Transcript
Jennifer Gulizia: Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. My guest is Ellen Frost, the amazing woman behind local color flowers in Baltimore, Maryland. Ellen is one of the pioneers of the local flower movement in this country. Every single stem that comes through her studio is grown within 100 Baltimore, And she's been doing it that way since 2008, back when almost no one else was.
Jennifer Gulizia: And what I love about Ellen's story is that she didn't just grow up dreaming of flowers. She actually studied political science. She did nonprofit work. And somewhere along the way, she read a book, made a few bouquets for a friend's wedding, and ended up helping spark a whole flower farming economy in her region. She started with three farmers, and today she works with around 40 people. and she's helped inspire more than a hundred flower farmers across her state. Ellen, welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. We're so excited to have you join us today.
Ellen Frost: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am definitely a fan.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you. Well, we're a fan of your work as well. So for those listening who maybe don't know you, can you tell our listeners in your own words who you are? um Give us the whole picture, how you got started, um why local color flowers?
Ellen Frost: Sure. I'm Ellen Frost. I am right the owner of local color flowers. That's usually how I introduce myself. That is what I have been doing for the past almost 20 years.
Ellen Frost: um I grew up in Buffalo, New York, not um having anything to do with flowers. It was, you know, like working class town. We didn't garden or it just had no connection to anything like flowers. um I moved to San Francisco after college and again, like lived in an apartment in a city, didn't really, again, have any connection to the outdoors. make i mean, literally nature, like had no um connection and then moved to Baltimore in 1999 and had my husband and I bought a little like row house in Baltimore and we were gifted a bag of tulip bulbs as um a wedding gift.
Ellen Frost: And, you know, I read the directions on the bag and I put them in the ground and they came up in the spring. And i was like, okay, I'm an expert gardener now. I should just, you know, quit my job and be a gardener.
Ellen Frost: ah I was really, I got really into gardening and took the master gardening program here in Baltimore through the University of Maryland Extension.
Ellen Frost: And that was really like the first time I met people who grew things like as their job. I just like had no, mean, I understood there were farmers, but I just had never met anybody that grew things as a job.
Ellen Frost: um And so I started working on a farm part-time. I had a full-time job in affordable housing, construction and development. So my background is in nonprofit work, mostly community housing and community development.
Ellen Frost: And I loved working on the farm. because I loved the flowers and I loved learning about like where things came from, but I did not love like being a farmer. I loved the farm. I loved, you know, the outside, but I knew pretty quickly that farming was not a good fit for me. Like I didn't really like to be hot or cold or dirty or wet, you know, all the things that go along with farming.
Jennifer Gulizia: Sure.
Ellen Frost: ah So I knew that wasn't a good fit, but I really loved the flowers and I loved like the concept of connecting people in my city, Baltimore, which is a very working class city. And um a lot of people don't really have access to farms or um rural life, or even like have like a good sense of, you know, where things come from.
Ellen Frost: um And so I liked the idea of like being sort of a bridge between farmers and people in the city. and didn't really know what that looked like. um But I worked at a farmer's market and the guy next to me,
Ellen Frost: was a flower farmer. And he, I spent just most of my time, John McEwen, he's still, I still buy flowers from him. I see him every week. um I just spent a lot of time talking to him and learning about flowers and got more into it.
Ellen Frost: And right then, i guess I was just like dabbling in design. Like, and when I say design, like that is a, that's an exaggerated term for what I was doing. You know, I was taking,
Ellen Frost: a few stems and putting them in a mason jar and calling it a design. um But I loved it. I loved it. I loved the flowers. I loved like learning. and yeah, then I don't know. I just, I read Flower Confidential and that sort of like changed my brain. And I thought, well, maybe i could do something with this. Like maybe I could start something.
Ellen Frost: And I was too new to know that, you know, it was crazy. So I just ran with it. but
Jennifer Gulizia: Amazing. And this all started because you were given a bag of tulips for your wedding.
Ellen Frost: Yes. I mean, it's crazy. Yes, that is, that started it all. I had never planted anything. i had never had a garden, never even thought about planting anything.
Ellen Frost: um But I just really like something about seeing them come up in the spring was just like magical, right? I mean, everybody feels that in the spring.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. After such a dark period of time, that that rebirth,
Ellen Frost: here
Jennifer Gulizia: um And then you made a connection in the floral industry. The gentleman you met was, you so I'm sorry, tell me his name again.
Ellen Frost: John McEwen.
Jennifer Gulizia: John McEwen.
Ellen Frost: Yep.
Jennifer Gulizia: And you said,
Ellen Frost: He's the owner of Locust Point Flowers. He's, um we we jokingly call Old Man McEwen. um He's a flower farmer, ah you know, single farmer, you know, an old guy, older now. um, farms by himself has his grandson help him now.
Ellen Frost: Uh, but yeah, he just, I just had never, it was so new to me and it was so interesting. It was like a foreign language. It was like, it was like being immersed in like a world that I like didn't know existed.
Ellen Frost: And I was like, so enthralled. I wanted to learn everything. I mean, that is still the way I am today. Like, That's why like we always use the the term flower nerd. Like it's really like, I wanna know all the things about flowers.
Ellen Frost: um And John was really my might my starting point um to that to that world.
Jennifer Gulizia: But you never grew them after that. You just started creating these relationships.
Ellen Frost: No, i stopped I stopped working on the farm um so that I could sort of lean into the design piece um and really
Ellen Frost: and really work on the like community building, connection building between the farms and people I know. Because I was like what in my like late twenty s maybe early 30s, and like people were getting married, people like me. like They lived in the city. They loved like buying local. They wanted a smaller footprint for their wedding.
Ellen Frost: But there at that time, I mean, think this is like 20 years ago. There's not even like social media. There's like, we're old, I'm old.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right.
Ellen Frost: um There was just no way for like a farmer like John to connect with like a person getting married. There was no mechanism for it. And i just thought that if i could offer floral design services to people like me from people like John, that that would be sort of a winning combination.
