american flowers week ~ June 28 to July 4 ~ Celebrating American Grown Flowers in all 50 States

In the ongoing tradition of commissioning a signature work for each annual American Flowers Week celebration, we’re delighted to be collaborating with Amy Rice, a Twin Cities-based painter and printmaker, who for four years owned and grew cut flowers at County Line Flower Farm. Of course, her flower farm-inspired artwork is a perfect fit for American Flowers Week!

After Debra Prinzing fell in love with and purchased one of Amy’s linoleum prints, entitled: “I Can Grow My Own Flowers,” she approached Amy about participating in the 2026 American Flowers Week project. Slow Flowers has licensed the rights for two of Amy’s pieces to use in celebrating this year’s American Flowers Week campaign.

Amy Rice’s Artist Statement: I use non-traditional printmaking methods–including hand cut stencils and a Japanese screen-printing toy called a Gocco printer–as a starting point for original mixed media pieces. I use spray paint, acrylics, gouache, and inks, and print on a variety of surfaces including wood, fabric and antique papers (preferring handwritten love letters, envelopes, journal pages, sheet music and maps).
I am most satisfied when I can make a tangible or visceral connection between the materials used and the image rendered. My work is deeply layered, often both literally and figuratively. My imagery–nostalgic and wistful–is largely biographical and reflective of my pensive nature.
I am as inspired in my art as much by childhood memories of growing up on a Midwestern farm as I am the urban community in which I now live. I am influenced by bicycles, street art, gardening, and random found objects, collective endeavors that challenge hierarchy, acts of compassion, downright silliness, and things with wings.

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Inspiration for American Flowers Week:

Flower Power, Enamel, Gouache and Acrylic
24″ x 32″, 2018

Bucket of Zinnias, Enamel and Acrylic
20″ x 16″, 2019

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Celebrate American Flowers Week with our 2026 Social Media graphics

Download SIX social media badges to post and share – and help us promote American Flowers Week!
LINK is HERE

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Q&A with Amy Rice

AFW: Amy, we are so excited to collaborate with you this year to promote American Flowers Week! You describe yourself as a painter and printmaker. Can you tell us about your artist’s journey?

AR: I’ve made art my entire life with the exception of the four years I went to college to study sociology. I went to Augsburg University in Minneapolis. I grew up on a dairy farm in southern Wisconsin, and by the time I was done with college, I wanted to be an organic vegetable farmer. Of course, my parents were like, “um, no,” but I was determined. The week I graduated from college, I moved to northern Wisconsin and started working on a collective vegetable farm. Two years from that time, I had my modest vegetables at the farmers’ market in Bayfield, Wisconsin. But I also had all of the art I had made since college – art about wanting to be a farmer, etches of the first wheelbarrow, my seed packages. People loved that way more than my vegetables and it was kind of a live-affirming moment. The next week, I went to the library in Ashland and I checked out a book – it was from like 1984 – called “How to be an Artist.” I just followed the directions.

AFW: You were 21 or 22 at the time?

AR: Yes, just fresh out of college. And then, another three years after that, I had my first solo exhibition. It was in a bar! But throughout that time, I was trying to find a balance between wanting to be a farmer and loving my life in the city. Wanting both has been my entire life’s story.

AFW: So, it’s almost like you drew or painted your life that you wanted.

AR: Exactly. My art career was kind of an accident. I always wanted to make art as a hobby. Northern Wisconsin was hard living. I was really poor and it wasn’t a great zone for growing vegetables during a five-month season. And when people liked (my art) and were buying it, I ended up moving back to the city. I started working with people with disabilities and I had a 20-year career as an activist for art and disability. Fifteen years ago this week, I decided that I was going to focus on my own art. I’ve been a full-time artist now for 15 years.

AFW: Do you describe yourself as “self-taught”?

AR: Well, I was in a studio for people with disabilities for 20 years. It wasn’t art therapy. I worked with folks who had master’s degrees in art whose disabilities made it so that it was an obstacle for them to make art as a living. So it was a vocational program. I learned so much about helping others with their art careers and I learned a lot about how to do that for myself. I was showing artwork to galleries for clients and I was meeting gallery directors and making connections. It was kind of nerve-wracking and scary!

AFW: Where did you sell your art in the early years?

AR: I was one of the first people on Etsy. For the first few years, it was absolutely amazing. I haven’t been on Etsy in years and years, but they helped me create a huge reach. They posted my work and that was pretty fantastic. I eventually got to the place where my art career was doing so well and the program for artists with disabilities was doing so well – and I couldn’t be good at both! There’s a lesson in there that I just cannot learn right, since I started flower farming with a successful art career underway.

AFW: Have flowers always been among the subjects of your art?

AR: I want to tell you my cut flower origin story! I grew up on a multi-generational farm. I remember as a kid, we were entirely self-sufficient – food-wise. My mom and dad and brother and I had an extensive vegetable garden. Almost everything we ate, we grew and canned ourselves. It was the 70s, and my mom started working outside the home at the time when  many women were starting to do that. It was late winter and we were planning our gardens. My mom came home from work in town and she had two things: A can of green beans from the store. And cut flowers – I believe they were tulips. And she had an announcement. There was a lot of math, and I don’t remember how much per hour she made at her job, but the can of green beans cost 40 cents. The result of her announcement was that she was not going to grow green beans anymore – she was done. Instead, she was going to turn the entire row of green beans into gladiolas, because flowers gave her joy and green beans only cost 40 cents. By the time I left for college a decade later, that entire garden was gladiolas and babies breath, and our house was filled with cut flowers. There’s never been a time where my mom doesn’t have fresh cut flowers in her house, no matter what the finances were. Even a few were important to her. And so, they became very important to me!

