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Ep.12: Growing A Fragrant Cut Flower Garden With Stefani Bittner
3.2k Plays2 years ago
Have you been wanting to add fragrant flowers to your garden? In this episode of the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, host Jennifer Gulizia welcomes garden guru Stefani Bittner to share her expertise on creating beautiful and productive gardens that nourish both body and soul. Stefani, the visionary owner of Homestead Design Collective, brings a wealth of knowledge and passion for sustainable gardening practices.
Throughout the episode, Stefani discusses the importance of understanding your property for gardening, choosing low-water plants, and designing gardens that blend beauty with productivity. She emphasizes the value of incorporating trees, shrubs, and perennials into flower farms to create a diverse ecosystem that supports wildlife and enhances the beauty of the garden.
Learn about the concept of regenerative flower farming and how to integrate perennial plants into your garden to create a more sustainable and diverse landscape. Stefani also shares practical tips on harvesting and using fragrant flowers for tea, medicinal bouquets, and natural scent projects.
Tune in to this episode for valuable insights and inspiration on how to create a garden that not only delights the senses but also supports a thriving ecosystem. Join Jennifer and Stefani as they delve into the world of garden design and flower farming, and discover the joy of cultivating your own backyard oasis.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- 00:03:13 - Stephanie's Journey into Gardening
- 00:07:23 - The Impact of Personal Loss on Career Change
- 00:10:49 - The Role of Luck and Opportunity in Career Growth
- 00:11:53 - The Influence of Stephanie's Father on Her Career
- 00:15:15 - The Importance of Water Management in Gardening
- 00:17:08 - The Shift Away from Traditional Lawns
- 00:19:01 - Redesigning Front Yards for Beauty and Productivity
- 00:23:45 - Stephanie's Favorite Fragrant Plants
- 00:30:19 - The Emotional Connection to Fragrant Plants
- 00:32:55 - The Role of Gardens in Our Lives
- 00:37:43 - Multi-Purpose Plants and Tea Bouquets
- 00:39:40 - Preserving Natural Scents from the Garden
- 00:43:20 - The Connection Between Regenerative Farming and Gardening
- 00:46:09 - The Benefits of Perennial Plants in Flower Farming
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Transcript
Introduction to Backyard Bouquet Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The backyard bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
Meet Stephanie Bittner: Garden Guru
00:00:56
Speaker
Today on the Backyard Bouquet, we have the pleasure of welcoming a true garden guru and passionate advocate for beautiful, bountiful gardens, Stephanie Bittner. Stephanie is a visionary owner of Homestead Design Collective, a renowned landscape design firm nestled in the vibrant San Francisco Bay Area. With a mission to craft gardens that not only dazzle the eye, but also delight the palette,
00:01:22
Speaker
Stephanie and her team at Homestead Design Collective have been at the forefront of creating stunning outdoor spaces that offer bounty
00:01:32
Speaker
and beauty throughout their unique approach, they seamlessly blend organic farming principles with fine gardening techniques to bring life to aesthetically designed organic and edible gardens. Stephanie is also a published author having co-authored several bestselling books, including The Beautiful Edible Garden and Harvest Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants.
00:02:00
Speaker
And now this week, she is also the published author of The Fragrant Flower Garden. She continues to inspire gardeners around the world. At Homestead Design Collective, Stephanie's passion for sustainability shines through in every project, from replacing traditional lawns with water-wise native scapes to weaving bee-friendly wildflowers into the landscape. Her designs not only conserve water, but also celebrate the seasonal splendor of nature.
00:02:30
Speaker
With a portfolio that includes prestigious projects such as the test gardens for Sunset Magazine and the chef-focused Edible Gardens for Robert Mondavi and Prisoner Wineries, Stephanie's work has been featured in numerous publications including Vogue,
00:02:47
Speaker
Sunset Magazine, and Food and Wine. Today, Stephanie joins us to share her wealth of knowledge and insights on creating beautiful, productive gardens that nourish both body and soul. So sit back and relax and prepare to be inspired as we delve into the world of garden design with the remarkable Stephanie Bittner. Welcome. Thank you, Jennifer. That was an amazing introduction. Thank you so much.
00:03:12
Speaker
It is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. I know our listeners are going to gain so much from you, and I know that I am also going to learn so much wisdom from chatting with you. So I'm excited for this conversation, so let's dig right in. And I know I told
00:03:32
Speaker
a little bit about your background in the introduction, but would you mind telling us a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and where you're located?
Designing Gardens Globally
00:03:43
Speaker
Sure. So I'm the owner of Homestead Design Collective, and we are about 15 employees. We design, we
00:03:52
Speaker
We install and then we organically maintain gardens throughout the Bay Area. And also I will say we do design work throughout the country and also recently designed a regenerative farm in Italy. So projects throughout the world now, which is super exciting. We are probably best known for designing the gardens for Sunset Magazine and Sonoma.
00:04:15
Speaker
But we also do, you know, our bread and butter is really helping folks in their residential home gardens. And they really kind of go from the deep South Bay all the way up to Napa. So they are very diverse in terms of climate.
00:04:31
Speaker
sun exposure and size. We have gardens, like I have a little garden in Rockridge, which is a community that's part of the Berkeley community, so small, urban. And there's only room for one raised bed in the front yard, because that's where the sun was, and that's what we did. So we're used to really working with folks where they are, and then really helping them to embrace organic gardening practices and creating really beautiful landscapes that also give back through harvest.
00:05:01
Speaker
I love that. Where in Italy did you design a garden? You designed a garden in Tuscany. Kind of an amazing story. My first book, The Beautiful Edible Garden, is a book that did very well and is available at most barns and nobles and such. And so the daughter of my client is a well-renowned surgeon. And she happened to be in Los Angeles. And she went into a bookstore and picked up my book, found me on Instagram.
00:05:29
Speaker
the power of Instagram. It boggles my mind, the power of Instagram. That's how I found you too.
00:05:36
Speaker
Oh, it's amazing. And she DM'd us. And we started the process pre-COVID. And during COVID, her family owns a bed and breakfast when agro-tourism is very big in Europe. And they wanted to really bring the more regenerative principles of farming to their bed and breakfast through actually creating edible garden space.