Jennifer Gulizia: I've never really given thought to the fact that back then i was in college about that time that, I mean, Facebook, it was the Facebook and MySpace were the first things that came out, but at first they were just for college kids.
Jennifer Gulizia: So prior to that, you had wedding magazines that you could find floors, but they were there.
Ellen Frost: Lots of wedding magazines. Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: I was a wedding photographer for 12 years. I could never afford to advertise in them. It was cost prohibitive.
Ellen Frost: No,
Jennifer Gulizia: So a flower farmer would have an even harder time.
Ellen Frost: no
Ellen Frost: And they wouldn't even like at that time, it was so different. from now because now farmers, um you know, there's ah like a lot of farmers we work with focus on selling to florists.
Ellen Frost: So their whole business is built around like growing varieties that florists want or um John, you know, at that time and the two other growers, Mel and Bill, who I bought from, these were just like field growers who were selling at a farmer's market.
Jennifer Gulizia: Aha.
Ellen Frost: So they weren't even thinking like somebody would want this for their wedding or, It was just, it's so weird to talk about it now because it has become so much more common.
Ellen Frost: And back then, like I have a very distinct memory of going, I had a full-time job and I went to like a wedding networking thing. And I was like, if I'm going to try to do this, i got to I got to just get out of my comfort zone and go, you know, go do this.
Ellen Frost: and And went and like did one loop and I'm like, okay, that's enough. I'm too nervous and had imposter syndrome and um I remember coming outside and there was some florists like standing outside and they were like, oh, you know, who are you? What are you doing?
Ellen Frost: And I told them, you know, i'm going to start this business and it's going to all local flowers. And it was like, they literally could not understand what I was saying. They're like, how, why, who would want that? Like, it was just so not, it was just unheard of, which is so weird.
Ellen Frost: to think about now because the industry has changed so dramatically. um but at that time, yeah, this was like, you know, 2006, 2007, just nobody was doing that.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right. I mean, that's that's right when I was graduating college is 2006. And I mean, I had never heard of a flower farmer at that time.
Ellen Frost: Right. Yeah. And they existed.
Jennifer Gulizia: i mean.
Ellen Frost: it just like the work that they were doing was really, you know, farm stand market, farmer's market, um you know, things like that. It was not, they were not in sort of the mix of like event florals or wedding florals or anything like that.
Jennifer Gulizia: Right. Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: So was it because of the book Flower Confidential that you decided to take this route or what was it that planted the seed that you said, I want to connect flower farmers to the wedding industry?
Ellen Frost: I think a lot of it came back to like my experience. And I even still have this now with a lot of the work that I'm doing today, like around education. Like I felt so like privileged to have found this thing.
Ellen Frost: And I knew like from working with John that the flowers were so beautiful and I loved him like as a person, as his you know family business.
Ellen Frost: And it didn't make any sense to me that, like when I read Flower Confidential, it did not make sense to me that he could not sell out at a farmer's market, but we were then importing like 80% of the flowers that come into the country.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: Like that made no sense. Like i couldn't I couldn't make it work in my head because I was like, I think this is just, an issue with connection. Like, I don't know that people know how to get John's flowers.
Ellen Frost: And I don't think he has the audience to sell on a bigger level. um And so for me, it was just like, and I also come from like a community development background. i also, after college did a volunteer program that was like based around social justice. So I have sort of this like social justice-y community development background for like 20 years of my work.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: um So when I read Flower Confidential and i sort of understood, that was the first time I understood like the global industry and how flowers move around the world.
Ellen Frost: And I was like, I like doing flowers, doing them. I like designing, but this is not, I do not want to be part of this piece. Like this does not speak to me. it doesn't,
Ellen Frost: reflect anything that I care about. um and it wasn't until really the end of the book. So I think the book came out in 2007. It was at the end of the book, um Amy Stewart writes about Bonnie Dune Garden Company. And they they were a small garden company that did floral design and they grew their own flowers and they bought from their neighbors. And they had a little kiosk in Santa Cruz.
Ellen Frost: um And I was like, yes. yes that That makes sense to me. like I see that. I see a person in a small little kiosk making their designs, growing their flowers, buying from their friends, and connecting the people in their community with what is like seasonally available and what is like grown in Santa Cruz.
Jennifer Gulizia: Uh-huh.
Ellen Frost: And that made total sense to me. So i was like, that was the first time I could see a vision for myself. I was like, okay, I i could sort of see where I could fit into this industry in this world, I could be somebody like that.
Ellen Frost: um And that really, i think, set me on the course to like starting the business and having the model of sourcing locally.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it. So you really were one of the early pioneers of this. I'm curious, you said even back then 80% flowers were imported.
Ellen Frost: hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: So we really haven't moved the needle much in 20 years.
Ellen Frost: It's weird because and know everybody says, so you know, that the way i may always think about like we as a country used locally sourced flowers until like the fifties or the sixties.
Ellen Frost: um So we have like this rich history of 200 years of existence using local flowers. And i think sometimes like one of like, I think a like passion project I have is to try to do some education around like the whole history of local sourcing.
Ellen Frost: um it wasn't until like the 50s when we started to have cross-country airplanes or um international flights and refrigeration that made sense for like long haul airplanes.
Ellen Frost: ah And it wasn't then even until like the 70s or eighty s when the United States really started importing things from South America in a huge way. And that was when a lot We lost a lot of our American farmers because of that.
Ellen Frost: And it was like maybe, I think the ASCFG, that's the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers. I think they started 1990, somewhere around there.
Ellen Frost: So was it was like then that some group started to say like, oh, we need to do something about this. We need to support farmers that are going to grow specialty crops that are are technically not gonna be the same crops that we're importing so that they could specialize and differentiate themselves. and
Ellen Frost: there was just so much going against them. The United States government was you know giving tariff-free imports to Ecuador and Colombia.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Ellen Frost: So we were importing a lot of stuff like really cheaply. It's hard for American farmers to be in competition with that. And that was why i think the industry was so slow sort of getting back on its feet and trying to specialize in products that weren't not being imported.