AFW: Tell us about the flower farming!

AR: I really wanted to be a flower farmer, which made me an eighth-generation flower farmer. I’ve always loved growing flowers. I love arranging flowers. Of course, my husband and I were busy. We’re people who like to be busy, so we bought some property because we knew we wanted to grow.

AFW: How and when did that occur?

AR: It was your podcast. I had to look it up. It was in 2017. I was on an airplane on the way back from the opening of a solo art show in Philadelphia. I kept having my husband listen to little pieces of your podcast. I can’t remember specifically who the guest or what the topic was, but I was really emotionally connected to wanting to have a flower farm. And whatever your podcast was that day, it was very practical about money. And my husband was like, “yeah, I feel like that does sound like a good investment.”

AFW: I hope that your husband doesn’t resent Slow Flowers!

AR: No, it worked out! Even though I’m not flower farming anymore, I had four really good years – from 2019 to 2022. There were a couple of years ahead of that when we prepped and planned and got everything ready. But there were four beautiful years when the flowers were beautiful. And the inspiration was there. I was physically in some of the best shape I’ve ever been in. So much of it I loved. Of course, there was a lot that I hated: The tics. Being up before sunrise. Or, I was too hot or I was too cold. There was always some new bug or disease.

AFW: What did you call your farm?

AR: County Line Gardens.

AFW: Do you still have the property?

AR: Yes. Now, it’s just like extensive perennial gardens. I still think something like a niche agricultural business will stem from it. I’m sure you know that native plants are huge and people are really interested in native plants. I started growing every single native plant I could get my hands on a decade ago, so I have lots of them!

AFW: What prompted you to stop flower farming?

AR: We had a very serious drought. Deer got all my starter plants, like every single one. It was shocking. At the same time, I had really amazing art opportunities that year. So it was another choice. I just had to choose: Are you going to be a full-time artist with an already established career or are you going to try to be a flower farmer in Zone 4?

AFW: We support your choice, Amy. And yet, the flower farming experience does inform your art! I feel like that Ford pickup truck with the beautiful field behind it – your art we are using to promote American Flowers Week – maybe that was your farm!?

AR: Yes, I’m still working on those stripes of color in the fields. My husband and I are super committed to that. Every year we expand the line of purple bee balm and we expand the line of red bee balm, and we try to think of what else we can plant to make those lines!

AFW: Can you tell us about the second image we selected for American Flowers Week? The white bucket filled with flowers?

AR: Yes, that was actually the logo for our flower farm.

AFW: That makes us so happy! Can you talk about the actual technique used for these two pieces?

AR: So both of the pieces were made with stencils that I cut by hand. I do the drawing and then I cut stencils from a piece of plastic. It’s like that material you would see if you had a plastic sign that read “Garage Sale.” It’s a very durable plastic that will let you use over and over again. Once I spray the stencil, the image looks like a big black-and-white coloring page. But then I paint it in and reapply the stencil and then cover that again. I often cut up the whole thing and collage it together in different ways.

AFW: It has a mixed-media sensibility, right?

AR: Yes, mixed-media. I wrote a book called “Playing with Stencils.” I don’t think it’s still in print but you can definitely still find it.

AFW: It sounds like you developed your own technique.

AR: Yes, I developed it. I love applying the black with the stencil with super-flat camouflage black paint. Once that dries, you can start painting with other colors. My early inspiration was graffiti and street art.

AFW: What are some of the pieces that you sell through your studio?

AR: Almost everything is original. I do sell some digital prints, and I make cards from digital prints. My linoleum prints are hand-pulled, so each is an original. Most often, I print on antique ledger pages, or my grandfather’s homework, or sheet music, journal pages, and love letters. I love finding old love letters to print on!

AFW: What are you working on presently?

AR: I received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant this year and the money gave me the opportunity to be a better printmaker, including to find better tools and to explore the kinds of papers I could print on. The theme of the grant is “Hand Crafts,” including things that my grandmothers passed down, such as embroidery, lace-making, mending and sewing. There’s also a community component, so for mine, I’m going to be teaching small workshops on mending. I was going to do an embroidery class, but then I realized that people don’t even know how to thread a needle. Mending is something close to my heart (and it was to both of my grandmas), so I’m going to make linoleum printed patches on found fabric and then people will have the opportunity to bring some clothes to mend with them – at different venues this summer.

AFW: Where do you make art?

AR: My studio is on the top floor of a six-story brick warehouse and I have a view of the Mississippi River – gigantic, west-facing windows. That makes it unusable in the afternoon for a good part of the summer – like it’s just too hot to work there. So in the summer, I start my day before the sun rises and go to my studio to work really early. And in the winter, I’m a sleeper-inner. But I spend time at my studio almost every day (I have a home studio and I have a studio at the cabin, too). I get crabby if I don’t get to make some art!

AFW: When is your next studio show?