00:06:01
Speaker
And so we designed an orchard. We designed a huge edible garden that had tons of perennial edibles that could be used as crops, but also were screening plants and also shrubs and structure plants. And
00:06:17
Speaker
And then, yeah, we after went as soon as we were able to travel. My team and I, which includes Christian Cobbs, who's our lead designer and Peter Elliott, who's our project manager. The three of us flew to Italy for two weeks, right when the country opened back up.
00:06:33
Speaker
and really spent a long time the first week just walking the property. The property is about 40 acres and finding all of the native plants so that we can bring them into our design. And cyclamen is native to Italy and grows wild, which, I mean, I think for US growers, they're like cyclamen, you know, like what you get at the big box stores. It's a wildflower there. Oreganos, times, all those plants just grow organically, marjoram,
00:07:03
Speaker
You just you're on a walk and you can actually start harvesting for the kitchen, which is incredible. And so, yeah, so we spent a lot of time. And then recently we have another project now in Puglia, Italy.
00:07:15
Speaker
So amazing. Wow. I lived in Italy in 2004. So Italy will always have a little piece of my heart. Well, we'll have to talk again about Italian gardens sometimes. Absolutely. I'm really, I'm getting to know a lot of the farmers right now in Puglia. And a lot of folks are really excited about flower farming.
00:07:36
Speaker
So I think that there's this really great tie over the excitement of flower farming that's happening in the US. And I will say probably through the power of Instagram, the word is getting out. And so a lot of the farmers I was meeting, but there's a lot of focus on on flowers as well as crops.
00:07:53
Speaker
Although they go hand in hand because in order to grow food, you have to grow flowers. Absolutely. Bring in the pollinators. I think flowers are definitely having their time in the spotlight right now. And I think it's only going to grow. And you're right. Instagram is a huge launch pad for a lot of people where I think they're seeing what's possible. And they're saying, I want to do that as well.
00:08:17
Speaker
You've been doing this for a while. How did you get your start in landscape and garden design?
Stephanie's Journey to Gardening
00:08:24
Speaker
It has been a while. Well, honestly, my mom was a gardener. Growing up in the Bay Area, we have a climate where you can grow year-round. I remember my parents would plant competing tomato plants when I was a kid to see who would do best. My mom was growing things organically, my dad was throwing, I don't know,
00:08:47
Speaker
stuff. He would probably miracle grow. I don't know what he was throwing on her. We quickly convinced him to stop because my mother's tomatoes were so much better. I always had a background in gardening, but really embraced it when my children
00:09:07
Speaker
were young and I took time off from work. I spent a lot of time growing our own food and really kind of reconnecting with the garden. And sadly, my father was diagnosed with a terminal cancer during this time and really, really focused on growing food. And after he passed, I kind of had this epiphany of like, life is short.
00:09:31
Speaker
And you need to do what you want to do. And he was 63 when he passed. So I decided to not go back to work in an office, but went to our local community college and start taking some landscape design classes. And then was quickly hired by a well-known landscape designer here in the Bay Area. And I had run into him as luck happens. And I told him what I was doing. And he was like, start edible landscaping for me.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I was like, okay. And during that, he had a nursery. I started teaching food classes, so how to grow your own food-based gardens. And one of my students ended up being the managing editor.
00:10:14
Speaker
at 10 Speed Press, who was my publisher. So I really believe in luck. I believe you have to have a lot of hard work so you can take advantage when luck appears. But I had a series of events where I was starting my own business, which my first business was called Star Apple Edible Gardens, and also then had a book deal in hand my first year of business, which was really lucky. That's incredible.
00:10:41
Speaker
I was always taught that luck is a matter of opportunity meeting preparation. You said it much better than me. And yes, I fully agree. Even when the opportunity came to design the Gardens for Sunset magazine, I had done a bunch of work with them. We had designed some demonstration gardens for them in the past.
00:11:04
Speaker
When we got the call of asking if we would be interested in designing it, of course you say yes, right? I mean, there wasn't like a moment I wasn't gonna say yes, but it was a project that happened really fast and we really had, my whole team, we had to pivot.
00:11:20
Speaker
on what we were doing. But because we were well organized, we had been working really hard, our ability to pivot was easier, I think, than it would have been for most folks. And so, yeah. And I spent a couple of years really focused on that garden and helping to get the word out through the magazine about what you can do in terms of growing food, natural dye plants, flowers, and such.
00:11:46
Speaker
Well, I'm really sorry for the loss of your father. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's been a long time now. And I hope this doesn't, I hope, if people have experienced loss, I hope that they understand where this is coming from. It's taken me 18 years to be able to say this, but in so many ways, his passing was like the greatest gift in my life, because it really,
00:12:15
Speaker
I mean, I would do anything to have my dad alive. Let's just be very clear. But his passing really motivated me to make changes in my life. And I probably wouldn't be doing this if it hadn't been for that key moment. I think it's those hard times in life that really make us step back and examine and realize our time here is so short. And we ask ourselves, am I doing something that I really enjoy? And does it bring me joy? And does it benefit those around me?
00:12:45
Speaker
I think there's probably people listening today who have either experienced the loss of a loved one or they've recently lost a job or in a position like I was when I started flower farming where I had a young child at home and I was paying a fortune in childcare and trying to find ways that I could make a living doing something
00:13:07
Speaker
that allowed me to be present. And I think that it's those life changes that open our eyes.
Gardening Advice for Beginners
00:13:13
Speaker
So if someone was listening today that's in one of those times of life and they have a yard or a garden or a space available to them where they could get started
00:13:28
Speaker
And this is a cup flower podcast. So whether they're growing cup flowers to bring themselves joy or they're interested in growing cup flowers to turn it into a business, what suggestions and advice would you give to them to get started?
00:13:44
Speaker
Sure. Well, I think really understanding the property that you're going to be growing on is probably the most important thing. I think both of us turned our passions into professions. And I think there's a lot that kind of comes hand in hand with that. But I think really understanding
00:14:03
Speaker
where you're going to grow. So do you have access to water? Are you zoned for residential? Are you zoned for farm? That's really important where we are in California, because I live in a drought state. And water is one of our most important resources and extremely expensive if you do not have a well. Basically, if you were zoned for residential water and you don't have a well, thinking that you're going to grow dahlias and sell them is a fool's game, in my opinion.
