The Cut Flower Podcast

Sharing Stories, Growing Flowers: A Conversation with Debra Prinzing & Robin Avni

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 130

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

In this inspiring episode of the Cut Flower Podcast, host Roz chats with Debra Prinzing and Robin Avni - co-authors of The Flower Farmers: Inspiration and Advice from Expert Growers. Together, they explore the heart behind the book, which shares the stories of 29 flower farmers from across the country.

From the collaborative process of writing the book to the personal journeys of each grower, this episode is packed with insight, encouragement, and honest reflections on the challenges and beauty of flower farming. Debra and Robin also discuss the powerful role of the Slow Flowers Movement, the rise of consumer demand for local blooms, and the value of knowledge-sharing in this growing community.

Whether you're just starting your flower farming journey or are years into your field-grown dreams, this conversation will leave you inspired to keep growing - and sharing.

🌸 Key Takeaways:

  • Why The Flower Farmers fills a much-needed gap in the market
  • What it's like to collaborate creatively in the flower industry
  • The importance of storytelling in building community and connection
  • How marketing and mindset shape a thriving flower business
  • The growing momentum behind the Slow Flowers Movement
  • Hints at exciting future projects from the authors

You can connect and find out more about Debra and Robin's work in the following ways:

Slow Flowers Society, https://www.slowflowerssociety.com/

Bloom Imprint, https://www.bloomimprint.com/

Robin's IG: https://www.instagram.com/robinavni/

Debra's IG: https://www.instagram.com/debraprinzing/

Slow Flowers Society on IG: https://www.instagram.com/slowflowerssociety/

Bloom Imprint on IG: https://www.instagram.com/bloom.imprint/

First Tunnels, leaders in domestic and commercial product tunnels. 


Roz (00:00)
So hi everybody and welcome back to the Cut Flower podcast where we talk, as you know, all things blooms business and the beauty of building a life around flowers. I am so thrilled about today's episode because we've joined by two incredible guests, Deborah Pinsing and Robin Anavny, the co-authors of a brand new book that's already making waves in the flower world, The Flower Farmers, Inspiration and Advice from Expert Growers. I truly believe there's a gap in the market for this book.

Deborah is no stranger to many of you. She's a prolific writer, a speaker and the founder of the Slow Flowers Movement, which champions local season and sustainable blooms. And joining her is the brilliant Robin, an award winning creative director and content developer who brings the visual heart of the book to life. Together, they've captured the stories of 29 inspiring growers from across North America, showing their practices, their challenges and the passion for flowers.

in a way that's as educational as it is beautiful. So whether you're a farmer or florist or just flower curious, today's conversation is packed with insights, laughter and inspiration. So grab yourself a cup of tea or your favorite pair of gardening gloves and let's just dive straight in. So Deborah, welcome back to the podcast and Robin, it's a pleasure to have you join us. Before we dive in, how did this collaboration come around?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (01:24)
Well, hi Roz, Deborah here. I'm gonna let Robin answer that question.

Robin Avni (01:29)
Well, we, you know, it's funny. Thank you. Hi, Roz. It's Robin. We met each other on the floor of the Seattle Flower and Garden Show probably about 20 years ago. And we just kind of, we didn't know each other. We just kind of ran into each other, started chatting over the years connected. Then ⁓ we tried a little project together.

Roz (01:41)
Yeah.

Robin Avni (01:52)
And then we decided, ⁓ you know, a few years later, maybe we'd start our own publishing company. So we did that and we published six books. was a good COVID activity, it turned out. And then now we've just, you know, collaborated on this book. We like working with one another. What can we say?

Roz (02:14)
Brilliant. So it's a chance meeting that has led to a brilliant collaboration over so many years. What more could you want?

Robin Avni (02:21)
Yes,

and friendship. ⁓

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (02:22)
And I'll just

add, we both come out of the Seattle journalism world and we were on a press tour, Robin. It wasn't just strangers in the night.

Robin Avni (02:30)
That's right,

wasn't just strangers meeting on the floor. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Roz (02:33)
Picking some flowers up.

So let's start with the Flower Farmer's book. What was the initial spark for the book and how did you shape the vision together? It's quite an unusual topic to dive into. And like I say, there's a real gap in the market for this. What made you choose this?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (02:52)
Well, I'll just, this is Deborah here, I'll just say in a way it didn't seem like strange for us because all we do is capture stories of floral creatives, farmers and designers in all of our projects, other books that we've published and then also our quarterly Slow Flowers Journal magazine. But the spark for the book, we have to give credit to our editor, Shawna Mullen. She's the editor at Abrams Books based in New York City.

Robin Avni (03:15)
Yes.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (03:19)
And she's done other design very, they're very design focused in their ⁓ production. So as soon as I said Abrams to Robin, she's like, these are gorgeous books. There's excellent attention given to photography and design. But Robin ⁓ and I had a book that we were trying to market to other publishers. And we approached Abrams, among other publishers, to pitch this book a different title. Yeah.