AR: It’s coming right up on May 15^th-17^th. It’s the largest art crawl in all of North America – it’s 31 years old, called Art-a-Whirl. And my studio is in the original building. There are 120,000 people who attend, and easily, there will be 5,000 people coming through my studio in three days. This is my 23^rd year, so I’m used to it and I can make a big part of my income in three days.

AFW: How do you price your work?

AR: I sell stickers for $4 and I have a $4,000 painting. Last year, my median sale price was $50.

AFW: It sounds like a wonderful tradition for people to support local artists!

AR: It is. I live in the best city and state for art-making. We’re super supported. Artists are appreciated. There’s a lot of opportunities. It’s part of the reason my flower farming was successful, because the people who supported my art were excited to support the next thing I wanted to do.

Find and follow Amy Rice Art:
Amy Rice website
https://amy-rice-qvit.squarespace.com/

Amy Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/amyriceart

County Line Flowers on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/countylinegardens/

PLEASE CREDIT AMY RICE @amyriceart
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Fresh-cut branches, berries, and greenery get all dressed up

Photography by Matt McDaniel

Last fall, Jennifer Reed and Kelly Shore traveled from their east coast studios to Forest Grove, Oregon, where they taught a holiday design workshop at one of Continental Floral Greens’ satellite farms. The event was captured for Slow Flowers Journal’s Fall 2024 cover story, photographed by Matt McDaniel (read the story here). Slow Flowers asked the women, American Flowers Week botanical couture designers for past seasons, whether they wanted to create a botanical couture look using classic Pacific Northwest greens and foliage.

Owner of Jennifer Designs, Reed said yes and took the lead, enjoying the chance to design with freshly-harvested conifer greens, broadleaf evergreen sprays, and berry-laded boughs. While also producing the two-day design workshop, Shore, owner of The Floral Source, found time to assist her frequent collaborator.

In planning her dramatic look, Reed says researched for Oregon-themed cultural and artistic influences online. “When I googled ‘Oregon,’ the movie ‘Goonies’ kept popping up,” she laughed. “So my original idea was some sort of pirate look.” Fans of the 1985 cult classic may will recall the plotline: A group of young misfits called The Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on an adventure to find a legendary pirate’s long-lost treasure. The production was filmed in the coastal fishing town of Astoria, Oregon. Reed continues, “I asked myself, why would a pirate be on a flower farm? It made no sense.”
Even after she moved onto other ideas, it turns out that a swashbuckler vibe remained – and the look Reed created is both an ode to the best foliage crops produced in Oregon, and a playful nod to some of the corseted attire worn by the “Outlander” series’ lead actress, Caitríona Balfe.

Reed sent her sketches to Madison Milgard, brand director for Continental Floral Greens, who helped source the ingredients on Reed’s list. Milgard, whose family co-founded CFG, grew up surrounded by acres of conifer trees and shrubs, so it wasn’t hard to convince her to model Reed’s floral garment, too.

“Madison sent me the magnolia leaves ahead of time so I could get started on the corset,” Reed recalled. She shaped overlapping layers of the leathery foliage over an actual fabric corset, exposing the soft, caramel-colored indumentum that appears on the back of each glossy green leaf. “Every single part of the leaves had to be glued and then held in position with the heat of my hand to keep their shape around the body,” she explained. I didn’t want the edges to pop up or crack once the magnolia dried.” Little details give the garment its character, such as bits of lichen tucked into spaces between some of the leaves, resembling torn lace.

It’s often hard to avoid a bulky look when a human model dresses in botanical couture, but Reed’s corset fit Milgard like a glove. Clasps along the back allowed for a snug fit when worn. Botanical accents grace the neckline, shoulders, and upper arms, including vibrant Oregon native vine maple and nandina, which resemble a vintage mantilla scarf. The high-low skirt was comprised of two sections, which simplified the mechanics and achieved an important goal of Reed’s: “I always want my models to be able to move in my floral garments.” The underskirt, worn across the front of the body like an apron, has a chicken wire base with a tapestry of intricate texture and color patterns provided by branches of nandina, Ilex with red berries, and branches with rose hips. Reed attached most of the pieces to the waistline, starting with a dense placement at the belt and allowing sprays to softly drape and weave together closer to the hemline.

After Milgard stepped into these two skirt pieces, Reed added cedar boughs at the hips, cutting them short to resemble a flouncy peplum. Accessories complete this look, including a charming pair of shoes that the designer covered in magnolia leaves.

“This was a fun way to show off evergreens without it looking Christmasy,” Shore observed. “It really reads ‘Northwest’ and isn’t pigeonholed in the winter season.” The garment highlights some of the best Oregon-grown options for florists, Shore continued. Through The Floral Source, she supplies florists with many of the greenery, foliage, and fruiting branches grown by this farm. “I don’t think people realize how fun it is to explore a farm to see what it grows,” Shore raved. “There is so much cool material here that many florists around the country aren’t used to having.”

The ability to clip extra ingredients on a moment’s notice, while designing, fabricating, and photographing this look at the farm, was a dream, Reed said. Add the gorgeous almost-sunset moment in the CFG fields, as the backdrop for photography, and this creative collaboration between a farm and floral designers was immensely satisfying.

