Author and garden expert Debra Prinzing has followed up her popular book The 50 Mile Bouquet with a sequel that plays on the revolutionary Slow Food movement. Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm continues to celebrate and champion locally grown, organic floral-design materials, though this time with a DIY approach. Debra’s challenge: to create 52 bouquets, one for each week of the year, strictly from local materials. And she succeeds beautifully, drawing on regional bounties of cut flowers, twigs, foliage, greenhouse plants, dried pods, and more. Hear about Debra’s personal yearlong floral journey, discover her tips and tricks for locating and utilizing the best, most intriguing local material, and watch her fashion gorgeous bouquets before your eyes.

The audience is invited to bring in a few samples from their own gardens for Debra to use in her designs or comment on—let’s see what the early spring landscape of Illinois has to offer! Debra will also be signing copies of her books.

Presented by the Garden Conservancy and Chicago Botanic Garden, and co-sponsored by the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers

Date and time

9:45 a.m. Check-in, registration

10 – 11:30 a.m. Lecture and floral design demonstrations

Location

Fairchild Room

Chicago Botanic Garden

1000 Lake Cook Road

Glencoe, IL 60022

Click here for directions.

Registration

$35 General admission

20% Discount for members of the Garden Conservancy and Chicago Botanic Garden

To obtain the member's discount, Garden Conservancy members should call the Chicago Botanic Garden Registrar’s office at 847.835.8261

Register online for general admission, on www.chicagobotanic.org

For more information, call the Chicago Botanic Garden's Registrar's office at 847.835.8261.

Debra Prinzing is a Seattle- and Los Angeles-based outdoor living expert who writes and lectures on gardens and home design. She has a background in journalism, landscape design, horticulture, and textiles. A frequent speaker for botanical garden, horticultural society, and flower show audiences, Debra is also a regular radio and television guest. Her six books include The 50 Mile Bouquet: Seasonal, Local and Sustainable Flowers (St. Lynn’s Press, 2012), Garden Writers Association Gold Award-winning Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways (Clarkson-Potter/Random House, 2008), and The Abundant Garden (Cool Springs Press, 2005). Her latest triumph is Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm. Debra contributes to numerous garden publications and currently serves as the president of the Garden Writers Association. Learn more about Debra at www.debraprinzing.com.

Presenters and co-sponsors