Robin Avni (03:44)
friend of ours, of a colleague of ours.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (03:48)
And Shauna's response was, hey, ⁓ that's not exactly right for me, but I have this idea for a book about flower farmers and profiles. Would you be interested? our response was, yeah, we're the best people to do this. we took her ideas, and she had some really great ideas about not just ⁓ like, I like to call this flower farmer porn. Like, it's just beautiful.

gorgeous dive in you want to transport yourself to the pages of this book but practical and we don't believe we're teaching people how to be flower farmers but in interviewing these 29 North American growers we are trying to pluck out one floral ⁓ crop that they are experts in and share a little bit of growing information a little bit of the cultural history of the of the plant

And so that the gardener who reads it can say, I can grow that. I can grow what the pros grow. And that's really resonated with people.

Roz (04:48)
Wow.

Robin Avni (04:48)
And I'd also

say their stories have resonated with people, because we really wanted to not just do, here's what I farm and here's how I do it. It's how did I come to flower farming and what motivates me and what's my story? And as always, that really captures people. And so the combination is just really powerful.

Roz (05:10)
I think people when they read it can recognise themselves in it because there's lots of reasons why people go into flower farming. It could be an accident as it was with me. It can be something that's happened in their life, life changing, that's then got them to take up gardening initially and then, I can make a living out of this. And I think the stories behind it is much more interesting than what crops you grow and what acreage you've got and how much money you make out of it. I think it's much more interesting to say, OK, well, if there's all these people doing it, why can't I?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (05:40)
Well, it's so interesting you mentioned their stories because one of the lecture formats we're using is based on Robin's years of research in consumer behavior and consumer personas. And she has taken all the farmers in our book and kind of fit them into these unique categories of what led them to flower farming. And one of them I think, Roz, you would fit perfectly into is the corporate escapee. ⁓

Roz (06:07)
Yes!

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (06:08)
That is very,

it's not universal, but it's very relatable for a lot of people who come to this profession, wouldn't you say?

Robin Avni (06:16)
And we have the, ⁓ we call the family business where they've inherited a farm or basically a health incident that has made them reconsider. The side hustle where they started something on the side. The artistic expression. So we do have these different groups exactly.

Roz (06:36)
Wow, I can't wait to read it further. I really can't. I mean, I just love it. I just think it is the stories behind it. I wrote a very simple book during COVID when I was running a consumer course, Seed to Vase which was about teaching everybody to grow cut flowers, you know, so was just somebody in COVID hasn't got a clue, going to grow some seeds, going to grow. And it was an eight month course. So we took them from beginning to end and we're now running it next year for our sixth year. But in COVID was the first year I launched it.

And I kind of thought, well, people have just grown flowers and it'll be really lovely, won't it? And everybody will have a lovely time. Actually, it actually ended up being and why I wrote the book was it was 12 people whose lives had changed. You know, maybe they were bereaved, maybe they lost a child, maybe they were divorced. And it was just like, ⁓ my goodness, how growing flowers had helped them get over what was going on in their lives.

Robin Avni (07:20)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (07:28)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Roz (07:30)
And so the book I wrote was about the stories of their lives because I originally started with, I'll write a flower book and I'll talk about all the flowers you should grow and isn't that lovely? And then all of a sudden I thought, no, no, no, it's not really about that. It's more about why they do it. So your book has come at exactly the right time. This is brilliant.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (07:44)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Robin Avni (07:48)
Thank

you.

Roz (07:48)
So can you share a standout moment from the process of researching or interviewing the farmers? Any surprise stories come out of it? I mean, 29 growers. Wow. What was the most? Have you got some stories to tell us?

Robin Avni (07:58)
⁓

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (07:59)
Well,

I will say that it was important to me because I've worked on the Silt Flowers movement for so long, I really wanted to feature people who were members and had been participating across the US and Canada as members of the Silt Flowers movement. Well, the good news is Robin has been so ⁓ intimate with that process, especially in the last six or seven years that

She knew a lot of these folks too, because she had met some of them at conferences and developed her own separate relationship with them, especially the people in the arts world. And so she was like, we need her, we need him, we need them. And so we really didn't have any negotiation about it. I will say we also tried to have a huge diversity of ages, family stories, heritage, and also geographic so that we could hopefully touch

Robin Avni (08:33)
Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (08:52)
you all corners of North America. So people would not all but many. So people could say, ⁓ you could actually grow flowers in Alaska. You can actually grow flowers and have a business in on the big island of Hawaii. Who would who would have thought of that? So.

Robin Avni (09:09)
And I'd also say that what kind of popped up was just what we were talking about earlier, life moments. mean, people's lives did not freeze. They did not stop. know, things happened in their lives that we needed to just be aware of as we were working with them.

Roz (09:27)
Yeah, it's life, isn't it? it's, yeah, like you say, it goes on. ⁓ It does. So what do you hope we've done?

Robin Avni (09:31)
Life goes on, yes, absolutely.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (09:35)
I wouldn't say and I'll just say I'm sorry

I was just gonna add I wouldn't say it's all women but back to your point Roz about the people who took your workshop and I'm just guessing it many of those were women on farm yeah

Roz (09:43)
Yep. All women. 100

% 100 % women.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (09:50)
Yeah, we have, you know, many couples and a few individual solo guys, women drive this industry, at least this, you know, small scale farming industry.

Roz (10:04)
Yeah, yeah. So what do you hope readers will take away after reading the book? What would you hope that they take away from it?

Robin Avni (10:10)
Well, we like to

say our phrase is ⁓ the dirt welcomes everyone. That it doesn't really discriminate or say you can't join me. A few seeds, a packet of dirt, and a packet of seeds, some dirt, and a little water, and you're a flower farmer.