DESIGN + CONCEPT:
Jennifer Reed, Jennifer Designs
jenniferdesignsevents.com
@jenniferdesignsevents

PHOTOGRAPHY: Matt McDaniel
mattyphotography.com

FOLIAGE SOURCE:
Continental Floral Greens
cfgreens.com
@cfgreens

MODEL, HAIR + MAKEUP: Madison Milgard
VENUE: Continental Floral Greens, Forest Grove, Oregon
DESIGN ASSISTANT Kelly Shore, The Floral Source
thefloralsource.com
@thefloralsource

A joyful day in the garden turns a crop of perennials into a charming garment

Photography by Alex Dickey

Andee Zeigler owns Three Sepals, a Portland, Oregon-based studio for ceramics, floral art, and bouquets. She grows flowers to share with neighbors, occasionally selling buckets of blooms to DIY designers. She embellishes her pottery using creamy, earthy, and aqua blue glazes in distinctive scallop patterns. That detail appears in Zeigler’s most recent botanical creation, a ruffled skirt with sections of feverfew placed in scallop patterns, and curved sword fern scallops across the hemline. She fashioned the skirt, purely for the joy of it, collaborating with her husband Alex Dickey to photograph the look one recent summer’s day.

“I love making botanical couture,” Zeigler proclaimed. With a “unicorn” property equivalent to four city lots that add up to just under one-half-acre, there is plenty of soil for the Three Sepals garden. Each year at the end of the season, she harvests everything still in bloom to create wearable looks for herself, her family, and her friends. “I spend all year growing this garden and there’s an abundance of everything here. Why not be ‘in the garden, in the garden’!”

People ask, ‘What do you do with it?’ when they see what I have created. Some might ask, ‘Is this a waste of time?’; ‘Is there a point to it?’; or ‘Are you wasting resources?’” For Zeigler, the answer to such questions is that art is an essential expression of who she is. “I make a lot of art and I have never quite wrapped my head around melding my art with the world of capitalism. I grow flowers mostly to give to my community. We have a Free Library and it is like a little house with two sections. On one side are books and the other side is full of pottery and flowers. From the beginning of July until our first freeze, every Saturday, I put out free flowers for our neighbors. When I have extra pottery, or even rejects, or when my studio feels overwhelmed, I add those.”

It’s fun to dress up in your garden’s bounty, she said. “I just think there are too many people hung up on ‘What am I making this for?’ and ‘Do I need to be marketing this to someone?’ instead of doing it for themselves.” The gardener-maker has an inspiring philosophy: “Dress Like Your Garden,” and it’s one all flower lovers should embrace.

Andee Zeigler, Three Sepals

Giving away bouquets of flowers feels right, she added. “It doesn’t even look like I picked a single stem!” Making floral fashions also feels right. When a small crop of feverfew – three varieties, including ‘Magic Lime’, ‘Virgo’, and ‘Magic Single’) — expanded into a four-foot-square patch, the proliferation inspired Zeigler to make something with all those fluffy stems. She harvested the feverfew, filling three large buckets, and set up production in her pottery studio. A dress form made it easy to attach dozens of feverfew bundles to a chicken wire skirt, their downward-facing heads forming those botanical scallops. Thicker wire runs vertically through the mesh prevent the weight of the flowers from collapsing the flared skirt form.

Zeigler attached the curved sword fern shapes as the final trimming. It’s a detail she has used in the past, thanks to all of the fern plants inherited from her garden’s prior owner. An opening in the back of the skirt allowed Zeigler to step into it; small twists of wire hold it closed. Underneath, her leggings kept the mesh from scratching her skin. A dark green top complements the verdant look. Earlier this season, Zeigler planted intentionally to ensure she has plenty of dahlias, annuals, and perennials to harvest for multiple floral garments. “I’m growing for our ‘Fall Ball’ in September. There will be 10 of us and I’m plotting to make some sort of floral garment for every guest to wear when they arrive. We’ll be in our backyard with everyone wearing their own botanical couture style.”

It’s fun to dress up in your garden’s bounty, she said. “I just think there are too many people hung up on ‘What am I making this for?’ and ‘Do I need to be marketing this to someone?’ instead of doing it for themselves.” The gardener-maker has an inspiring philosophy: “Dress Like Your Garden,” and it’s one all flower lovers should embrace.

DETAILS:
Three Sepals, threesepals.com
@three_sepals

Hundreds of creamy tulip petals bring romance to a bridal gown

Photography by Tess Schilke

Growing and designing wedding florals is part of Waverly Flower Co.’s brand, so it’s no surprise that Alanna Messner-Scholl reimagined a bridal gown fashioned not from silk yardage, but with a flurry of tulip petals from her own tulip harvest.

Messner-Scholl’s editorial-style photo shoot took place at Elkins Estate, an historic manor built in 1898 and situated on 42-acres in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. “It felt like we were in an elegant setting in the French or Italian countryside,” she said. The collaboration with Tess Schilke was fortuitous, because the photographer was quite familiar with Elkins Estate from previous bookings. “This location is so ornate, you almost don’t need flowers; they’re just kind of an accent to complement the rooms,” Messner-Scholl laughed, adding that she’s planning flowers for a 2026 ceremony at the property.

The models, Shannon McConnell and Brett Morris, are clients of Waverly Flower Co., and they plan to marry in October. “Having already met Shannon, I imagined her wearing the silhouette of a slender, strapless gown with a neck scarf that draped over her shoulders,” Messner-Scholl explained. For the groom, rather than making a conventional boutonniere, she created an oversized botanical lapel featuring tulips, hellebores, ranunculus blooms and Pieris japonica. “It is a statement piece that reads like part of his tuxedo rather than a boutonniere.”