00:14:33
Speaker
because the amount of water that you will spend on growing those flowers, you will not be able to recoup your costs. Then it's like, what type of lower water flowers can I grow where I'm using less water and I can get prime dollar for these plants? In our world, that would really be the Protea family, things like leucodendrons, Proteas,
00:14:57
Speaker
There's a whole world of low, silosia is a low water cut flower. There's a whole world of low water plants that make beautiful arrangements. And then, of course, you can have one or two beds of dahlias that you water super efficiently to then, you know, be your focus. But if you just think that you're going to that you have a residential plot again, this is in California where we're in a drought and just plant a quarter acre dahlias throughout your backyard.
00:15:25
Speaker
Your water bill is going to be $3,000 to $5,000 a month. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? It's shocking to people. I think that's the hard thing. I see this a lot. A lot of my clients have watched the Fluoret documentary series. They call me and they're like, I want to grow flowers.
00:15:45
Speaker
everywhere. And so and I also have some clients who are florist as well. And so really what we do is, and again, this isn't about so I'm pivoting, I'm going to go back to answering how do you have your own business. But really, if you if you want to be a florist,
00:16:00
Speaker
have your own piece out you have your own flowers coming in it's really more about what can you grow in your garden that is having double duty so they are still screening plant from your neighbor there's still a foundation plant for your house they're low water their perennial
00:16:17
Speaker
They're low maintenance and fast growers. That's really important if you're going to be cutting from them and then creating really water efficient space for your annuals and understanding how much water they're taking and how you can water them efficiently.
00:16:33
Speaker
I think there are so many jobs, and I hire people all the time that are coming to this, of people that want to change their life and get involved in the world of flowers and growing food. I think any time you can get hands-on experience is the most important thing and get your hands in the dirt to see if you really like it. Absolutely. Gardening is so different than what you see on Instagram, and I think it's really shocking for folks how much heavy lifting you need to do.
00:17:03
Speaker
So I think that would be the first thing. And then I will say the community college system throughout our country is one of the best resources for changing a job. So just taking a horticulture class, taking a class on irrigation. You cannot go into this if you don't understand how to irrigate your plants because hand watering is not an option. Hand watering
00:17:27
Speaker
a flower farm or even a backyard will take hours and hours every week that you don't have if you're a small business owner. So understanding irrigation and then I think every small business owner needs to take a class on QuickBooks and understand how to pay themselves.
00:17:43
Speaker
because as much as we love what we do and the passion that we bring to it, if we don't know how to monetize it, then you are just going to be spinning your wheels. The first thing you have to do is understand how to actually invoice and bill for your services. That is such a great point.
00:18:00
Speaker
what really differentiates someone between a cut flower gardener and a cut flower farmer is do they have a way to monetize it and make a profit? You just touched on so many wonderful points and I have a whole list of questions from what you just said.
00:18:18
Speaker
talking about water being an issue in California. And I don't think it's just California anymore. I'm here in Oregon. We normally get a ton of rain. And I think you guys have gotten more rain than us this year. We are in a deficit and I run on what's called a farmer's irrigation district. And when our water is short, they don't even start our season.
00:18:42
Speaker
on time or they can lessen the amount of water we get because it's all based on what they have on reserve. So I have a feeling that the water issue is going to become a very prominent discussion for people wanting to grow. And I think one of the first places that I'd like to touch on with you because of what you do for a living and helping people design their gardens, I think the American idea of a grass lawn
00:19:08
Speaker
is quickly changing. And I think that's opening up a lot of opportunity for people to grow cup flowers. How do you see the impact of the water shortage and grass lawns changing?
Transitioning Lawns to Gardens
00:19:21
Speaker
So I would encourage everyone to really reevaluate their lawn. Now there's obviously all different types of lawns. There are some beautiful native no-mow lawns that people install with wild flowers. I mean, we're not talking about those.
00:19:38
Speaker
we're talking traditional grass that you're playing soccer on you know things like that that take a huge amount of water and space and often chemicals that space can be repurposed to be really beautiful and productive.
00:19:53
Speaker
and including plants that you can cut for the vase, plants that you can use in the kitchen, and also to make natural scent as well. I do a lot of natural scent projects. So the first thing you're going to want to do is convert your
00:20:09
Speaker
whole garden care to organic care because you do not want your family to eat pesticides and you don't want to grow something that you're going to turn into a salve or a flower mist and that you don't want to be putting pesticides in your body because you also ingest them through your skin. In terms of how to how to visualize and I think that's the hardest thing people have is that they just think of the American dream and that lawn in front of the house
00:20:35
Speaker
And I think starting to just visualize that that space can have multiple trees. It can have shrubs and perennials. I do think the front yard is a space to have more evergreen plants. Again, I'm talking about folks that aren't under snow all the time. I lived in Minneapolis for a period of my time of my life. And so it's a very, you're not so worried about evergreen plant material because everything's losing its leaves.
00:21:03
Speaker
In terms of the lower part of the states where we do have evergreen material, I think the front yard is the place to have it. When you pull up to your front door, you want to not be stressed out by what you're looking at. And if you have just rows and rows of crops in your front yard,
00:21:23
Speaker
you're working all day and you're picking up the kids from school and you're gonna feel the tug of like, I need to make sure it's neat and tidy. And so that is, so we design, if people do wanna do, and I do cut flower gardens and edible gardens in the front yard, but we design it with a ton of structure. So no matter what the annual crops look like, the garden looks beautiful. And then the annual crops can kind of go up and down. You know, I also think that the front yard
00:21:51
Speaker
is the place to have a lot of your pollinator attracting plants. We need the pollinators for growing food, obviously for flowers. The great thing is that like fragrant plants, the whole reason why they're fragrant is not for us, it's to attract the pollinators. And so really making sure that you have a succession planting of blooms. So you have plants that are blooming in spring, summer, fall, if you are able to grow in the winter,
00:22:21
Speaker
winter blooming plants as well. That's going to support your local pollinators and really help to build a healthier ecosystem in your neighborhood, which is really important, but also means that you will have a continuous supply of flowers for your face and for your home, which is important.
00:22:37
Speaker
That is great advice. I'm laughing as I'm listening because when we moved into our house, I knew I wanted to grow flowers. I didn't know at the time I was going to become a flower farmer. And we have this weird triangular shape in our front yard and I didn't want to put in grass.