Roz (10:28)
Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, you can get the knowledges. mean, I've been doing it 15 years. And when I started, I had no horticultural knowledge. I certainly went on no training. I went on a half day course and thought I could do this. I can grow some seeds. That'll be good fun. Just had a few raised beds, honestly, three raised beds, three meters by one meter. And it was only going to be a bit of fun. That's what it was and see if something happens. So from that, I on to talking to people. said, well, you didn't go to college and you didn't do...

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (10:46)
You

Roz (10:57)
masses amount of flower arranging courses and you didn't I've never studied anything at all in the 15 years I've just self-taught so if I can do it anyone can do it

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (11:07)
And I think you're touching on something that we do tease out in these stories, and that is ⁓ this generosity of sharing knowledge that happens from farmer to farmer. ⁓ the farm that we featured, whose hellebores are on the cover of the book, Jellimold Farm, which is here in Washington state in the upper northwest corner of the United States, ⁓ Diane and Dennis are, ⁓ they like to say they grow farmers because they are

Robin Avni (11:18)
That's amazing.

Roz (11:24)
Bye.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (11:37)
⁓ very intentional about mentoring apprentices and interns who ⁓ they need help, they're both in their 60s, but they don't just hire an employee, they invest in those ⁓ opportunities to teach and share their knowledge to the next person. And we saw that time and time again with, and that's what you were talking about, Roz, you might have,

learned on your own, but then you learn from other people and now you're teaching other people and it's just this exchange of knowledge and passion about, you know, what you're growing and how are you growing it and, you know, should I try it on my farm?

Robin Avni (12:15)
And I have to say as a non-farmer, really, I I grow flowers but I'm not nearly as well versed as Deborah or this group in the flower world, that I found the group to be so welcoming and so generous that it's really been a joy. I mean it's just been a joy. They're great.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (12:36)
And you've been inspired to grow things that you never thought you would grow before because of the...

Robin Avni (12:39)
know my roses

are so wonderful this year, I can't even believe it. I mean, it's kind of amazing.

Roz (12:48)
It's isn't it, I've got two students with me at the moment. They're not, they are university students, one's doing history and one's doing sport and hopes to be a professional footballer. Two, I advertise locally in a Facebook group, can I need some help with the weeds because this week the weeds are really bad. These two students arrived very sort of glary-eyed and not really knowing what was happening. And after the first couple of days, they said to, because they're here for the summer, they said to me, this isn't what you call work.

This isn't like, you know, we've done things in hospitality and we've worked at McDonald's and this is not work. This is, we can't explain it. And it was like a drug. It was like all of a sudden these 19 year old guys had turned up on their bikes and hadn't got a clue what was going on. And then went, actually, we really like it. We really like this thing called horticulture. You have to teach them what a weed and a flower is, but you know, it's a good start, but it's weird.

Robin Avni (13:16)
Hahaha.

Yeah

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (13:36)
Mmm.

Those endorphins were kicking in, I guess,

right?

Roz (13:46)
Yeah, weird, don't you think? It's like, my goodness. So we call them the ducklings, but we don't tell them that's what we call them. That's true.

Robin Avni (13:52)
⁓ come on.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (13:54)
I they don't hear this podcast then. That is so cute. I want

to see a picture of them following you around the farm because they probably are taller than you.

Roz (14:02)
They are twice the height that I am. So yes, you will see some pictures on Instagram of them on the farm. So it's really weird how it gets under their skin. And it's it's weird.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (14:18)
That's great. It's very gratifying. And I think we have a kind of a subcategory of the educator, the teacher, because we do feel that there are people who are just born to share their knowledge and teach. And they do it in not necessarily school textbook learning, but in the side-by-side experience of sharing their knowledge. we have a lot of, like you, a lot of the flower farmers have...

webinars or online courses or have YouTube channels. They're sharing in multiple across multiple platforms, but also person to person, ⁓ which is really the best way to learn how to flower farm.

Robin Avni (14:57)
Absolutely.

Roz (14:57)
Yeah,

100%. Yeah, yeah. If I leave one legacy, that's what it would be. It would be all about leaving sort of training or mentoring or, you know, I'm kind of thinking of what's my next big thing. And I thought later on in the year, I might teach anybody everything I know. And so I'm working with somebody in the US about what does that look like? And it's big. And it would take a year online. But can I teach everything? Can I teach them how to do webinars?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (15:22)
What?

Roz (15:26)
how to sell pages

and funnels and do a podcast and write books and grow and sell at markets and sell wholesale and sell retail and do floristry. And I reckon I could do it in a year. And that would be my legacy.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (15:38)
Well,

and I think, Roz, what you're touching on is this fact that when you're a floral entrepreneur, you do have to wear so many hats. And we are really impressed with that kind of nimbleness that flower farmers have to have, because many of them that we feature in our book are also really renowned designers. they do wedding and events.

they're beyond farmer florists. were floral designers who decided to start growing because they couldn't find the varieties that they wanted. I think of three in particular, Holly Chapel and Max Gill and Julio Fritas. They all came to growing flowers from a design, a pain point of not getting the flowers they wanted for their design studio. In the flip side, there are people who started growing and started getting asked to design.