The gown’s production and the photo shoot were planned for peak tulip season. “I was pretty set on having our own flowers for this gown, and my vision was to use about 250 fully-double ‘Mondial’ tulips, which are a gorgeous, creamy white hue.”

Unpredictable weather created some tulip production challenges, requiring Messner-Scholl to choose a second variety to round out the design recipe. “I added ‘Avant-Garde’ tulips, which are ivory with a yellow center.” The mix of cream and ivory petals adds depth and dimension to the pale floral gown. “I originally thought I would fasten tulip heads with reflexed petals to the gown, but we didn’t have enough,” she said. “So instead, I removed all the petals and glued on each one individually – which took a lot longer than I anticipated.”

The use of tulip petals (rather than full flower heads) created a softer, ruffled texture but avoided bulk in the bust area, the designer said. However, she found it hard to maintain the freshness of her tulip petals once they were glued to the base garment. “The tulips didn’t hold up as much as I had hoped for, but that’s part of the process,” Messner-Scholl explained. “We started constructing the gown at 8 a.m. and at noon, it looked perfectly fine. Even with misting the heck out of the dress, though, by 3 p.m., it just nose-dived.” The unseasonably warm, late April date and a one-hour drive to transport the dress to the venue took a toll on the delicate petal shapes. “Thankfully, I’m overjoyed with the photographs,” she added. “They tell the story that I wanted to tell.”

DESIGN + CONCEPT: Alanna Messner-Scholl, Waverly Flower Co., waverlyflowerco.com, @waverlyflowerco
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tess Schilke, @tess.schilke
VIDEOGRAPHY: John Feher, @johnfeher
FLOWER SOURCE: Waverly Flower Co.
VENUE: Elkins Estate, @elkinsestate
FLORAL ASSISTANCE: Elliana Haines, Waverly Flower Co., @ellianamadison_
MODELS: Shannon McConnell and Brett Morris, @shanmcconnell, @brettmorris10
HAIR: Krystin Curry of Mane & Moon, @krystincurry_hair
MAKEUP: Sarah Capizzi of Inner Glow Hair Lounge, @innerglow_hairlounge
AIRBRUSH TAN: TLS Spray Tan Bar, @tls_spraytanbar

Student Life in Flowers, with farmer-florists of the future

Professor Sarah Berquist teaches farmer-florists of the future through the sustainable flower farming and floral entrepreneurship curriculum at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.

During spring semester, she challenged her Farmer-Florist Practicum students to join Slow Flowers’ American Flowers Week campaign with their own botanical couture designs. For many, this was their first foray into wearable florals, and like most of the projects Berquist assigns, the young floral artists and growers fearlessly embraced the opportunity to creatively experiment with local and seasonal blooms.

“The practicum is an advanced version of our retail floral design course,” Berquist explained. “We did a series of projects during spring semester – from working in the greenhouse and holding plant and tuber sales, to producing an annotated bibliography of Slow Flowers articles. When I proposed the botanical couture project, the students dove right in.”
With “Student Life” as their prompt, class members brainstormed design themes around familiar university, agriculture, and farmer-floristry themes.

“There’s something magical about the collective energy of this program,”

Sarah Berquist, Instructor, Stockbridge Floral Design

Four design concepts emerged: The Shirt, The Boots, The Backpack, and The Graduates. “Everyone liked the symbolism of education and creativity,” said Allison Virzi, a graduating senior and teaching assistant in the program. Added Sarah Johnson, “We had so much going on at the end of the semester. We were growing for plant sales and we were also making bouquets for markets. We kept asking ourselves, ‘how are we going to be able to do this?’ But, we obviously found the time and it was definitely worth the experience!”

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Here’s more about each look, along with comments from the student-creators:

The Shirt
During the student brainstorming session, Aeryn Willingham was doing what she often does: working on a knitting project. Then she heard Berquist suggest using spring tulips grown by the class, adding, “maybe Aeryn could knit something for it.”

“My brain started going a mile a minute, because I love fiber crafts – I’ve been knitting since I was three and spinning since I was ten,” said Willingham, a food and farming major. She created a hyper-local knit tunic into which her classmates inserted a riot of tulips and ranunculus. “I bought a pound of fibers from a nearby spinnery and spun my own skeins,” Willingham explained. There is a lacy openness to the soft, knitted garment, the gauge of which emulates chicken wire mesh. “I did a little work to figure out the best diameter of openings to accommodate tulip and ranunculus stems and I just made up the pattern as I went.”

With Willingham serving as the garment’s model, several of her classmates added tulips to the knit bodice. They devised an ombre effect with darker orange flowers blending into yellow ones, working from the base of the top to the neckline and shoulders. Reflexed tulip petals add to the look’s ruffled appearance, echoing the flared sleeve design.

“I enjoyed combining slow fashion with Slow Flowers,” Willingham added. “This is a handmade shirt from local wool that I’ll wear again and again. It can be worn for years to come,” she said. The flowers had an afterlife, as well, Berquist noted. “We reused a lot of these tulips a couple days later for bud vases at a commencement event. So we were really leaning into sustainable floristry!”