00:22:55
Speaker
And I guess I should say in the very front yard leading up to our front door, we have this square patch. And it's not huge. It's probably maybe 10 by 20 feet. And I thought, well, I'm going to start growing all my annuals here. And I planted a whole bunch of cosmos and zinnias, and I planted them in rows. And it wasn't really enough to be a flower farmer, but it was enough to make some bouquets and really learn what I was doing. But my husband hated it because it didn't have the curb appeal.
00:23:24
Speaker
of being appealing to everyone else. And then when I dug them up in the wintertime, we just had this big muddy mess. So you mentioned having structure and earlier you talked about things like screen plants and foundation plants. Those are new terms to me. Can you elaborate on that for me, please?
00:23:44
Speaker
Sure. So if you think of just a traditional front, let's just talk the front yard. It'll make it easier. When you look at your house, the basics of what your house needs to be framed and softened is usually we do a focal front yard tree. Most folks have some type of tree in their front yard. What's really great is that that tree doesn't have to be some ubiquitous
00:24:09
Speaker
Street tree, it can actually be a tree that provides harvest either through food or flowers or both, to be honest, it should be both in my opinion. And then you need some foundation plants and the foundation plants are the plants that are up against your house. And it softens the edges, it hides a gutter, it softens the base where the house meets the ground. And usually that's a combination of smaller trees and shrubs. And then kind of coming out further,
00:24:37
Speaker
They're screening plants. So oftentimes, like, what if your neighbor has a really ugly fence, but you can't do anything about it. You want it to disappear. You can put screening plants, right? So that's, you know, when we design a space, we're looking at like, what is your need, right? Do you have screening needs? Does your house properly supported with foundation plantings?
00:24:59
Speaker
Do you have room for a focal front yard tree? Do you have a room for two focal point front yard trees? How do you enter your space? Is it a straight walk to your front door? Is it a meandering path? If it's a meandering path, there's really opportunities to have smaller trees. We can grow citrus here in the Bay, but it can be other things that are smaller.
00:25:23
Speaker
that you can interact with as you're walking up to your front door. A lot of people will put tree roses in very traditional houses, and I'm going to make the argument that that is not a great choice just because anything with thorns on a pathway can reach out and grab you. So I like to put the thorn in your things a little further away from the pathway, but that's how we start. That's how we start in terms of designing a space are those elements.
00:25:50
Speaker
And in the book, I actually list my favorite vocals, foundations, screenings to help people start really thinking of plants as being dual purpose. So they're giving you a landscape, they're filling a landscape need, but you can still harvest from them for those things. Now, I'm sorry, which one of your books is that in?
00:26:14
Speaker
That's a beautiful edible for edibles, but for the fragrant flower garden, I also have that in there as well. Awesome. We have focal points, destinations, anchor plants, and then I talk a lot about night fragrance because I personally love night fragrance. Ground covers, low-growing plants, every plant in your garden can actually be fragrant.
00:26:40
Speaker
And so then just thinking about how you place them, understanding also fragrance. You don't want to have something that has a very strong fragrance, like we call that a heady fragrance, right next to something else has a really strong fragrance because they're going to compete. So, you know, there's a whole, the book kind of delves into that and how to do a succession of sense. So like, let's say lilacs.
00:27:08
Speaker
I have a soft spot for lilacs. I love lilacs. It's such a short period of time, but it's so glorious. The lilacs, in my opinion, they're not a beautiful shrub when they're not in flower, so that's not something that I would put front and center and have it as more of a backdrop.
00:27:29
Speaker
But when they're in bloom, you want to make sure that you don't have something right next to them that's also in bloom, because the scent from that lilac is going to fill the entire neighborhood, right? It's either window open, you're going to smell it in your house, you're going to pick them. I will say what's cool about, about lilacs though, is that there are so many varieties that there are early, mid, and late varieties. So
00:27:53
Speaker
have something you really love, you can extend the harvest. So in my garden, I have an early variety and I have a late variety. So when the early variety is totally done, a couple weeks later, the late variety begins. So a lot of people think of succession planting in terms of farming, like with annuals, right? So every month,
00:28:16
Speaker
You're, you're, you're selling so many cosmos or so many of whatever you're growing, right? So make sure that you have a constant supply. I think of this in terms of food growing, like you want to make sure you have salad, you know, every month, every so every month you have to plant salad.
00:28:31
Speaker
With your perennial shrubs, you can actually end trees and perennial plants. You can take the same concept, just understanding when their bloom time is, and you can map it out so that you can make sure that you have something that's always in bloom in your garden. We'll be talking about that as well. That's great advice. Do you have a favorite lilac? Yeah.
00:28:54
Speaker
Well, I'm kind of a lilac floozy, so really any and all. I really love White Angel, which it was my mom's favorite. So I have just, I have a very emotive reason to enjoy it. And I will say,
00:29:11
Speaker
And now that I'm saying that out loud, a lot of my favorite fragrant plants are based upon memories and emotions.
The Emotional Connection to Garden Fragrances
00:29:19
Speaker
I remember the scent of my grandmother's scented geraniums. Like scented geraniums I think should be in everyone's garden. They are low maintenance, they're low water here, they can totally be ignored, and they can be the filler of your bouquets, you can make tea with them, you can make natural scent projects with them, they're beautiful, and you can ignore them.
00:29:40
Speaker
right? You can't ignore dahlias. You can't ignore cows. But having some plants that kind of thrive on the galact are the key to not wearing yourself out. So I think of the white angel because my mother had that in her garden, which then I inherited. So I have her lilacs. I live with her lilacs.
00:30:05
Speaker
I think of scented geraniums as well. I think of the fragrance of strawberries a lot. That tends to be one of my favorite scents because my grandmother always made a strawberry jam as a kid. Definitely, it depends upon what fragrances you love. It's funny. I have a lot of clients who want peonies.
00:30:26
Speaker
And where you live, oh my gosh, Pacific Northwest, you all can grow all the peonies. It's incredible. And I mentioned in Minnesota, in Minnesota, they can grow all the peonies. We can't in the Bay. Well, that's not true. We can, but I would make the argument we shouldn't because they take so much effort to grow and so much water. But there are peonies that we can grow here that are not as hard. But some of them smell horrible.