And again, that's really a nice intersection that we were able to show through the photography that Robin curated for the book. It's that whole seed to centerpiece arc or seed to bouquet arc that people are able to find revenue streams from.

Roz (16:45)
Yeah, I mean that's the truth. You have to find revenue streams and very diverse revenue streams and diverse markets. And I think marketing is probably 80 % of the job. If I was in reality and 20 % is really the growing, which is quite sad, but it's true. And therefore just getting that right in the first place is tough, really tough.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (17:04)
Yeah, you've really

touched on you've really touched on something that is definitely in a crowded marketplace where everybody's basically competing with low cost alternatives. They have to tell their story and they have to find new ways to connect with customers who are not going to be who are going to make a purchase based on emotion and relationship and of course quality product, but not just on price.

Roz (17:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Robin Avni (17:28)
I'd also say

that any creative process, unfortunately for a lot of creative people, and that's what I consider flower farmers or creative people, marketing is 80 % and 20 % is your work, right? So it's a necessary thing.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (17:43)
Hmm.

Robin Avni (17:49)
And it's interesting to see how different flower farmers go about doing it. Everything from holding events on their farms to opening retail shops as a marketing tool, which is that really what it is in many ways, and also just how they use social media.

Roz (18:03)
Yeah.

Yep, 100 % yep, yep, it's a full-time job of social media I can assure you. So on the slow flower movement Debra, tell us about it, the slow flowers you touched on it earlier, what does it mean today and how has it evolved since you founded it?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (18:22)
Yeah, wow. When you said you've been doing this for 15 years, I'm thinking like our paths have been completely parallel. ⁓ Because so flowers really was just my response, my personal response to the frustration I saw in the marketplace where flowers, people didn't know where their flowers were grown. There was no labeling. There was kind of this ⁓ vague idea that flowers just show up and

the bouquets wrapped in cellophane at the supermarket and no one really had a sense of their the people behind them. And so I set out to sort of create a conversation with the term slow flowers trying to connect people with ⁓ the land and the stories of people who grow flowers. So now, you know, we're still continuing on with all kinds of channels of content, which Robin and I are collaborating on some of them. Like I mentioned, the magazine. But I do have

this membership association, Sulfour Society, and that is really what we drew from for profiling the farmers in the book. And of course, there's over 700 members. Would have been wonderful to do a book with 700 people, but we had to kind of narrow it down. Maybe we'll do part two another time. ⁓ everybody is, ⁓ it's fascinating how people find their niche and their story because there is not a single monolith of farmer.

farmer florist. ⁓ But so Flowers really tries to find the stories and share them and uplift the whole industry. I guess with the goal of advocating for more domestic flowers in both on farming and design and consumption.

Roz (20:01)
So you've got the Slow Flowers directory and it supports local flower farmers so we can put the link in there I think it's amazing. In your view what's the greatest issue facing from flower farmers in the US when it comes to locally sourced flowers? What's happening with that whole market now?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (20:15)
Hmm.

You know, I have some thoughts Robin probably can add to this. I think some of the issues really boil down to infrastructure. It's access to land. Land is expensive. It's, you know, amazing how people are very creative about how they get access to land. There's bartered land. There's obviously ⁓ leased land, but owning land is really

Roz (20:27)
Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (20:43)
the most stable and sustainable for flower farmers. So I'd say that there are some innovative programs in of in hyper local environments where nonprofits are trying to create long-term leases for people to have access to farmland through cooperatives and that sort of thing. The other issue I think really is transportation and getting flowers from where they're grown to where they're consumed. again, there's some.

great innovations happening. We profiled Sunny Meadows Flower Farm, Gretel and Steve Adams. They're in the Midwest, Central US, and they grow ranunculus as their specialty crop. They grow many, many things. But the one that we featured was ranunculus, and that is a very ⁓ adaptable flower for shipping. And they've developed an excellent program with nationwide customers shipping their ranunculus that are grown in the greenhouse. So they're harvesting them earlier.

⁓ than field crops. ⁓ you know, they do a lot of that emerged out of necessity during COVID. I would say Three Porch Farm in Comer, Georgia, Steve and Mandy O'Shea also created a shipping program of again to through COVID because they had flowers, the flowers weren't stopping because of COVID, right? And they started shipping their poppies and their specialty crop ⁓ are the Iceland poppies that are so gorgeous.

Roz (22:01)
Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (22:08)
So people have figured out some of these things. Other people are using collectives and cooperatives rather than shipping to like bring the have a hub and then bring the florist to that hub so they don't have to drive around Kingdom Come trying to deliver their flowers. So I sort of feel like those if you can crack the nut on those issues on land and on transportation that helps a lot. And I know Robin you probably have some other thoughts on what you've seen.

Robin Avni (22:33)
Well I guess I would say look at it from the consumer perspective and I'd say that local flowers have a bit of a boom. That ⁓ people are looking for that in their stores. They want to support local and they like the idea of supporting local.

That isn't necessarily new in terms of like a farmer's market, but it's certainly new in terms of I go into a grocery store, which is actually say a chain in this region and they're selling local flowers.