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The Boots
Two pairs of iconic farming boots symbolize the life of a farmer-florist, and the footwear was transformed with spring flowering bulbs, a beautiful embellishment that transformed functional footwear into wearable art.

Melanie Morgan and Charlotte Bayer served as designers and models for this charming agriculture-inspired floral vignette. Staples of many farmers’ closets, the leather Blundstones and Hunter rain boots owned by these students inspired them to use the boots’ openings as floral vessels.

Specialty daffodils and tulips, plus ranunculus and lily of the valley stems, emerge as if growing from inside the boots, playfully dancing around the models’ ankles. The addition of a shovel as a prop brings vibes of the painting ‘American Gothic,’ reimagined as a joyful (rather than dour) scene. “It’s cool that this photo shoot happened inches away from our plot where many of these flowers are grown,” Berquist said.

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The Backpack
Susan Nadeau chose the ubiquitous Jansport backpack to symbolize the student lifestyle. “At first, she was going to fill it with a bouquet of flowers, but then decided to design directly onto the outside surface,” Berquist explained. “She used cable ties to attach a ‘tube’ of chicken wire to the backpack; then inserted flowers into that base.” As both designer and model, she embraced the joy of a “just-about-to-be-free” senior by giving her reliable accessory its own floral tattoo.

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The Graduates
Sarah Johnson and Allison Virzi partnered to “flower” their traditional cap-and-gown graduation attire. “The photo shoot happened during graduation week, and this project symbolized how close we all became as the Stockbridge Floral Design team,” Virzi said. “We decided to make tulip stoles and daffodil tassels with the flowers we were harvesting that week.”

Graduation stoles are often decorated with symbols, colors, or text that represent the student’s academic achievements or honors, so it’s fitting that the farmer-florists chose from their crops to design floral stoles. Ruby DiGregorio created the tassels by threading several daffodil varieties, attaching to the mortarboard caps. The construction of the stoles required two different mechanics. Virzi assembled her stole with a strand of tulips (complete with bulbs), attached to a long tube of chicken wire that draped around her neck. “It has so much movement because of the drapey quality of the foliage,” she said.
Johnson’s stole features daffodils threaded onto a wire base. “We wanted to play with the mono-floral concept,” she said. “We had so many varieties of daffodils that when we started stringing them together, they looked really cool.”

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Berquist stepped out of the way in order to encourage student teams to explore their ideas and assume leadership for designing and producing, modeling, and handling photography. “There’s something magical about the collective energy of this program,” Berquist said. “We could have just come up with one botanical couture scene, but there were so many ideas and these students embraced the creative opportunity as they metabolized their learnings. As the instructor, I can corral people and get the materials there in one spot, but once that was done, it was amazing what happened next!”

STUDENT PARTICIPANTS:
Aeryn Willingham @elizabethaeryn
Allison Virzi @stemandshellfloral
Charlotte Bayer @char.bayer
Melanie Morgan @mmelrm_
Sarah Johnson @sarah.olivia316
Susan Nadeau @susanamarie
Ruby DiGregorio @basilsprigg

DETAILS:
Stockbridge Floral Design is part of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM

Botanical Couture Issue for AMERICAN FLOWERS WEEK

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summer in bloom.

Welcome to our 2025 Botanical Couture edition celebrating American Flowers Week! As the original domestic flower promotional campaign, AFW was founded in 2015. By 2016, we commissioned our first botanical couture look, a red-white-and blue flower ‘fro designed by longtime Slow Flowers member, Susan McLeary. You can read more about that iconic look, as well as McLeary’s insights about how floral wearables have evolved over the past decade, in our new Q&A with her on page 20.

The looks continue, with seven floral garments created for 2025. We welcome returning botanical couture designers, Jennifer Reed, Kelly Shore, and Alanna Messner-Scholl, and are thrilled to welcome new contributors, including Andee Zeigler of Three Sepals, and students of Stockbridge School of Agriculture (University of Massachusetts), led by instructor Sarah Berquist. We love the inventiveness and we especially love Zeigler’s philosophy of growing flowers so you can “wear your garden.”

We also have inspiring features about several of our members’ creative expression through art and nature. You’ll enjoy reading about The Art of Floriography, the recent Indigo in Bloom exhibition in Charleston, and whimsical floral street art in Burlington, Vermont. It’s a busy season for everyone, and we look forward to following our community through American Flowers Week. Post your local blooms as we share the beauty and message of local flowers – we’re excited to see what you grow and create!

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Inside the Issue

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Red, White & Bloom

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Susan McLeary’s Design Evolution

Ten years ago, we asked Ann Arbor, Michigan-based floral designer Susan McLeary to create a signature floral headpiece to celebrate American Flowers Week.

Her eye-catching flower ‘fro, modeled by Monique Montri, was both creatively satisfying to produce.“I spent about 30 minutes making a heavy-duty flower crown, for which I had to wire each stem to make sure it was sturdy enough. Then, I spent another 40 minutes adding individual flowers to Monique’s hair. We teased out her hair so it had more structure to hold the flowers,” McLeary told American Flowers Week at the time.