Ellen Frost: um but today we still use that 80% number and it still, I think is, is legitimate. um
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: It feels different to me because we're in, i mean, I will often say like, I'm in this like, local flower bubble. So seems like it's a really like rich industry and like, you know, like there's a lot, not rich, like money-wise rich, but like there's a lot of growers and we're like learning all this stuff and there's new variety, you know, there's a lot going on, but in the bigger world of flowers, we are still importing all of, all of those flowers.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. Well, I hung up my wedding photography hat in 2023, right before started the podcast.
Ellen Frost: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I mean, I know things can change in the last few years, but as a wedding photographer, I had my eyes all the wedding bouquets and I was growing flowers at the same time because this my eighth year growing flowers.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And when my business was finally big enough that I could go full-time with the flowers, that's when I hung up the hat. But I would pay attention. And I still notice that roses, imported roses, are the number one flower and orchids, really big and popular.
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah.
Ellen Frost: Still is, still is
Jennifer Gulizia: And until we can shift the consumer's mindset, I don't think that number is going to change much, at least for the wedding industry.
Ellen Frost: hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And so much. Yes, absolutely. And so much, the wedding industry is so unique in that um there's so much expectation about what your flowers should be or what they should look like, as opposed to somebody who's having like an anniversary party or a corporate event or like those people, I think oftentimes are just like, as long as it's beautiful,
Ellen Frost: Awesome. It's local. Fantastic.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: But we have given so much. um Weddings have taken on such a heavy load of like, it's got to be this exact flower. It's got to be like, it's got to look like this Pinterest board. It's got to look like, you know, this AI picture. Like it's got to look like all these things and people start to freak out. Like they can't control everything with local flowers. And so A lot of it for us over the last 20 years has really been education. I mean, I never in a million years thought when I got started that like, as a florist, the majority of my work would be education.
Ellen Frost: And that I would continue to do that for 20 years. Like it wasn't like, oh, I told everybody about local the first year and now they get It's like, no, it's like still the majority. I mean, even now I'm like transitioning into almost all education.
Ellen Frost: um It just is still such a huge part of the work is telling the story and doing the education and building trust. And I think, you know, that's the only way I think wedding stuff is going to change.
Jennifer Gulizia: So you've been teaching this whole time since you started.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. I mean, teaching in lots of different ways, right? Like teaching ah at wedding consultations, like what does it mean to, get local flowers for your wedding.
Ellen Frost: You know, what is in season?
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: How does seasonality work? Why don't you get to know exactly what you're getting? Like just the, that piece of it was like, you know, every consultation I did was education. And um then educating new farmers, like we built relationships with and supported and mentored a lot of new farmers and young farmers.
Ellen Frost: And a lot of those people had like backgrounds in, um, food farming. And a lot of people came to it through social justice or food justice issues. And so teaching about like flowers is like a different thing. And then when we had this, when we got the shop, like doing classes in person, just for consumers, like what does it mean to have local? How do you work with local?
Ellen Frost: Um, yeah, it's been pretty consistent since the beginning.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do you, let's just talk about for ah farmer florist or florist that's listening, um I know I get these inquiries all the time.
Jennifer Gulizia: I had an inquiry the other day that the bride was getting married in August and she wanted local flowers, but she sent me her pictures and they were Ecuadorian roses, giant red roses, and she wanted carnations, which is actually a weird inquiry compared to what I normally get.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like I rarely get roses and carnations, but I wrote back and I said, well, actually I don't grow either of those on
Ellen Frost: Sure.
Ellen Frost: Right.
Ellen Frost: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: She said, but that's what I want. And I said, well, then i need then I can recommend you to these local florists who will have to source them, but that's not what's in season right now.
Ellen Frost: Right.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So how do you handle those and how do you educate them to convert them to wanting local flowers?
Ellen Frost: Honestly, this is going to sound for a consumer. I'm like many, many years past trying to like convince people of things, especially for their wedding. If you're like, you know, doing corporate stuff or other things, that's a different story.
Ellen Frost: But we have just over the years learned that when we're very passionate and like trying to convince a bride, a mother of a bride, mother of a groom, like trust us, like we will still make something beautiful for you, even though it isn't this exact thing.
Ellen Frost: um Those don't always go great. I mean, it's like, of course, we know that we made a beautiful thing.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: We did what the cot, you know, all the things, but the stress of like, not knowing if they are going to like it, if they trust you, like it was, it was too much for us. And we really did just what you said. We would educate people. And we had after a few years, we had enough examples of our work that those could speak for us.
Ellen Frost: And that we could say like, We always say like, we can't we can't guarantee any certain type of flowers, but we will always work within like a general color palette. and if, you know, if people weren't comfortable with that, that was that was fine. We would just refer them to somebody else. It was not worth it to us to try to like convince them. Yeah.
Ellen Frost: who I will try to convince, which is a lot of what I do now is like try to convince florists to work with local growers. That is like a much easier, well, it's not easier.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: It's easier for me. It might not be easier for them to hear, but that's a much easier sell because, you know, sourcing locally, while it might be difficult in some situations, you might not be able to do it all the time.
Ellen Frost: um There's just so many benefits that that is like, for me, an easier place to, put my energy.
Jennifer Gulizia: I want to ask you about that. But before I do, i want to and circle back to the bride because it made me think about the saying that you can't be for everyone.
Ellen Frost: Absolutely.
Jennifer Gulizia: And at this point in time, I've just gotten to the point where I'll write back to those inquiries and I'll say, we don't offer that. That's not what's in season. we put Our specialty is dahlias at the flowering farmhouse. And i I'll say, we have thousands of dahlias in bloom. If that is of interest to you, I'd be happy to set up a meeting with you. If not,
Ellen Frost: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: here are the recommendations and let them go.
Ellen Frost: And that's up project that's the perfect answer because you're saying, here's what I'm great at. Here's what is beautiful that I can provide. And if you don't like it, that is totally cool. Like here's a list of referrals.