00:30:56
Speaker
like cat urine like like like there are certain plants where like I like there are peonies that smell so good and you want to fill your house with them but some varieties actually smell horrible and if something smells horrible in your garden
00:31:13
Speaker
It's going to smell horrible in your house. And it's going to smell horrible in the bouquet that you're selling. So it's really important to know, I recommend to people sometimes that they go to either a botanical garden or an Oregon. In Portland, you have the most amazing public rose garden or even a really good nursery.
00:31:35
Speaker
and actually go and smell varieties before you buy them because there are many plants that look so beautiful but the reality of their scent is not so great and you know that's totally fine for a landscape in a garden but if you're actually coveting that plant in terms of its ability to be in a bouquet that's in the house you want to
00:31:57
Speaker
You just want to kind of smell test it. That is great advice. I'm thinking about bearded iris. I love bearded iris and I absolutely love the smell in the garden. But when they start to go bad in a bouquet or in the vase, the smell is
00:32:15
Speaker
really pungent. So I don't typically use them. I will use them for event work, but I don't use them for day-to-day bouquets because most people don't know that you can pick off one flower to allow for the next one to open up. But that smell out in the garden, I just love the scent. And for me, it brings back going to Shriners Irish Gardens with my grandmother as a child. And it was my mom, my grandma, and I would go together.
00:32:44
Speaker
And it just brings that memory back for me, which you touched on and mentioned how fragrance helps us remember those memories.
00:32:55
Speaker
Gardens in general, like to me, should just be an extension of our living space, and gardens are really meant to be lived in. We create really beautiful gardens, but to me, a garden is not successful if you're not out there, you're not touching the plants, you're not smelling the plants, you're not eating the plants, if you want to talk to the plants, whatever it is that you're eating outside, you're living outside,
00:33:22
Speaker
your gardens can totally support your lifestyle and that of your families. And for me, fragrance is such a big part of that. And what's really cool is that plants are also fragrant at different times of the day. So you have things that are fragrant in the morning, things that are fragrant in the afternoon, things that are only fragrant in the evening and at night. So you can actually have an experience in one day where you actually are interacting with plants
00:33:50
Speaker
smelling plants, it's like it changes throughout your day, which I think is very exciting. Can you give us an example of plants that have scents at different times of day? I was not aware of that. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, so when a plant is fragrant is when it is ready to be pollinated. So you have to think about what's pollinating these plants.
00:34:15
Speaker
So plants that are pollinated by moths and bats, and I'm gonna get my list from the book so I can read it to you, and are fragrant at night. So some of my favorites. So the night blooming plants, there are things like, so they're night blooming jasmine, which I mean, oh my God. Jasmine is one of my favorite scents.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yes. But there's a specific variety that only is fragrant at night. So if you love jasmine, you actually can grow multiple jasmines so that you have the jasmine fragrance entering the day and then also at night. There's flowering tobacco, Nikishiana. I love Nikishiana because it's a super tough plant, but it also grows in partial shade and shade. And most folks have
00:35:07
Speaker
you know, sun and shade parts of their garden, and they want production for flowers in the shade. And then the Kishiana is a great one for that. So the fragrance and the Kishiana during the day is really almost non-existent. And then in the evening it starts to let it out, which is really great. And there are, there's actually a Jasmine scented Kishiana that is like off the charts in terms of fragrance.
00:35:34
Speaker
It's actually called the jasmine. The variety is jasmine scented. It's so great when that happens. I love a grower who names things so literally. And then there's also things like four o'clock. Four o'clock are definitely more old-fashioned.
00:35:53
Speaker
Annual, it is an annual that reseeds easily, so you have to know if you're adding four o'clock to your garden, you now have a lifetime relationship with them because they're gonna keep going. Select Seeds this year, although I think they might have introduced it last year, there's a new four o'clock to me. I'm not saying it's new to the world, but new to me. It's called Fairy Trumpet, and it is the most stunning four o'clock I've ever seen.
00:36:23
Speaker
and is so vase worthy and so incredibly beautiful. I love four o'clock because they actually open up around four or five o'clock in the day. So if you're doing, like we've done a lot of sensory gardens for families with little kids, and it's really cool for them to be able to go out in the garden and see that as everything else is going to sleep in the garden, this one particular plant actually begins to open up. And that's when you smell it is in the evening at night.
00:36:52
Speaker
So it's a really fun one to have in the garden if you're doing lots of night walks as well. Like I really love to do night walks in my garden. So I try to get the night scented plants to be more towards like where I have a landscape light so I can find them without a flashlight, to be honest, or obviously a window.
00:37:11
Speaker
I mean, having night-blooming things by window is really great. We have a plant called bergmansia or angels trumpet that we can grow down in our zones. And that's one that we really love if someone has a hot tub to actually plant it like in the background of a hot tub because you go in your hot tubs in the evening and at night and that plant is such an incredible night fragrance plant.
00:37:33
Speaker
So kind of thinking about how you're using your garden again, like where are you using your garden at night? And then you can strategically play some night blooming plants as well.
00:37:43
Speaker
I love those suggestions. That's something that as I am relocating our farm and redesigning, I'm trying to be more intentional about how things are laid out because I have had the benefit of planting in long farm style rows. But as I'm pivoting and using our yard space more than I have in the past, I'm trying to be very intentional about how I interplant things. And I'm really thinking about the sense and how I can use them
00:38:13
Speaker
beyond just the bouquet. You've mentioned hand salves and teas and different things. Can you tell me what are some of the other uses? Because you can also farm flowers or grow flowers for the hand salves or medicinal purposes. What are some of your favorite methods that you like to grow flowers for?
Plants for Teas and Fragrance Projects
00:38:35
Speaker
So I love a multi-purpose plant. That's kind of what all my books have been about, is plants that are providing you a landscape duty, but also you can harvest from. So I actually, for our clients, I grow a lot of tea-based plants, which are all fragrant.
00:38:55
Speaker
And I like to do tea bouquets. So this is something that I do a lot of tea and medicinal bouquets, to be honest. So the tea bouquet is the idea of that is it's all plants that actually taste good together.
00:39:10
Speaker
tea so we will harvest what would be the equivalent of everything that would go into one pot of tea and then we'll twine it up and our clients will actually enjoy it in the vase for a few days and then they can take it out, cut the bottoms off, hang it up from the twine and let it dry.