Photographed by Amanda Dumouchelle and styled by McLeary, the project became an iconic image across our American Flowers Week promotions. Her impeccable look inspired a decade of botanical couture looks that followed: Garments, ensembles, and accessories created by Slow Flowers members and farmer-florist teams across the U.S. Since 2016, we have celebrated an impressive lineup of 48 American Flowers Week botanical couture looks, designed by our members with domestic flowers and foliage as the inspiration. These floral fashions hail from across the continent — Alaska and Hawaii; Maine and Florida; Missouri and South Dakota and beyond.

In considering the important influence that McLeary’s flower ‘fro brought to this campaign and to the floral artists who followed in her footsteps, we invited the Slow Flowers leader to discuss the evolution of her style. McLeary is the author of The Art of Wearable Flowers (Chronicle Books, 2020) and she teaches extensively through her online platform at susanmcleary.com.

SFJ: Sue, tell us about your first wearable floral piece and what inspired you to design it?
SM: I think it was probably with Françoise Weeks in California at a Chapel Designers Conference where she was teaching, 2012 or 2013. It was something beyond a corsage or beyond a crown.

SFJ: What did that experience reveal to you, or unlock in your imagination?
SM: I started figuring out that I could use the techniques I used to make jewelry – very simple techniques.  Françoise showed me the example that you can really express yourself in whatever way you want with flowers. I was new in my learning and this was really exciting to see someone making things that really don’t have a lot of commercial purpose. It was art. And that was the purpose. And that, obviously, was hugely valuable to me.

SFJ: You’ve been redefining wearable florals ever since!
SM: I love to take a topic or something that is either a pain point or a stumbling block and try to think through all the possible iterations until I can come up with something I think is a useful improvement. With wearables, I guess the purpose for me is that I want people to just enjoy the flowers while they’re here and kind of detach from the obsession with longevity that I think has done damage to our industry. Like the whole vase life conversation and the consumer thinking that a flower is only valuable if it sits in a vase for 10 days. I want to throw that all out of the window and say: “Enjoy this right now for art’s sake. For joy.”

SFJ: Can you tell us about one of your most recent wearable floral designs?
SM: There’s kind of a pattern where I like to fix on something and I’m there for a while! What happened recently was (when) I was designing my daughter’s prom flowers. She didn’t think she wanted a corsage; she thought she wanted a bouquet, but she had this really cool dress with lots of handmade details. So I wanted to make a light armature that held the flowers, but didn’t feel heavy. I wanted to make a little accessory like a jewelry piece. That led me to testing out various ways to float flowers in midair.

SFJ: How did you approach this challenge?
SM: I’ve always loved armature work. But armatures, as they were taught to me, always felt like they weren’t commercially relevant or aesthetically relevant. So I wanted to test out my concept and take away as much of the bulk of the mechanic as I could, leaving enough support to show the flowers. This was how my obsession started, and it continues! I am thinking about how to get rid of glue. How to get rid of tape. Corsage tape is plasticky, a throwaway item. Florists wire, as it is sold, is also plastic-coated and it’s not good looking on its own, so I’ve found it really exciting to think of armatures and supports that can eliminate those products.

SFJ: Clearly your thinking has evolved over the past decade. How might you approach designing your Flower ‘Fro today, in 2025? Would you want to find a way to “float” those red-white-and-blue flowers above Monique’s head?
SM: The Afro is a mass design because all of the flowers are cut and manipulated to make one form. I think we swing back and forth as florists. Sometimes, we go really dense and decorative – that’s a mass design — and then we swing to really minimal, light, and kind of Ikebana-inspired.

SFJ: That seems to be where you are now, right?
SM: Yes, I really enjoy working with negative space and transparency, using the least amount that I need to get the point across, to get the impact, I guess. And then, thinking about the forms and the lines that flowers create. I think the exciting thing that’s going to be explored more and more is form-linear work, as opposed to the vegetative, uber-natural design style or the mass decorative design.

SFJ: Can you describe form-linear a little more?
SM: It’s very spare and it’s all about the forms in nature and about asymmetry. In form-linear, the materials are selected and they’re placed in a way so you can see the form and line of each element. And there’s a lot of negative space around them. You could say that Ikebana is form-linear design, too.

SFJ: We watch your Instagram feed where you’re showcasing wearable flowers with beautiful, form-linear techniques!
SM: Definitely! It’s exciting for me to think of ways to teach armatures that are approachable for a new florist, so they can see the breadth of what’s available to them and put all of these ideas in their toolkit. It’s an approachable technique, not one where you’re wiring and taping for three hours to make a bridal bouquet, but instead, you have this simple armature that you know how to make. It creates an impactful result, without the extraneous waste.

SFJ: If you were to redesign the 2015 Flower ‘Fro with today’s Sue McLeary armature techniques, I could see it still framing Monique’s head like a beautiful halo, but in a form-linear style, right?
SM: (Laughs) I think it would be more transparent! I want more negative space. I want the flowers to each have their own spatial plane, with movement and interest. Remember, the Flower ‘Fro was for a photo shoot, so Monique didn’t have to walk or be on a runway. I’m more conscious of things being practical or wearable these days, more than just for a photo shoot setting. So I would want the headpiece to have a little more underneath structure if I recreated it.

SFJ: What else can you share about your philosophy of wearable flowers or botanical couture?
SM: I want my pieces to have a lot of motion. I don’t like anything to feel dense or heavy, typically. I take a lot of videos now. I take photos, of course, but in my daily sharing, it’s always video, because motion is so interesting to me.

As the original domestic flower promotional campaign, American Flowers Week was founded in 2015.