Ellen Frost: um People that will, you know, there's somebody for everybody. And i think the thing about new florists when you're starting out and even not just new, but like people,
Ellen Frost: are so afraid to turn down work. And it's so scary to, um, you know, reject money, honestly, like reject a job.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: And also when you're starting, you're like, maybe I got to just take these things to like build up my portfolio or build up like the reps. Like I've just got to do these jobs, even though they don't fit in what I'm doing.
Ellen Frost: And everybody does that. I, I felt like that. um I just think that what we learned was that that that wasn't worth it.
Ellen Frost: And the better we got at saying no, ah the more room we left open for people who wanted to say yes to us.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes, I love that. There's a saying that when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: So yeah, I think that's so good.
Ellen Frost: hundred percent. Yeah. As you know, you spend a bunch of time doing jobs that don't fit and that you're stressed out about and that you're like, having to spend so much mental energy on that you're sort of missing out on like those people that really do want local stuff.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's great advice. Okay, let's talk about that farmer-florist relationship because I think that that can be a hard one to crack into because especially, I mean, I started eight years ago and I think there was there was a handful of flower farmers in my region.
Ellen Frost: Wow.
Jennifer Gulizia: There's over 30 now that are in our, we have like a little Facebook group.
Ellen Frost: wow
Jennifer Gulizia: And I mean, we cover probably 40 miles in a region.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: We're in the Columbia River Gorge.
Ellen Frost: Yep.
Jennifer Gulizia: So it's grown and I still feel like there's room for growth. But when I first started, almost everything was brought in, and whether that was from the wholesale market,
Jennifer Gulizia: very few things were sold from a local farmer. Part of it was there there was only a handful of people doing it.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. There weren't a lot.
Jennifer Gulizia: We have one, yeah, we had one lady that's been doing it for almost 30 years and maybe it's been 30 years in our area now, but there just weren't a lot. And I didn't even know that she was selling local flowers.
Ellen Frost: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: Wendy, I didn't know that Wendy was selling them back then. And now she's a great ally for me, but it was harder to build those relationships. So if someone's in a community where the florist is so set or not more more set like in their ways that they, I mean, it becomes routine.
Ellen Frost: Sure.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's comfortable to repeat a pattern.
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: How does a farmer break that mold and get them to want to use local flowers?
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Ellen Frost: There's so many things to say. um One i think is that, so I teach a short course through the gardeners workshop um with Lisa Mason Ziegler that's called preparing to sell the florists.
Ellen Frost: And it's a short little course and basically it's like five steps. And the first thing I always say that I think farmers don't always think about when they're thinking about selling to florists is that florists like farmers are not, we're not like a monolith, right? Like every florist is different. We have different customers. We have different aesthetics.
Ellen Frost: We have different business models. And so a lot of times I think farmers are just like, I'm going to sell to any florist who's nearby me. And
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: that's not always like simpatico, right? Like, so the first step I say is like, you have to do the research as a farmer researching a florist, learn everything you can about that florist, because you might, one, you don't want to waste your time trying to approach a florist who is not a good fit for you.
Ellen Frost: If a florist is a retail brick and mortar florist and they do wire service orders, they are being required basically to do a recipe from the wire service that is not at all flowers that you are going to grow.
Ellen Frost: And so in no world do they need scabiosa and in no world are you growing, i don't know. I mean, maybe you're growing liatris, but like, you know, there's not like a lot of um overlap of those two things.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Ellen Frost: And so you can learn that by, you know, looking at their website, looking at their socials, going into the shop, like getting as much information as you can. um Also, like if you are growing farmer's market type flowers and you love that and you want to keep doing that and you do a market, um you know, partnering with a florist who is like a wedding florist whose aesthetic is like totally white and pink and they're always using imported roses and imported peonies, like maybe you're not a good fit for them. Like, I'm not saying it can't happen.
Ellen Frost: But I think that research part is like, really critical so that you're not I feel like I work with so many farmers who are like, Oh, I tried to go to a florist, I got rejected.
Ellen Frost: And then I stopped, you know, I stopped trying. And part of that is just like not finding it's like matchmaking. It's like finding the florist that's the right fit for you.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: Um, so trying to research and find a florist that fits the things you're growing your schedule. Like some people are like, oh I don't want to I can't deliver on a Monday because I did markets all weekend and I can't deliver to a retail florist on a Monday, but a retail florist is like, well, I don't need anything on Thursday. Cause we close on Friday at the end of the day. So even just that, like understanding that schedules are different.
Ellen Frost: Um, I think that research is so critical. um
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank
Ellen Frost: And then i think like really presenting yourself in like a professional way, like if you find somebody who it does seem like they're a good fit, um you know, presenting yourself in a professional way and your product in a professional way, um being prepared to answer questions. Like when somebody says like, do you deliver?
Ellen Frost: how much is your delivery fee? How many miles do you deliver? a lot of farmers are like, Oh, i don't know. I never thought of it. Or should I deliver? I'm not sure. Like, you know, being, being prepared to like present yourself as a business.
Ellen Frost: Um, and then I think the other thing is like some florists are just always going to, they have strong relationships with their wholesalers and they're, they, they want to keep those relationships.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: You know, they need those relationships. Um, So finding a way to differentiate yourself from the wholesaler, whether it be through unique varieties, um you know flowers that have long base life, flowers that have fragrance, ah flowers that people haven't seen before, flowers that don't ship well, but look better locally.
Ellen Frost: Any ways that you can differentiate yourself from the wholesaler and then say to a florist, I understand you're going to continue to buy from the wholesaler. I know you're going to get most of your stuff from them, but...
Ellen Frost: I'm going to show you, here's a sample, that my Lysianthus is like blows out of the water wholesale Lysianthus. So if you can just get your foot in the door for like one crop, um then I think that opens the door to like a longer relationship or a richer relationship.
Jennifer Gulizia: 100% agree.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Now, you were saying that you have helped facilitate a lot of those relationships over the years.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Have you been able to convert any of those imported florists?
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do you do that?
Ellen Frost: Totally.