00:39:27
Speaker
Or they could, of course, just put it directly into a teapot if they'd like. But having bouquets that also have multipurpose is super exciting to me. Likewise with medicinals, so many great medicinal plants are also very fragrant. You should know what the fragrance is because not every fragrant is good to everybody, of course. But in the book, we actually did
00:39:53
Speaker
We did a perfume stick project. So basically, I'll take a step back. So the book is about how to design a fragrant garden, what the plants are that are some of our favorites for the garden, and how to arrange with fragrance, because I also think that's important.
00:40:13
Speaker
in terms of seasonal blooms and having scents that actually go well together and don't clash, and then also then how to preserve natural scent. So when you preserve scent, you're extracting the fragrance from the plant, right? So you can do that through infusion, you can infuse it into a neutral oil, or you can actually remove it with water, like through distilling, so hydrosols.
00:40:37
Speaker
which is very common. And I actually teach folks, of course, if you have a copper still, amazing, that's a big commitment. They're usually about $500 starting off. If you have a still, you can make so many hydrosols. The world is your oyster. But I teach folks in the book actually how to do the distilling process with just simple pots.
00:41:03
Speaker
like just on your kitchen top, how to do small batch distilling as well. When you do that, you're really not going to get much essential oil. The essential oil is really going to go back into the hydrosol. Common name for hydrosol is also flour water. And that's, you know, we use hydrosols for like face toners,
00:41:25
Speaker
as a natural aromatherapy for a room or like a room freshener. You can use hydrosols for so many things. You can add it to witch hazel and make it a toner. There's lots of projects that you can do with them. But we also, when you infuse an oil, then you have this incredible oil that can be used for many things. And one of the things that I like to do is make perfume sticks. It's a super easy thing to do with kids.
00:41:52
Speaker
We just get the simple craft push-ups. They kind of remind me of the push-up sticks that we had as kids. Well, I'm older than you. We had push-up ice cream as kids. I remember those. OK, so it's the same concept, but it's for perfume. And you push them up from the bottom. They're very inexpensive. You can get them at a craft store. I also, in the book, tell you where you can get them online. But you take your infused oil,
00:42:19
Speaker
And then you add beeswax and then we got a little fancy with this one because we had, my co-author had a broken eyeshadow and was like,
00:42:32
Speaker
Let's add this. And so she took her broken eyeshadow and added a shimmer to the perfume stick, which she has a little, she has a young daughter, so really fun with little kids to have sparkles and perfume. But once you have your oil, you can do a lot of things. You can make a lip gloss, you can make a perfume stick. I also really like hair oils, personally.
00:42:59
Speaker
working in gardens all day can be really hard on your hair. So we have a Jasmine hair oil as well. It's a Jasmine Citrus hair oil project. Do you sell that?
00:43:12
Speaker
I don't, these are all like how to do it yourself. Oh, so inside the book, people can learn how to do each of these projects themselves with the flowers they grow. It's all small batch. So it's really meant, you know, if you're a flower farmer and you have large batches, of course you can double and triple, but really this is the, it's really meant for someone who has, you know, a small garden harvest and how can you preserve the scent of your garden harvest.
00:43:38
Speaker
I love that. People that have been listening to the podcast for a while know that I have mentioned several times that one of my goals this year is to figure out how to bottle up the scent of daffodils.
00:43:49
Speaker
Oh, not hard. I would use enflourage. What is that? So enflourage is an ancient French technique of extracting the scent of plants onto a base. Now, ancient times they used animal lard. We don't do that. We use, typically I use coconut oil, just simple refracted organic. And I actually will use, like with a solid.
00:44:19
Speaker
What you do is you lay, and there's instructions on the book, so I'm just going to do the quick down and dirty, but there's detailed instructions in the book, and obviously online you can find methods as well. But you lay the plant material on the solid and you cover it and you let it sit for a day or two, you remove it, and then you add it again. What you're doing is you're infusing the scent into that solid.
00:44:46
Speaker
Now there's a fast way to, that's the slow way. And then that base of that coconut oil then becomes the base as like a hard perfume. And what's really great if you use coconut oil is that it's super moisturizing. So like if you're going to do like a perfume balm like that and use it on your elbows, you can put it on your skin. If you use coconut oil, you can actually cook with it if you wanted to. I don't know if I'd want to cook with the scented daffodils to be honest. Probably not.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, but lilac, you definitely would cook with the scent of lilac, right? So, it's really good. Now, there's a fast way to do omphelage, which is melting the oil, the base into actually a liquid oil, and then putting the flowers into that oil. It's a much faster process, and it really depends upon
00:45:37
Speaker
what you have growing in your garden. So if you have one big harvest, you might want to do the liquid because you don't have enough to do seven to 10 days worth. But let's say you're growing the scented narcissus and you have one plant that is ready to be harvested, but then you use that. And then the next day, the next plant is ready. It's a much more
00:46:04
Speaker
The more traditional route is much more about the small batch and also it's kind of more a little realistic because most people don't have bundles and bundles of something. That's also like with distilling, like to truly get essential oils.
00:46:21
Speaker
you have to have enough from a flower farm, right? You have to have hundreds of something to get the essential oil, which is why I kind of focus on the hydrosol, because you can have just a bundle of something and get a flower water. So it's just kind of taking the ideas of the big farms and how to translate it into how you can do it with a harvest coming out of a garden.
00:46:44
Speaker
I love that. And I think so many of our listeners have the smaller scale cut flower gardens or cut flower farms.
Sustainability in Gardening and Farming
00:46:51
Speaker
So your tips and advice for doing it and instructions will be more practical for what most people are able to do. Definitely. And you mentioned before about restarting your farm.
00:47:04
Speaker
And right now in the farming world, talking about regenerative farming is something that's on top of everyone's mind. What I think is really beautiful about regenerative farming is that the way that I see it, the way I interpret it,
00:47:20
Speaker
is in many ways it's introducing the garden back into farming. So you're bringing back in perennials, you're bringing back shade plants, you're really getting away from the mono crop point of view and you're building a whole ecosystem. And I think that's really beautiful. A lot of what I've done in my work is taking the best of farming and introducing it into gardening. So how can we get productivity out of gardens
00:47:50
Speaker
in a way that the farmers do. So I think it's really exciting right now that farmers are really embracing how can we add the more perennial aspects of gardening into our farms. So it's just kind of this beautiful marriage I think that's happening between the two worlds.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for touching on that. The regenerative flower farming is definitely in the spotlight right now. And I think a lot of people are wanting to transition to that because it is a more sustainable method and it's more practical in the small scale spaces. I think for many of us, I mean, I would love to say that we've bought a new farm, but farmland is expensive and
00:48:31
Speaker
It's not readily available, especially for a flower farm where I am. We have lots of orchards, but not a lot of vacant farmland. So as I'm hunting, I'm thinking, well, how can I small scale, grow flowers, and do it in a way that is beneficial to the environment around me and creating an ecosystem that brings in the wildlife and is not disruptive of nature?