They're not bringing in, you know, hothouse flowers. So I think there's really a consumer awareness that they really like that idea. I'm very involved with an arts group here. We have a big summer fair. And last year we brought in flower farmers to sell their flowers at this huge fair with 100 artists. And they did very well because my theory was, well,

people might not be able to walk away with a piece of art, but they can walk away with a piece of artful nature. And they did. So I just think that there's a much larger consumer awareness of a local flower farmer.

Roz (23:44)
Yeah, brilliant. think the two issues in the UK probably, while they are distribution and transportation, we're only just starting hubs and co-optives now. They didn't exist 18 months ago, two years ago. Definitely, as you can get your distribution right and your transportation right. Land is an issue for some. You have to almost own your own land or have a bit of a farm. Land isn't expensive, actually, agricultural land, because it's deemed agriculture and you can't build on it, isn't expensive. It's just taking the patients and...

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (23:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roz (24:14)
drawing a map and going, OK, well, I'm going to ask that farmer and that farmer and that farmer. Finally, I'm going to get it. And then you can rent the land. Of course, there's difficulties when you rent it. You've got to be careful what you grow because the rent might come to an end and you've grown lots of perennials and foliage and then you've got a problem. So buying an acre of land is the best idea. But yet not always easy.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (24:32)
Yeah.

And people were very, I think, very honest and sharing with us about their struggles and their journeys to find their land. Like Jamie Rogers, who's in Western Montana, right in the middle of, you I don't know, what do you call that? The prairies? I'm not quite sure. Inner Mountain. He, this is his, he's on his forever farm, but it's his third effort. It's his third place to try to grow flowers.

and you know just you know one was too close to the risk of forest fires one was in a city you know he had to keep tweaking it and you know that discussion isn't talked about enough and yeah you got to start there it's interesting that you said that you don't you don't have you don't see that issue as much in the UK because land is zoned agriculture agricultural and I guess that's probably the case in the US I I hadn't thought about that

Robin Avni (25:29)
Well, but it's still the acquisition that's happening is really further and further out from the city center. I live in Gig Harbor, Washington, which all of a sudden has now had an explosion of flower farmers down here. And it's because they're looking at land on what's called the peninsula, and it's fairly reasonable as opposed to anything else that might be, you know, even closer to city center or even more closer to larger population centers.

Roz (25:55)
It needs to be where you live or very close to where you live because you're not going to get up and go and water 20 miles away, you're just not going to do it. So there's that issue as well. You've got to think about water and electric and how close is it and is this viable? Which is why if it's part of your own land, of course, it's much easier. Everybody would love that. You just walk out the back door. But it's not always possible. And I've seen people be quite clever with land.

you know, about talking to people and then maybe going to, you know, farm shops and they might have something on the site and then obviously you've got the traffic already and can have a pick your own on your farmland and you've got to sort of think outside the box, haven't you, with it? It's not, it is a challenge, it is an absolute challenge. So both of you, who inspires you both professionally and personally in this wonderful industry? Where's your source of inspiration coming from?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (26:31)
Mmm, so true.

Well, Robin inspires me. She's so, you know, when we when we first met, Robin was very much more on the design side and doing some writing. And I was definitely never considered myself a visual artist. I just consider myself a writer. Never consider myself. I consider myself a journalist who wrote about creative people. I didn't consider myself a creative person. And so I feel like she's nudging me in that.

Robin Avni (26:52)
my gosh.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (27:15)
regard and ⁓ I think also just rinse and repeat, right? Like I started, wrote this little flowers book as a kind of a challenge to myself to say, can I make an arrangement every week for a year out of my garden and using what's hyper seasonal? And, you know, that sort of started me down the path as someone who loves to arrange flowers. And, you know, you do that over and over again.

for 12 years, you sort of get some proficiency. But I have to say, working with Robin has led to that inspiration. I probably have other people that inspire me, but I'm starting with my partner.

Robin Avni (27:54)
Well, that's really sweet because I feel the same. We really do egg each other on, if you will. ⁓ But I think that the...

The thing about the inspiration for me also comes, has always been photography and telling people's stories through visual image and especially the still image, which I've loved for years and years. I was originally a photo editor in the newspaper business. ⁓ yeah, but the thing about it is Deborah and I come to this understanding of we blend our storytelling styles. And that's what you see in this book. And people have commented on that.

The content is strong and the visuals are strong and they work together. They're not two separate entities. And so that is ⁓ a really special thing that we have.

Roz (28:44)
That's amazing. So what's the most important business you've, lesson you've learnt in business life?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (28:51)
Mmm.

Robin Avni (28:51)
⁓

my.

Roz (28:52)
Awesome, most important, if

you had your time again and you could rewind, would you change anything?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (28:58)
that's such a good question, Roz.

I think being honest with myself and ⁓ I think I've learned this lesson over and over again. I'm a first born daughter. I'm a pleaser. And sometimes I'm far down a path of doing something that I have the capability of doing, but do I have the passion for doing? And I have to stop myself the older I get to say,

Robin Avni (29:00)
Bye.

Roz (29:09)
⁓ I've got one of those.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (29:26)
Is my name on this? You know, is this essential for me? If not, why am I putting my energy in it into it? And why am I letting other people create my agenda? You know, I think that that's why it's really nice to have a business partner because Robin is like the voice of reason, always talking me off the ledge and saying, is this really what we want to be doing? And I so I feel like the lesson is how good counsel of someone you trust and ask yourself.

why am I doing this? And so those are sort of the lessons I'm fixating on these days.

