Ellen Frost (30:51)
but that piece to me is so constantly changing, know, social media is changing and there's just so much of, there's so much change in that, that, you know, my story is sort of the same, but like the outlets of how to tell the story always seem a little bit challenging to me. you know, do I spend more time on YouTube or Instagram or, you know, yeah.

Roz (31:04)
There's a lot of things out there.

You're so much like gonna pick your channel, haven't you? Because

people say that to me, why don't you do TikTok? And I say, well, because I'm sticking with Instagram. Because you can say, could do Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, but hey, what do do? And then that's the same about YouTube. And we use lots of Facebook groups for a lot of our learning and lot of teaching. So, because they're good at what they do. And then, but then you think, okay, well, cause should you have a YouTube channel and can you commercialize that? And I'm thinking, you kind of got to stick with your lane. If you've them all.

Ellen Frost (31:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You know what we started? Yeah,

we started YouTube about two years ago and we had a consultant, a marketing consultant who was helping us a little bit. And he said, if you want to have organic growth, you want more people to find you, more people to read the newsletter. He, his suggestion was either start a podcast or have a YouTube channel. And at that time we chose YouTube

Roz (32:04)
Yeah.

Ellen Frost (32:10)
even though it made me a little uncomfortable, like being on screen, but because we were really focused on design and like flowers, we really wanted it to be a visual thing. And now, you know, two years later, we've really committed to it, you know, Instagram and YouTube, those are our, those are our places. And, and that feels more manageable to me, like just having some parameters like

Roz (32:14)
Yes. Yes.

You thought I knew nothing? Yeah.

That's what you've You've got to pick your horses, haven't you?

Ellen Frost (32:40)
We are gonna stick with these places and write the newsletter. So that's been helpful, but it is like every day you see, right, should I be on TikTok? Should I be on LinkedIn? Should I, you know, there's so many things that I just have to keep focused.

Roz (32:53)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I mean, I chose, obviously, chose podcasts, a bit of writing and Instagram and Facebook groups. And that's enough. You know, it's kind of like, woo. So it's enough. But I'm going to go and have a look at your YouTube channel. So who is your inspiration? Who keeps you going? What gets you up in the morning? What is it all about?

Ellen Frost (33:01)
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's enough. Yes, I agree.

Hahaha!

Yeah, I, you know what? I mean, honestly, this is the flowers are very inspiring to me. Like actual, like the flowers themselves. Like we were off for a month in January and I had not worked with flowers all month and just coming back and having my hands on flowers again was like truly delightful. It was really, I was so excited. I have not in 20 years lost my excitement for flowers. They still,

Roz (33:42)
No.

Ellen Frost (33:45)
give me so much joy. And so, you know, I'm inspired by the farmers, our farmers here that just are really, you know, working hard to get us such beautiful local product. And inspired by our customers who just keep coming back and asking for things that we love to provide them. I mean, it's really great.

Roz (33:59)
Go now.

lovely yeah it's a lovely career isn't it. Any recommendations on books or podcasts or anything you've read in the past?

Ellen Frost (34:14)
books. always tell people Flower Confidential. you've never read anything about flowers, Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart is my number one recommendation. do they?

Roz (34:23)
I think they call it something else in the UK. I think

that that book is called Gilding the Lily and I don't know why it had two different titles. It's definitely the same book. I'm almost kind of and you call it something. What do you call it? Flower confidential. I call it in the UK. It's called Gilding the Lily. I don't know whether she couldn't have the title in the UK or something. I must ask her. She came on a podcast once. I must ask her why it was a different title. I'm sure she hasn't written two books.

Ellen Frost (34:34)
Wow!

Lower confidential.

Wow.

Interesting.

No, yeah, I mean, that's that for me, that's like my number one starting place for, you know, learning about flowers. I also really love we just we were we just did a book club within our our flower more community on Christian Gilles book Cultivated, which is a gorgeous design book, but also just it's not like any design book I've ever read. It's not recipes.

Roz (35:09)
Cool.

Ellen Frost (35:18)
It's really more essays about design. So essays on color and movement and gardening and floristry. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful book and really great to come back to, know, to read and come back to. So that's really, that's a really great.

Roz (35:38)
Yeah, I've written that one down. I mean, I'm now looking at a bookshelf full of books. I am a lover of books. So as soon as somebody mentions another one, it's like, I'm going off to read that So what we'll do, obviously in the show notes, we'll put your website and you've got some freebies on your website, which I think they're pretty good. And sign up for your email as well and just keep going and keep the sustainable message going.

Ellen Frost (35:42)
Me too.

Yeah.

Yeah, lots of freebies.

Thank you.

Yeah, yep, exactly.

The more we talk about local flowers, the better.

Roz (36:10)
Yeah, absolutely. But I will keep you posted and I've got my mind going now about whether we can book a retreat in around maybe the Association of Cut Flowers. Don't know where they are this next year. I had seen it.

Ellen Frost (36:14)
Good.

think

the national convention is going to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January. I think that's the next one. So they're doing some regional stuff, think, this year. But then in January, I think, is the national. So yeah, it could be fun to do something around that.

Roz (36:30)
That's it.

That could be appealing.

That could be appealing, certainly for us from the UK, because I have to say in January, the UK is pretty miserable and we're not doing any work. We might be doing some, well actually, no, we're not doing any work. So let's be honest about that. So I'm going to go off and have a look at that one as a member. But yes, stay in touch. We really love to see you staying in touch and we'll talk and see how things develop. And I want to thank you for coming over today. And it's been really lovely to chat to you.

Ellen Frost (36:46)
Right.

Yeah.

Excellent.

I will definitely. Excellent.

Thank you. You

too, Roz. Take care.

Roz (37:09)
Take care.