00:49:02
Speaker
Well, including trees and shrubs. I think what's really great is when we get away from this idea of just this mono crop, right? So all I'm going to do is grow this one thing and harvest it to the ground when we start to end. And by the way,
00:49:20
Speaker
I think when florists go to the flower mart and they buy those big bundles of one flower, a lot of times they only need two or three for their bouquets. And then the rest are thrown away. There's so much waste in the floral industry. So much waste. So much waste. And so I really think for the flower farmers and really for the florists who are really getting back into growing their own flowers, they say you only need one or two stems of something.
00:49:50
Speaker
And especially if the flower farmers are making their own bouquets, what's really exciting is that those trees and those shrubs that are providing that perennial aspect and also habitat for birds and pollinators also can be aspects of your bouquet. So we were talking about lilacs earlier. I think lilac, the foliage and the branches of lilac is beautiful as a filler when it doesn't have flowers on it. And all you need is one piece.
00:50:15
Speaker
So again, if you're doing this more of a small scale, you can go out onto your land. Let's say you do have a flower farm and you're planting some hedgerows. Hedgerows are fantastic for bringing in the birds and the bees and creating windbreaks.
00:50:33
Speaker
And so many things, but you can plant things in your hedgerow that you can you can harvest as branches that you can harvest as your foliage. So just thinking about the fact that just because the plant is providing shade, it doesn't mean that you can't always harvest from it.
00:50:49
Speaker
does mean that you cannot harvest it to the ground. You can't treat perennial plants that way. But if you are getting away from this idea of bundles of 25 to sell, but instead you're doing these more bespoke kind of bouquets and arrangements, you can have pieces of all of these things in your bouquets. And they also provide you with those things year round, which is pretty great.
00:51:13
Speaker
That's a great suggestion. For people listening, what are some of those hedgerow plants that you would suggest that can serve as a habitat for the wildlife, but also provide filler and greenery for their bouquets?
Gardening for Wildlife and Beauty
00:51:30
Speaker
Well, this time of year, I think, and it's not fragrant, so I apologize, but this time of year, I just think of flowering quints, right? It's so great. And flowering quints needs actually some space. They tend to kind of thicket if they aren't cut all the time. And thicketing is fine for a hedgerow, to be honest, but you have to cut them really hard, which is great for what you want from them.
00:51:57
Speaker
Also, I would say the berries, so thornless blackberries. Thornless blackberries are beautiful in bouquets. They're great also for the birds, but make sure you're planting thornless so that you're being easy on yourself because why plant thorn blackberries if you can have thornless? If you're using them for bouquets, that means you don't have to strip the thorns for your bouquets.
00:52:21
Speaker
But you can use the flowers when they're unripe are so beautiful in bouquets. I really love that look, but also the flowers. Obviously you can also harvest the fruit for yourself, make some ice cream, make all kinds of stuff. And then I do think that's the place like hedgerows.
00:52:38
Speaker
are the place to let some of the really, well, climbing roses, like the wild roses, but I would also say like the rugosa rose. The rugosa rose is a really hardy, hardy rose. It gets drought tolerant. It can handle like sea water. It can handle, you know, they can handle anything.
00:53:00
Speaker
And it's actually the best rose for rose hips for tea. Also, the rose hips are so beautiful in the fall and winter bouquets. But they also spread really quickly. So again, if you have the space for a hedge row, I would probably do some rugosa roses. And then I probably would do some of the crazier vines that just need space, like honeysuckle. I love honeysuckle.
00:53:28
Speaker
I struggle with where to put honeysuckle in gardens. It has to be like a back fence in a garden where it can just take over and hopefully not knock the fence over because it's such a thug. Like honeysuckle is a thug. And so you really need to give it a space where it can be wild. And a hedgerow is a place where you could probably just let it go wild as well. Thank you for those tips.
00:53:55
Speaker
elderflower elderberry sorry you everybody should grow elderberry mine is huge i actually need to prune mine back this year what type are you growing oh i don't know what color is foliage is it green blue or it's black
00:54:12
Speaker
Okay. You're doing the black lace. I love black lace. Thank you. It is black lace. I have all of my, when I buy plants from the nursery, I save the tags and I have them in a bucket that I'm embarrassed to say. I'm not even sure where the bucket is. I know I still have it cause I don't get rid of my tags, but there's also so many, um, I used to be really like, Oh, there's no way those work, but actually lately I just tried one and it totally does. There's so many apps now that take a photo of your plant and can help you ID them, which is really helpful.
00:54:42
Speaker
But I think if you have a farm or a larger garden, elderberry is such a great plant to include. Again, one of those toughest nails, likes to be ignored, totally supports the birds and the pollinators, but the foliage of the elderberry in a bouquet is so beautiful as filler. And then of course the berries are medicinal and wonderful. And then the flowers, like you can make cocktails and all kinds of stuff.
00:55:10
Speaker
I have not ventured into that. I'm hoping that maybe my downsizing this year might allow me a little bit of time to experiment with some of the edible flowers. I will send you a copy of Harvest because a lot of what my second book is about is how to do those projects with the edible plants, like the perennial edible plants. I think I did a honey infusion with elderflower.
00:55:33
Speaker
But the elderflower is also the basis of incredible cocktails if you do drink cocktails. But also, it's incredibly medicinal. Elderberry is one of the really great medicinal plants. Also toxic, by the way. It's incredibly medicinal, but toxic if you eat the wrong parts. So again, know your plants, know what you're doing. Do not eat the foliage of elderberry or the bark because it will give you a tummy ache.
00:56:00
Speaker
That is good to know. I think that's something we also have to be mindful about is knowing what's safe to plant, especially if you have pets or children. For example, I was soaking my sweet pea seeds this morning and one fell on the floor and I was quickly scrambling to find the seed before one of the dogs had a chance to get it. So it's good to know what is safe and not safe. Did your book cover that also?