Jennifer Gulizia: How do you
Ellen Frost: Partly, i think it's, it's, um, it's all of those things, right? It's all of the, it's all those things that I said, and also helping the farmer, um, helping the farmer. It's more on the farmer side. It's like,
Ellen Frost: helping the farmer present themselves and their product in a way that a florist can handle. And so part of that has been just mentoring farmers in ways that, like for many years, when a lot of our farmers were just coming up, we would say, okay, we'll will buy everything that you have for the first year, just so that you can you can like focus on learning to grow.
Ellen Frost: And then we will also coach you on you know, like your presentation to us. So like, are you bunching things right? Are you using the right kind of buckets? Are you, so that next year when you go out to like a florist, you're going to be ready.
Ellen Frost: Like you're not going in like a kitty litter bucket that's filthy.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Ellen Frost: You're bringing professional buckets. You've, you know, you you know what you're doing. So us sort of saying, okay, bring it to us. Let's talk about it. Let's teach it. Let's figure it out. um So the education has been a little bit more on the farmer side.
Ellen Frost: But I also think a lot of the florist side has been showing through social media, through news articles, through the website, through people we know, here's what you can do with local flowers.
Ellen Frost: You can create giant installations. You can create magazine cover music flowers. you You can do everything you can do with imported flowers, in my opinion, better with local stuff.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: And so showing flowers that local isn't just binary giant zinnias or, you know, um, field grown celosia, both of which I love, but trying to show that you can elevate local flowers in a way.
Ellen Frost: um like I think, like i always think of like recently the last like five years, like Shane Connelly, he's a florist in the UK. He did, um the king's coronation, he did the queen's funeral, and he um sourced flowers for both of those events from farmers all over the UK.
Ellen Frost: And he showed the world that local flowers, sustainable practices, sustainable mechanics can be used at the highest level of design for the most important events.
Ellen Frost: And I think just the more we do that, the more like a traditional florist might be like, oh, if he can do it, maybe I can do a little bit. Maybe I can try a little bit.
Ellen Frost: um So we've just always tried to model what we do. um And we've also been really open about how we do it. We do so much free education for people that want to do what we do. So just trying to model it, I think, show that it's possible.
Jennifer Gulizia: Show, don't tell.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. Or in this case, maybe show and tell.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love. Show and tell, yes.
Ellen Frost: Do yeah all the things. Any way that it works. yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: But you are living proof that that works because is it true you have a hundred mile radius for your business?
Ellen Frost: Yeah. Yeah. And that has changed. um I think some people, when they hear that, think like, oh, God, I could never do that. Or 100 you know, for you, that would never work for me.
Ellen Frost: And it's not Like for us, it has always been a way for us to define what local means to us. And local can mean lots of things to different people. Like it might be for somebody like statewide, like I'm only going to buy from California growers.
Ellen Frost: Or it might be a region, like I'm only going to buy from New England growers or, you know, whatever. um For us, 100 miles made sense. It's where we landed after many years of kind of learning how to do it.
Ellen Frost: Um, because we just were starting to see that we had enough growers within that hundred miles that we could sort of pronounce that that was, and that's not to say like sometimes in the winter over the years we have bought from Battenfelds and they are in New York and they are 230 miles away and we have bought from them, you know, some winters, um,
Ellen Frost: they're really the only ones. Oh, we had one tulip grower New Jersey once that I think was 175 miles, but like, it's not for us. It's like, it's a way to, to, to define it for people so that they understand, but it's more a like, it doesn't matter to me if it's a hundred, 150, 175. that we are saying we're committed to buying locally and we are not We are not going to go outside of that.
Ellen Frost: We have given ourselves a constraint and we're going to figure out how to run a business within that constraint.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: And it has been an experiment the whole time. Like, can we do it? Like this winter we had like our main tulip grower growers stopped growing tulips and our one of our winter growers, like one of our main growers, um,
Ellen Frost: was like late in his planting and like, wasn't going to have anything till after Valentine's day. So like every year is different. It's like, okay, we don't really have a lot of stuff. Like we're stuck, you know, with sort of evergreens and pussy well. I was like, we can do that.
Jennifer Gulizia: So when you get stuck in those positions, have you ever been tempted to import flowers?
Ellen Frost: We haven't in, in, in fact we have, we more, more so, we just change our business. Like when we have winters where we don't have stuff, we just, honestly, we like close the shop for the winter.
Ellen Frost: Like we would rather do that because that is sort of like our ethos. That's like what we care about. um If we, you know, have weeks in June where we don't have any focal flowers, then we figure out how to market bouquets that are lots of line flowers and filler flowers.
Ellen Frost: Like we figure it out.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you.
Ellen Frost: And all the while we're educating people. Like we're saying, we're being really transparent. Like if we're not open for Valentine's day this year, here's why, because our growers have their own issues.
Ellen Frost: And so we're with them. um And we just haven't, I don't know. We just, and that's not to say like, we are not,
Ellen Frost: I would say like, we're not exactly the model for everybody because everybody can't do that. One people maybe can't afford to close for a month or people um don't have that many growers near them, you know, that they can't source year round.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: um So for us, it's like, you don't have to do exactly what we do. You just, we would love for people to take that, that love of local flowers. And at least, especially during like field season, like everybody lives somewhere where there's field season.
Ellen Frost: Buy during the field season. Buy when it's easy. Like even that makes a difference.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. I love that you do that. And that's amazing that you've been able to do that for 20 years. I mean, that's so impressive.
Ellen Frost: It's wild. Yeah, it's wild.
Jennifer Gulizia: And you started working with three flower farmers and you now work with around 40.
Ellen Frost: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: Is that correct?
Ellen Frost: Yeah. So we started with three, John, Bill Harlan, who still is one of our growers and Mel Heath. He passed away um maybe seven or eight years into our business. and So those were our first three and we source from probably 40 now, but there's dozens more that we could source from if we need to, like either they're just a little further away. don't feel like driving to them or like our,
Ellen Frost: Our cod flower industry, our cod flower community in the DMV, like Maryland, Virginia, and DC has just like flourished.