Robin Avni (29:58)
Yes, and you're working on it. have to say Deborah is one of the most, I always say she's one of the most generous people I know. And I'm like, and so that's what I have to, I do ask the question. I also have to say that there's a positive lesson that we have learned, which is Deborah and I are both like, let's jump in and do it. And so that's, you have to have a partner. You have to have a partner that agrees with you on that.

Roz (30:19)
entrepreneur.

Robin Avni (30:24)
Because like if most people would say, okay, let's start a publishing company. ⁓ And we knew we had the talent, you know, the talent, the resources, all of that. But, you know, we had to figure it out as we went along. And, but that's what we do. And I think that's a positive. And you see that in a lot of people who take that daring step that if they sat down and actually mapped it out would say, I don't know if I should do that.

And because we feel that the publishing company we started is how we ended up getting this book for the flower farmers, because people saw the work we were doing.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (31:02)
That's a good point.

Roz (31:03)
Yeah, So, Robin, your background in design and creative direction, how did that shape your approach to the book? So you come from a different direction.

Robin Avni (31:14)
Yes, and ⁓ thank you. And I love it. I love, as I mentioned, I was a photo editor early in my career. I'm a designer and it's visual storytelling. And that's what shapes how I make these stories. But also it knows it's working with photography and photographers.

who also know how to tell a story with their images. So the book cover is by actually a friend of ours who we met through photographing us. And we have continued this relationship for about 15 years, ⁓ Mary Grace Long. Her serendipitously, she ended up on the cover, her photo. But I would like to say it's not serendipitous that we have a synchronicity with Mary Grace. She knows what...

how we tell our stories, what we're looking for. ⁓ So she shot the farm that Deborah mentioned earlier for the hellebores and that take was so beautiful. And then there was also working with existing photography and that people had and then supplementing that and knowing how to supplement and what needed to be supplemented. ⁓ And then weaving those stories so they had...

a similar look and feel because I've actually asked people, did one photographer shoot the whole book? And I'm like, no, not really. We had over 60. Yeah.

Roz (32:41)
Yeah, because that's the challenge. Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (32:44)
Yeah, and Robin, I

want to add that what started that whole thing is that you created a creative brief. You designed a creative brief to guide photographers who contributed to this book. it was beautiful. was sort of top down, like a big picture down to the micro. So Robin had examples of how to shoot a profile of a farmer, how to show people working at their farm, how to show

Robin Avni (32:54)
Yes.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (33:12)
the landscape and the environment, then you get a little more drilled down a little bit more to specific crops and to activities. All of that was just like a reference guide for people who are farmers who could share it with their local photographer they were partnering with and give them some guidance. If you hadn't done that, Robin, I don't think you'd have this cohesion that you have now.

Robin Avni (33:35)
Thank you. I had never really thought of it that way, but thank you, Deborah. But also, that all came from our discussions. And that's why I said our back and forth, because Deborah's a great storyteller. So we wanted to make sure that what we captured amplified her story.

Roz (33:52)
So, Robin, you've worked on many lifestyle books. What makes the flower farmers unique in your portfolio? Because it's very different to other things you've done.

Robin Avni (34:02)
Well, it's 264 pages, so that was really...

Roz (34:05)
Ha

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (34:07)
It weighs

Roz (34:07)
And

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (34:07)
almost

Roz (34:07)
I bet you know the word count. Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (34:08)
400 pounds or I take that almost four pounds.

Robin Avni (34:13)
We opened the box and we're like, holy cow, wow, this is, yeah, did we do this? I mean, it was really a thrill. But I also think what makes it, what has made it different is, ⁓ well, we said before that combination of how we work, but also we wanted to show not only the beauty of it, but that we also show that it's hard work, right? And so,

Roz (34:16)
Did we do this?

Robin Avni (34:42)
We really wanted to tell a story that amplified why these people came to flower farming and how they came to it, but why they love it and that to be respectful of the work they do. And I think that's what really makes us different. This isn't just a pretty flowers book. This isn't just, oh, you know, and we've done those too. But this really is more about just the...

the whole picture and that's what's special to me. don't know Deborah, how you feel about what's special about this book, but that's for me what it is.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (35:19)
I think that we really tried to capture a day in the life of a flower farmer and everything from how they interact with their children to their pets. Robin has a whole theory about that, a letter go down that path to their ⁓ showing the flowers in the growing environment.

Roz (35:36)
I think I'm sorry.

Robin Avni (35:41)
We talk, I talk about, you know, I looked at a lot of dog pictures as I edited all of the, I said, if you're gonna be a flower farmer, you have to have a dog. I mean, that's basically it. And then if you don't have a dog, the next thing is you have to have chickens. So, and then I think it went to sheep after that. And cats were really low down on the, you know, there were a few, but they didn't have, you know, we got all these pictures of...

dogs, here's my dog in a truck, here's my dog here. So ⁓ there really is a passion for not only flowers but animals among flower farmers.

Roz (36:15)
And I

think if you did a census on what kind of dogs they have, I bet they'd be very similar. I would be guessing they're either a cocker spaniel. So it'd be like a working cocker spaniel, cocker spaniel like I have. So that would definitely be, or it'd be a Labrador. And it's probably quite similar. Lola lamb goes in the back of a truck brilliantly, looks good in the back of a truck. So Labradors definitely. Chickens for sure. I have 13 chickens.