00:56:24
Speaker
It does. I talk about food safety in all of my books. Some of it talks about soil health, especially when it comes to growing food-based plants. You really want to test your soil, not only for nutrition, because if you're knowing what to put into your soil, but also to see if you have exposure to heavy metals, specifically lead.
00:56:44
Speaker
Most gardens that surround an old house typically have lead in the first two feet around the house because of lead paint. Old houses used to have lead paint. So that's just where you don't want to grow something that you're going to ingest either on your skin or by eating it. But great for an ornamental plant. You can still grow things there.
00:57:08
Speaker
And then also exposures via pets, of course. And then you definitely don't want to grow food or grow flowers where your pets are using the bathroom to be really free. There's pathways and all of that. Speaking of pets, I think my dog just barked. And then also in terms of food safety, I really love
00:57:30
Speaker
that every plant in the garden can be useful and that includes ground covers and low growing plants.
Safety and Passion in Gardening
00:57:38
Speaker
But if you're planting plants like in between pavers, which is a beautiful look, I put creeping time in between pavers all the time. Sorry, time and time.
00:57:49
Speaker
But I do not harvest the plant that is where my foot steps on it for the kitchen. I allow it just to flower for the pollinators and do its own thing. And I harvest the plants for the kitchen that are on the side planting beds because the reality is is also the bottom of our shoes tend to have a lot of really gross things that we don't want to eat.
00:58:14
Speaker
That is a good point. I interplant Corsican mint throughout all my stepping stones. Of Corsican mint. Do you ever do Blue Star creeper? I don't know that one. So look it up. Corsican mint, when it's happy, just takes over.
00:58:34
Speaker
those garden thugs but the Blue Star Creeper it has little white blue flowers that look like stars and it's also a shade ground cover just like the Corsican Mint so you can combine them so you can get like a more floral aspect but you then get the fragrance of the Corsican Mint.
00:58:53
Speaker
I'm writing that down, I'm going to have to add, and mine hasn't fully filled in yet, but it's one of those memories for me. I remember my mom had it as a ground cover when I was a little kid, and I remember rubbing my hand, and then I could be out in the garden smelling it, and I showed my daughter, and so now we'll go rub our hands when our hands are all dirty with dirt and smelling and have a good scent on our hands.
00:59:12
Speaker
That's awesome. Yes. Wow. We have covered so much and I feel like we have only scratched the surface today. You are such a wealth of knowledge that I know both our flower farm listeners as well as our cut flower garden listeners will be just gleaming so much from today. I know I've taken so many notes chatting with you and I've had a chance to peek at your new book, The Fragrant Garden.
00:59:40
Speaker
or excuse me, the fragrant flower garden. And I'm so anxious to now check out your other two books as well. Before we part today, do you have any last advice that you would like to share with our listeners today?
00:59:57
Speaker
That's a big question. But yeah, I think it's very much in line with your philosophy as well, Jennifer. I think bringing common sense to your gardening and to your farming practices in terms of just something feels right going forward with it, but definitely doing things that make sense like wearing closed-toe shoes, like we have discussed our love of closed-toe shoes in the garden.
01:00:24
Speaker
But really embracing what you love. I think we both have been really lucky to take things that we're passionate about and turning them into careers. And I think that really following your heart, it's really hard work. I mean, there are probably both of us.
01:00:41
Speaker
like don't sleep much and are up at the crack of dawn but there's something about working with plants and being outside and really following your passion that's very fulfilling in life. And so I'd really recommend that folks really embrace their love of plants and flowers and just see where it takes them.
01:01:00
Speaker
That is great advice. Thank you for that. I know people are going to want to look you up and learn more about you and your landscape design business and your books. Can you please tell us how can our listeners find you?
01:01:15
Speaker
Sure. So my company is Homestead Design Collective. We're on Instagram, Pinterest. And if there's anything else I should be on, please tell me. But Instagram by far is probably the best place to find us in terms of seeing behind the scenes of what we do. And of course, we have an old fashioned website. So it's just www.homesteaddesigncollective.com. Perfect. And your books, where are your books available?
01:01:45
Speaker
They're available everywhere. Definitely, they're available at all the big box stores, all the big guys, but I also encourage you to shop at your local bookstore. There's also an online, I think it's called Indie Shop, where you can buy my books and then they actually fulfill the orders through your local bookstore.
01:02:06
Speaker
I highly recommend that folks do that. But of course, Amazon has them. And definitely in the spring, they usually have a good discount on them because they're promoting garden books. So you can find them anywhere. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. I am just out of curiosity. Do you have a book tour or anything coming up?
01:02:28
Speaker
So I am gonna be speaking at a couple of places. So I'll be in Seattle, but I think that's gonna happen before this comes out for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, but definitely keep your eyes out for next
Upcoming Events and Classes
01:02:43
Speaker
year. The Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle is really our greatest garden show on the West Coast and has so much great information.
01:02:51
Speaker
I'm going to be speaking in Pennsylvania in May at a big garden symposium. And then I'll be doing events throughout the Bay Area this spring. And so if you're in the Bay Area, definitely keep an eye out on the Instagram. I'm going to be partnering with Morning Sun Herb Farm and Soul Food Farm to do some garden and also some flower ranging classes.
01:03:13
Speaker
Oh, I love it. Well, I have family in the Bay Area. Maybe I'll have to time one of my trips with one of your classes. Thank you. That would be awesome. I would love to. And I mean, there's so many incredible flower farmers in the Bay Area. I mentioned Alexis from Soul Food Farm. We're doing an event there.
01:03:31
Speaker
people are doing some really cool work down here, so it'd be fun for you to meet some folks. I would love that. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing such insightful advice with all of us. I would love to continue this conversation another time with you and invite you back on in the future to share even more gardening wisdom with us if you would be so willing.
01:03:56
Speaker
Oh, I would love it anytime. I love talking gardening with you. It's the best. Well, thank you so much and happy gardening and we'll talk again soon. Thank you Flower Friends for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer,
01:04:22
Speaker
You're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends.
01:04:45
Speaker
Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard. This is Jennifer Galitzia of the Backyard Bouquet, signing off to head back outside to tend to my garden.