Ellen Frost: It is incredible to me how many growers we have. um We just had just two weeks ago or yeah, two weeks ago, our second annual um farmer florist summer camp. So we had 40,
Ellen Frost: forty farmers that sell to florists that were, you can't, you're only invited if you sell to florists and 40 florists who are already buying local. and we have just a summer camp day where we do a farm tour at one of the farms. We have games and sprinklers and popsicles and a potluck lunch.
Ellen Frost: And then in the afternoon, there's like 10 teams of farmers and florists together on a team. And they do a big installation. Every team does a floral design installation.
Ellen Frost: And it's like, honestly, it's like my dream come true. It's like to see to see those see everybody like working together and like feeling like, like one of the things I'm always saying is like farmers and florists need to be on the same team.
Ellen Frost: And that that event is just like an example of like how that has worked for us.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: You've said before that flowers are just the tool to connect people. What do you mean by that?
Ellen Frost: Yeah. I like live by that. um i love flowers, but my, my like deep down the thing that is like most important to me and always has been the,
Ellen Frost: like connecting people to each other. And I worked in community development for 20 years. You know, i feel like, um, in college and high school, I was always like that person who had, um like friends in every friend group, you know, like I was that kind of person.
Ellen Frost: And, um, i knew i knew sort of that affordable housing and community development while I worked in that for a long time um was not exactly where I was going to end up.
Ellen Frost: And i wanted to continue to build community. And when i sort of fell into flowers, it was like, oh, yeah, this is this is the tool because i could use that as a way to bring people together. we do that in our classes.
Ellen Frost: We do it in our online community. um It was a way for people to not feel so alone, um especially people who do flowers for business, because a lot of farmers, a lot florists, we all like work by ourselves.
Ellen Frost: And I just always want people to have, I have been so My life has been so full of relationships between farmers that I just always want to like build that for other people if I can.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. It's so important to have that community and that connection. I was reading that in 2016, you were doing around 120 weddings a year, and then you intentionally brought that number down to 30.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Ellen Frost: yeah
Jennifer Gulizia: Most people are chasing growth. We want more dahlias in our garden. We want more wedding clients. We want more of everything.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: What made you choose less?
Ellen Frost: um A couple of things. We actually, I think, peaked at like 150 weddings in one year for like a small team.
Jennifer Gulizia: wow
Ellen Frost: You know, we were not, we're not like a big production company. This is a small business in a little garage studio. um I think I went to business school. i I got my MBA before I started this business and um I didn't really have a lot of experience with business.
Ellen Frost: Like I said, I grew up in nonprofits when I was younger, like at home in Buffalo, there was a lot of like community service through like local politics.
Jennifer Gulizia: think
Ellen Frost: Like you were always like serving your community by being a representative or being a civil servant. um And I just didn't have any example of any small business. Like I i didn't know anybody who owned businesses.
Ellen Frost: um That just wasn't like how I grew up. And after I went to business school, it just seemed like everything they tell you about building a business is like growth, growth, growth, and more, more, and more. So that just meant like, say yes to every wedding.
Ellen Frost: um No matter what it takes, you know, hire more people, rent more vans, um work longer hours, ah do all the things.
Ellen Frost: and we did that for years. I mean, just, you know, for years. And finally, i mean, I think a couple of things happened. One, we were like miserable. Like we were so tired.
Ellen Frost: Our bodies were so wrecked. I mean, people don't like really often think about how physical floristry is, how taxing doing wedding work is deliveries and setups and breakdowns and late nights and early mornings.
Ellen Frost: So I think we were, we were, we were tired. um We also, I think felt like, because we had like all these teams, like doing different events every weekend, things started to feel like riskier, like so much more could go wrong.
Ellen Frost: um And also ultimately what made us change is that we were finding that While we were paying our staff, which we were really happy to do, we were happy to pay our team like a living wage and pay the farmers what they needed. we never, we never were worried about that. But what we did see is that doing more didn't mean that we were making more profit.
Ellen Frost: We ended up basically making the same profit that we could have made. if my, if Eric and I, my husband and I were just, doing the deliveries ourselves. And we did one a day, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Ellen Frost: So like right off the bat, like after like that, like that 150 wedding year, we were like, this isn't, this is craziness. This is insane.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: And there also just was like no room for anything else. Like weddings are so all consuming. um That's why now I'm always like, I'm like a really big proponent of right sizing your business. Like,
Ellen Frost: I don't, it doesn't always have to be growth, growth, growth, because that's not like the right fit for everybody. So we really like the next year, like started to decrease and we did it by putting parameters in place. Like we're not going to do more than one wedding a day.
Ellen Frost: We're not going to go geographically to like places that were too far away over the Bay Bridge into DC, like places where just like the stress and the time um was too much.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: So we just started like whittling down. Um, and finding new ways for our team to do other things, whether that was classes or working in the shop or like, we didn't really get rid of anybody, but we, we were just like trying to like write scale for us.
Ellen Frost: Um, and I think it's like such a hard lesson and it almost feels to me like people don't learn it until they learn it, you know, like until,
Ellen Frost: you get to the point where you're feeling like burnt out or your body is breaking down or, you know, you've missed one too many holiday with your family or you've, you know, i mean, that's like such a huge, I don't have kids, but I know like a lot of our team who has kids, like that's just such a huge piece of it is like working every holiday, working every weekend.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: yeah. so it wasn't a hard decision in terms of like what we wanted. Like it felt really right to like reduce. um But it did, it does seem like counterproductive when you say to somebody, I want to do less things.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, the wedding industry is hard. I was a wedding photographer, so I would be there. Well, when I first started, I said yes to everything and I wanted a deal.
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah.
Ellen Frost: Of course we all do.
Jennifer Gulizia: So I would like take a 14 hour day. Oh, sure. It's all inclusive. It's all day. And then you're like, oh my gosh, all day is not realistic because some brides are like, I want you there.
Ellen Frost: Right. Or then people are like, let me add an hour or two hours.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah.
Ellen Frost: Oh, sure. Like, that's fine. Like now it's like two in the morning. Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yeah. My area, we were lucky. There's a sound ordinance at 10, but you still could find yourself there.
Ellen Frost: Oh, good.
Jennifer Gulizia: Hair could start at seven and dancing and the sendoff could end at 11, which is too long of a day.