Robin Avni (36:32)
Yes, lot of labs.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (36:33)
A lot of labs.

Roz (36:43)
We have pigs as well as goats and we also have a cat, so we're unusual.

Robin Avni (36:43)
Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (36:46)
I don't think we have pigs or goats.

Robin Avni (36:47)
We didn't have any pigs.

I don't think we did. But I really had it with the photo editing. didn't, you know, we have, we have one farmer who basically their farms named after their dogs. So that when we had to have in and then we have a few others. But then I tried to mix it up with the sheep and the chickens ⁓ as well. I think we have one cat in the book. No goats, no pigs. ⁓

Roz (37:00)
Yeah

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (37:09)
I think there's at least one cat, I don't think we have goats. We don't have goats or pigs. So, Roz, next book will do that in your honor because.

Roz (37:18)
⁓ We inherited a cat. My youngest daughter lives in London and she moved flats and the landlord said no to the cat. And it was a kitten. It was like six months old, thing, or three months old, I can't even remember now, about five years ago. And I found myself driving back down the motorway from London to where we live with a cat on my lap thinking, what am I going to do with this cat? I don't know how to look after cats. I've already got a dog.

What's the dog going to do with the cat? My husband's going to go mad. He hates cats. All of a sudden I've got a cat. Now come five years later, this cat has become part of our lives. know, husband pretends he still doesn't like the cat, but kind of really does. And this little cat called Barney turns up all over the place. But again, it was another accident. It was never meant to happen. So I don't think many flower farmers have cats, but ours happened by accident.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (38:15)
I love it. Actually, we have a wonderful photograph in the very first farm featured. It's called Six Dutchess Farm in ⁓ Hudson Valley, New York. And they also keep bees and that photo, Robin, I mean, who can capture bees in motion? But that photography is really lovely.

Robin Avni (38:31)
That was beautiful.

But I also say though, we kind of open up, we do mention dogs when we talk, and we have a photograph and every time that dog comes up, everybody goes, the audience goes, It's a winner.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (38:45)
You

I love it. Yeah. ⁓

Roz (38:52)
photographs

in the book. So what next? Do have plans for another book or a sequel perhaps featuring more growers? What are you thinking? What comes next? What's your secret?

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (39:02)
I wanna hear what Robin says first.

Robin Avni (39:05)
I think, you know, it's kind of one of these funny things that when you are in the midst of it, you're like, this is our last book. This is, we're never going to do this again. And then you get the book in your hands and you're like, begin to think, maybe we should do something else. And so that's as far as we've gotten. We're really just kind of. ⁓

Roz (39:13)
Yeah, never again.

do European,

you could do European flower farmers. Yeah, that'd be wonderful. I did a retreat in Spain just recently in May for flower farmers who came out of the UK. I took 11 flower farmers from the UK to the retreat. We stayed in hotel for three nights and we did some lovely things. went, but one of the best things we did was go out to a flower farm in Spain and it was amazing.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (39:31)
Yeah, then we'd have to travel. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Robin Avni (39:33)
yeah,

we'd have to tell you, that would be terrible.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (39:42)
I saw that.

Roz (39:57)
Absolutely amazing. Her farm was amazing. The way she does it was amazing. They were ahead of us because of the climate, which was quite interesting. And now on Monday, I'm now going to Italy to a retreat myself. I'm actually going to attend the flower farmers retreat, which is run by a company in New Zealand, interestingly. And so half of the people are coming from New Zealand on Australia and then the other half are UK ish or European based. It'll be really interesting to see the mix of flower farmers.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (40:16)
wow.

We'll have fun. I do think that there's something there with I mean, I've tracked the fact that the slow flowers term or phrase is now global and it has been picked up by many, many countries that had previously seen their domestic flower production outsourced or offshored. So we are seeing that too.

I will say I have a little bit, have a note on my whiteboard that says, Slow Flowers 2.0 book. And I did that little book in, I wrote that book in 2013, came out in 2013, it's just a tiny little square gift book with the 52 arrangements. And I look at that and think, I could just do so much more with it now. And Robin sort of said to me, well,

Robin Avni (41:00)
You have not told me that!

Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (41:21)
you know, I could design that book, but that's as far as we've gotten. you know, we would have to get the funding. We're really at the point where we liked working with Abrams who basically bankrolled this book and Bloom imprint. Our publishing company is still exists for small projects, but, ⁓ you know, it has to be sustainable financially. And so book publishing has changed so much in the U.S. with ⁓ supply chain and access to paper and

Robin Avni (41:48)
paper car.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (41:49)
and printing

costs that we're kind of not thrilled about financing all of that right now.

Roz (41:56)
No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

Robin Avni (41:57)
But I

will say that knowing Deborah and I, something will come along. because we said, we just said we like working together. So we're still doing the Slow Flowers Journal, her online journal, quarterly. And that gives us a lot of joy as well. Last year we ⁓ won a gold, right? In the Garden Comm Writers Publishers Magazine category.

Roz (42:03)
I'm sure.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (42:21)
⁓ Yep. The magazine category. Yeah, we won a gold award.

Robin Avni (42:24)
It's a digital magazine and we really enjoy doing that. And so we'll continue to do that and then we'll see where it all takes us.