By 2016, we commissioned our first botanical couture look, a red-white-and-blue flower ‘fro designed by longtime Slow Flowers member, Susan McLeary.

The floral fashions continue, with seven floral garments created for 2025. We welcome returning botanical couture designers, Jennifer Reed, Kelly Shore, and Alanna Messner-Scholl, and are thrilled to welcome new contributors, including Andee Zeigler of Three Sepals, and students of Stockbridge School of Agriculture (University of Massachusetts), led by instructor Sarah Berquist. We love the inventiveness and we especially love Zeigler’s philosophy of growing flowers so you can “wear your garden.”

It’s a busy season for everyone, and we look forward to following our community through American Flowers Week. Post your local blooms as we share the beauty and message of local flowers – we’re excited to see what you grow and create!

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The American States Quilt Block Series, a hand-painted collection

Slow Flowers Society has relied on the creative talents of Jenny Diaz since 2016. Her contributions to our visual brand have been essential for building the Slow Flowers Movement. Jenny has an uncanny ability to listen closely, interpret inventively, and express ideas in highly effective ways. We are always eager to see how she takes the “wish list” of what we want visuals to achieve, because they far exceed expectations.

Since creating the logo art for American Flowers Week in 2016, Jenny’s influence on this national floral promotional campaign have been everywhere.

In 2016 and 2017, she hand-illustrated our USA Map and 50 States of Local Flowers coloring artwork, still used each year by our members to promote their own American Flowers Week efforts.

Jenny has also designed four botanical couture looks over the years. She’s not a florist or a flower farmer, but she’s so intimately connected to the goals and values of American Flowers Week that her creativity has prompted her “floral fashionista” to conceptualize, fabricate, style, and photograph a range of wearable looks – inspired by her love of local florals.

For American Flowers Week 2025, we invited Jenny to be our featured artist. And of course, she had ideas! The project is so expansive that it’s still in progress, but Jenny joined Debra Prinzing recently to talk about it and give us a sneak peek! The project involves 50 original watercolors of state-by-state quilt blocks, recaptured into 8-by-8-inch paintings. Here’s a bit more:

AFW: Have you painted in watercolor much, Jenny?

JD: It’s always been my favorite medium to work with, just because in most of my other design work everything is so precise. Watercolor gives me a chance to let things flow more organically.

AFW: What type of watercolor paint are you using?

JD: I was using Winsor & Newton, but I also have a travel set of koi watercolors from Sakura. I’ve been watercoloring outside when my husband and son do archery in the evenings. I also need this travel set of watercolors because my son, Dylan, has baseball practice and Ninja practice. I’ve got to take him everywhere, so the painting goes with me!

AFW: How are you able to make the paintings resemble fabric quilt squares?

JD: I noticed that a lot of quilters like to use fabric that almost has a watercolor feel to it, so I’ve added variations to some of the pieces, allowing different tones to come through.

AFW: Tell us about your path as an artist!

JD: I’ve always been creative since I was little. My mom has always been creative and she has painted with watercolors; my grandma used to make quilts and do paintings.

AFW: Did you study art in college?

JD: I went to Fresno State University to become an environmental toxicologist. I love biology. I love bugs and animals. What I intended to do as a career path was study plants, insects, animals to determine if those species are safe or endangered. But, I was still doodling and doing more art in my classes than actually paying attention to the subject. So I changed to an emphasis in graphic design because it seemed that’s where art was going. I went more digital in my design career. Lately, I’ve gravited to working with people who love flowers; who love plants, so it’s kind of my full circle moment as a creative.

AWF: Tell us how you came up with the 50 States Quilt Square Project for American Flowers Week.

JD: I love challenges! I was thinking of traditional Americana; something that might be considered old-timey, but still carries through to today. My brain just started doing tumbleweeds and I thought, “We’ve done state flowers. I know there are state animals. I wonder if there are state quilt blocks?” I did some research and discovered that – yes – there are state quilt blocks. There are some variations, but I actually found a book from the 1970s, “The United States Patchwork Pattern Book — 50 Quilt Blocks for 50 States.”

AFW: What do you know about the story of each quilt?

JD: Some are an obvious reference to the state. For example, New Mexico has more of a Santa Fe look and Texas has a big star. For other quilt squares, I haven’t been able to find any story about the origins of a design. I’m hoping somebody who sees our project will tell us more stories after reading about it!

AFW: How are you transforming photographs of vintage quilt pieces into watercolor art?

JD: I’m trying to stay as true to each state as I can. I’ve been scanning the image of each quilt piece and then converting it to an 8-inch square (and there are some round patches). Once I print it onto paper, I put the design on my lightboard and I lightly trace the pattern. Then, I paint the watercolors freehand.

AFW: We can’t wait to see all 50 of these paintings assembled together as a quilt!

JD: It’s so refreshing to be able to sit down and say, “What state am I going to visit today?!”

AFW: By the way, Jenny, you have created four American Flowers Week botanical couture looks. We’re guessing you don’t have time to design a floral fashion this year, what with all the painting you’ve been doing!

JD: I have a surprise for you, because I’m planning something! The dress I created last year looked like it had floral embroidery, so this year, I want to create a plaid skirt with flowers in the squares where the plaid intersects. And the model will wear a denim jacket with a floral quilt square on the back.

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