Ellen Frost: um my gosh.
Ellen Frost: Right.
Jennifer Gulizia: We always would joke um that we felt like we were hit by a bus the following day after our wedding because you're just like,
Ellen Frost: Yes.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. And that's the other thing, too, is like it just like. How the recovery, I mean, people don't think about that, but like the recovery, right. It could be days of like recovery from that, from that work. It's crazy. Wedding work is crazy.
Jennifer Gulizia: I've thought about, I'm like, do I want to get into it? And I'm like, not at this point in my business. We do. We sell our wholesale to florists in the wedding industry. So we grow a lot of wedding colors.
Ellen Frost: Yep.
Jennifer Gulizia: And then we do DIY buckets. But at this time, I'm not doing wedding orders because I dealt with brides for 12 years.
Ellen Frost: Perfect.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And right now I've got this saying in my head for my business coach that's an inch make your business an inch wide and a mile deep before you expand out.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, I think that's good. That's good advice.
Jennifer Gulizia: So we've been going deep with dahlias and um focusing on how much can we do with our dahlias before we expand out.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: um Because, yeah, like you said, you can use less and make more profit.
Ellen Frost: Right. Maximize what you can. yeah I think.
Jennifer Gulizia: I thought that was such a great example that you scaled down your weddings, but actually had better profit margins.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Ellen Frost: Yeah. Yeah. And. Thank God we did. i we we would not still be in business, I don't think, both financially and just like physically, we would have been burned out before now.
Jennifer Gulizia: I hear from so many people that they're just so burned out because they say yes to everything in this industry. Oh, can you make, especially like as a farmer that is selling bouquets, like if you have a CSA, all of a sudden people call you, can you make a bouquet?
Ellen Frost: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I used to say yes to all of those bouquets. And it's not that I don't love doing them anymore, but to make a $50 one-off bouquet doesn't make sense.
Ellen Frost: hu
Ellen Frost: Right. It makes no sense. And it's so hard to say no to people, especially people in your community, people who know you, people who support you. Like I, it's hard.
Ellen Frost: um But if you really are like, this is my business and I have to like run it like a business, like, yeah, saying no to that stuff is, you have to do it.
Jennifer Gulizia: Absolutely. um Well, let's talk about you've become quite the voice for the industry. You write Flower Nerd, your newsletter, you host your Flower More community.
Jennifer Gulizia: What made you basically pick up the pen and be willing to ah step on the stage isn't the right word, but be willing to be that public figure to help spread this message?
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: What gave you the courage?
Ellen Frost: i mean, it's funny, like, I always felt like I was doing that anyway. I was just doing it like on a smaller scale. Like I was already doing that locally and i had joined the ASCFG um like my first year in business, which I was like the only florist forever who was part of this like farming organization because I never really felt like there was a place for me in floral organizations. um I was so different. I was like just doing such a different thing that the ASCFG felt like a better fit for me.
Ellen Frost: Um, and I started writing for the cut flower quarterly pretty early on in my career, just from a florist perspective, like somebody who uses local flowers and works with farmers.
Ellen Frost: Um, and I really like wanted to do it. I loved it. I wanted to like, I was just, and I still am, I'm like so passionate about local flowers. I just felt like I could, and I was never, i'm not a person who was like nervous about public speaking or anything like that, writing maybe, I'm like more nervous about writing because I don't feel like a super strong writer, but like, and YouTube, like we do a lot of YouTube and just as like an, i don't know, an older person on YouTube, that felt a little funny. um
Ellen Frost: But I just felt like we had, not that we had done everything locally locally that we could, but i was like excited to be able to share what we had learned over these like many years with more people. And I had started um with these classes with the gardeners workshop. And that was the first time that I had done like online courses.
Ellen Frost: And I taught two courses and it was like, Oh, like what I'm teaching actually does translate to people all over the country. And I was like, Oh, I, I actually think I could impact more people.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: If I tried these other things like the newsletter and YouTube, and then eventually like the online community. So it wasn't, it was maybe the same as like when I started the business, like i didn't really have a lot of fear, feel fear of failure. I was more just like, I think I can do it. I think I, I, feel so good about the topic. Like I don't feel like it didn't feel risky to me or scary to me.
Ellen Frost: Um, it just felt like really exciting. I got to meet, I mean, I still get to meet like so many people across the country that are doing the same kind of work. And um yeah, teaching has become, i mean, it was always part of what we were doing, but it has just become such a rewarding, like piece of what I'm doing now. And like a way that I can, like, just as I get older, like we are not going to have the shop forever. We're not going to do physical flowers forever.
Ellen Frost: um i really wanted to find a way that I could continue to work in flowers. um that felt sustainable physically for me. um So this has been like a good sort of transition time.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love it. Is there anything with all of these connections you've made over the last 20 plus years, is there anything that has shifted your belief from when you first started to what you believe now?
Ellen Frost: Um...
Ellen Frost: I don't know. i I can like clearly remember in the beginning, like saying,
Ellen Frost: like thinking and saying that i personally could change the flower industry. Like I was like that. I was like a young, you know, like I can do this. Like the things I'm going to say are going to change the industry. And I think in some way they have,
Ellen Frost: But I also, i think, understand more now that imports are not going away. Like we are not, you know, like when I was young, I just thought like, I can get rid of the imports.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: You know, like it was, and was so like idealistic about that. And, and you know, im I understand the industry more now. I've traveled, I've, you know,
Ellen Frost: I just studied the industry. So I think I understand that imports are not going away. um There can be situations where imports, you know, are not as um environmentally impactful as like all of the other ones I think are.
Ellen Frost: um And I still am not like going to be a florist who buys imports or does that. But I know that there's just like a, place for them.
Jennifer Gulizia: Mm-hmm.
Ellen Frost: And I don't really see unless there's some like really huge change that, that that's going to change. So i think more now is like trying to just like educate florists about like how they can add local stuff or how they can increase their, their buying instead of like, you have to change your whole model to like not buy any imports and only buy local.