Roz (42:35)
yeah I

know it's gonna take you, ⁓ so tell us about the Slow Flowers podcast as well, I mean I don't know how you fit all this in, can you share a favourite guest or most memorable episode?

Robin Avni (42:38)
Haha

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (42:47)
⁓ my gosh, Roz, that's so unfair. just, we just published our 620th episode consecutively. It's, we've been going.

Roz (42:57)
Well, and

that is hard. Doing a podcast is hard. There's no doubt about that.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (43:02)
I know when after all those years of struggling as a print journalist, I'm like, why didn't I go into radio? It's so much easier to just talk than to write. ⁓ So yeah, it's hard to say who my favorite guest was. That is really hard to say. But ⁓

Roz (43:10)
you

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (43:18)
In the past, say, three or four months, I've really been trying to feature all the people in the Flower Farmers book. So that's been really fun. ⁓ Robin, don't know, you've been a guest a number of times. Do you have any thoughts? Yes.

Robin Avni (43:31)
I'm not your favorite guest.

No. No, you know what I would say, Deborah? I would say after each podcast and someone you talk to, you're so inspired by them. You're always like, I had the best conversation. And I really think that's, that's really how it goes. That, that you find new insight and you find new, you know, inspiration from all of your guests. But it's probably the last one you interviewed who is.

Roz (43:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (44:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, I did have Shane Connelly on, and that was pretty special. I was in the UK in 2019, pre-COVID. I went to Chelsea Flower's show, and I reached out to him. We had just been social media pals, and he invited me to his studio and then to his home, and we did a recording, and ⁓ that was pretty much a pinch-me moment. ⁓ There's a lot of pinch-me moments. ⁓

Robin Avni (44:00)
favorite at the moment.

Roz (44:05)
Woof! Yeah.

Wow.

Robin Avni (44:28)
Well then you also,

he came into Seattle and did a senior.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (44:31)
Yeah, then we hosted

him here. Yeah. I like it when people share other facets of their lives because we do talk about work-life balance quite a bit. ⁓ Roz and the Jamie Rogers, who I mentioned earlier, the Montana flower farmer who's in the book. He's my guest next week and he started telling me about this band he's in. He's a drummer for a cover band called the Duck and he turned his flow, his

barn on his farm into a recording studio last summer and they recorded an entire album. The album's coming out in August and he gave me one song to play at the end of the podcast and I cannot get this song out of my mind. It's sort of Steely Danish. It's really cool and ⁓ he's way younger than me, but he definitely gets my vibe and I'm like, this is so cool to show people have other lives, other parts of their lives and Robin really is drawn to people who are

potters or weavers or like people who are doing other forms of art as well as flower farming. So I think we like, we like plucking out those, ⁓ what's beneath the surface that maybe other people don't know.

Roz (45:38)
Yeah, finding out what other people don't know is quite interesting, isn't it? Yeah, and how diverse lives can be. Yeah, I think it's quite interesting. So.

Robin Avni (45:42)
you

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (45:42)
and then telling everyone about it.

Robin Avni (45:47)
But I

also want to add, Debra is the busiest person I know. I don't know how she does it all. I can't keep up with her. I'm just like, you know, like we're doing an East Coast flower tour next week on the book and she's managed to pack every day with something.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (46:06)
I bless with a lot of friends and a lot of friends who I want to see but we're gonna have a we're gonna have a great time and hopefully if anyone's Well, we won't well, this will probably come out after that tour, but we'll we'll be posting other book events in North America all summer long

Robin Avni (46:07)
You are.

Roz (46:22)
So how can people connect with you, follow your work or purchase the wonderful book? Let us know.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (46:29)
Well, our business is still bloomimprint.com. ⁓ All one word, B-L-O-O-M, bloomimprint.com. And there is a link to purchase the book on the homepage. There's also a link to our upcoming book tour. And we're on Instagram at bloom.imprint. And Robin has an Instagram account, and I've got an Instagram account personally. And so we can share all that with you, Roz. ⁓ What else, Robin, do you want to mention?

Roz (46:52)
Yes, please. Yes, please.

Robin Avni (46:56)
Well, I'd say that probably any of your local booksellers you could ask for it and then any of your favorite online, like we kind of have mentioned, know, different like Canada has indigo.com. What's the preference, whatever your preferences in, you know, in Europe, or Europe that that it's available on all those sites.

Debra Prinzing, Slow Flowers (47:15)
in the UK or Europe,

Roz (47:23)
lovely. What a beautiful and insightful conversation. I know you said, you you'll ask us always the best. Well, this one is definitely up there. A huge thank you to Deborah Prinzing and Robin Afne for joining us today and giving us behind the scenes look at making the flower farmers. This book is more than a gorgeous coffee table read. It's a love letter to local blooms and growers who bring them to life. If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, head over to your favorite bookstore.

online retailer and make sure you do. It's one of those books you'll come back to season after season. To learn more about Deborah's work and the Slow Flowers movement head over to slowflowers.com and you can follow both Deborah and Robin on social media and we'll link everything for you in the show notes. As always thank you for tuning in to the Cut Flower Podcast. If you loved this episode please leave us a review, share it with fellow flower lovers and don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a Bloomfield conversation.

Until next time, keep growing, keep creating and keep bringing beauty into the world.