Ellen Frost: um I think maybe that just comes with age, that sort of realization.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's a nice goal for us to have. um And I would like to see the needle move. I'd like it to be closer to the middle, but I i agree.
Ellen Frost: Absolutely. i Absolutely. Yes. I would love to see more people and just like, I'd love to see like farming be able to be a financially sustainable job for the people who do it.
Ellen Frost: um You know, so many of our farmers have off farm jobs and are not getting paid what they should. And, you know, it's really hard. Farming is really, mean you know, farming is really hard. And so I would love, you know, more people to buy locally, pay what flowers are worth and really allow our sort of local farms to thrive.
Jennifer Gulizia: I love that. Yes. i have loved this conversation with you, Ellen. um I can't believe we're already at an hour here. One thing I've done with all my guests this last year is ask a series of quick fire questions.
Jennifer Gulizia: Is that okay if I ask you a few quick ones here?
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah. Fun.
Jennifer Gulizia: ah
Ellen Frost: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: So my first question for you is what is your favorite flower to work with and why?
Ellen Frost: ah Tulips. ah
Jennifer Gulizia: Tulips.
Ellen Frost: They partly because I have like a personal, you know, sort of nostalgia connection to them, but also they're like the first focal that comes on. They come in a million different colors. Like our whole brand is like very colorful.
Ellen Frost: um And i love like, introducing people to new cool varieties that like people are like, Oh no, that's not a tulip. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a tulip.
Jennifer Gulizia: There's so many amazing ones. I mean, the peony ones, I'm like, whoa, that's a tulip.
Ellen Frost: Oh yeah. I love, i love showing those off to people.
Jennifer Gulizia: It's so fun. It always has so many people aghast. They're like, I don't want a tulip.
Ellen Frost: Yeah.
Jennifer Gulizia: And then they see that, they're like, but I want that. I'm like, well, that's a tulip.
Ellen Frost: Yes. I love proving them wrong about that.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well, this next question is basically our whole interview that we just did, but why do local flowers matter to you, summed up.
Ellen Frost: Local flowers are, I mean, they're all the good things, right? They're beautiful. They're innovative. They provide jobs for my friends.
Ellen Frost: They provide beauty and joy for regular people. ah They connect people to each other. They connect people to our earth.
Ellen Frost: They connect people to their own communities. ah They're the best.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well said. What is one thing that you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
Ellen Frost: where their flowers come from, where, you know, where flowers come from. I mean, there's just so little knowledge among most people about where flowers come from that if they understood, I feel like whenever I tell people the story of how flowers move around the world and come to us, um they always say, of course I want to buy locally. Of course it makes sense to buy from the farmer down the street. It's just that lot of people don't know where their flowers come from. yeah,
Ellen Frost: That's why I just keep trying to tell that story.
Jennifer Gulizia: That's amazing. Thank you for telling that story. And my last quick fire question is, what are you most grateful for that flowers have given you beyond the blooms?
Ellen Frost: Every, i mean this, like, honestly I could like cry. That's weird to cry too.
Jennifer Gulizia: I've made a lot of guests cry.
Ellen Frost: I'm a crier, so Yes, I'm a crier. so um just like every Honestly, like every relationship I have as an adult has come from flowers. like My farmers are like family to me. The farmers we buy from are like family. The people who come into our shop to buy flowers are people that i care for dearly.
Ellen Frost: And just... just as a transactional relationship. While there are transactional relationships, um these are like real, true relationships. John and I have been working together for 20 something years. Like we call each other on Christmas morning. we you know, like, I don't know. It's just those relationships are, have, have been everything.
Ellen Frost: and they continue to be everything to me. And that's like so much of why i like started the online community and wanted to just try to show people like how impactful flowers can be beyond just work or design. It's actually like being in community with people and knowing people and depending on people.
Ellen Frost: Um, Yeah, so while I love the flowers, I love flowers like you know more than anything. like The relationships that it has given me are just beyond anything I could have expected when i you know planted those first tulips 30 years ago.
Ellen Frost: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: You planted something special. it's It's amazing how many people get emotional when I ask these questions.
Ellen Frost: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gulizia: And I think it's because we we have such a sacred job where we are meeting people, sometimes at very fragile states in their life or those most important moments.
Ellen Frost: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: I mean, when a baby's born or your wedding or an anniversary or the celebration of a life. I mean, those are very intimate looks. I mean, look at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey have hidden their pictures to keep things intimate.
Ellen Frost: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: Like we are getting inside looks into like the most intimate moments in people's lives where you can't help but be, yes.
Ellen Frost: Yes.
Ellen Frost: And what a privilege. What a privilege to be able to to have that. We are, we are really privileged.
Jennifer Gulizia: Yes.
Jennifer Gulizia: Well said. Ellen, is there anything you wish that I would have asked you today that I haven't asked you yet that you want to share with our audience?
Ellen Frost: I don't think so. i just, you know, people, ah should buy local flowers, sell local flowers, connect with each other.
Ellen Frost: you know, you got it all.
Jennifer Gulizia: Awesome. Well, okay, here's an important question, and we will link this in the show notes.
Ellen Frost: Sure.
Jennifer Gulizia: Where can people find you and support Local Color?
Ellen Frost: Sure. um Where we are mostly is on YouTube, which I would not ever have predicted that would be the situation. We put out weekly YouTube videos. So that's a great way to connect with us.
Ellen Frost: ah We're also on Substack under Flower Nerd and we write you know a weekly newsletter there. And, you know, Instagram and Facebook, all those places. But YouTube's probably our number one.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thank you. We will link to those in today's show notes so people can go give you a follow and connect with you.
Ellen Frost: Awesome.
Jennifer Gulizia: ellen Ellen, this has been such a delight. It's been so nice to chat with you. Thank you for giving us your time and your wisdom. And I just really appreciate you being here today.
Jennifer Gulizia: So thank you for being a thank you for being a huge part of helping spread the local flower movement.
Ellen Frost: Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Gulizia: We're all grateful for you.
Ellen Frost: Thank you so much.
Jennifer Gulizia: Thanks, Ellen. Bye-bye.
