Texas Grown
A Resource Page
Local is lovely
What does it really mean for a flower to be locally grown? It doesn't just mean the place it grew is nearby. What is that place? What else lives in that place? What does that place provide to the flower and what does the flower do to the place it grows? Seasonal and locally grown flowers are lovely precisely because they take into account the importance of place. Origin matters. Here, that place is Texas.
We believe that engaging and conserving the place where a flower is grown leads to more beautiful flowers and preserves the ability of flowers to flourish in the future by protecting where it grows. By preserving it's growing place, we mean preserving the soil and it's nutrients, preserving the available water and it's purity, preserving the bird habitat and it's pest control, preserving the native species and their inherent ability to survive our bewildering weather and continue to give us blooms. An approach to flower farming that considers place eases the burden of trying to create a fake environment resulting in cut flower production or gardening that is less labor intensive and more cost effective.
Below you'll find some resources for growing cut flowers by embracing place. This is just the beginning. We hope to expand on the resources below and tackle topics of sustainability such as:
No Till systems of production
Conservation through rain water management
Reducing plastic on the flower farm
Locally made inputs for fertility
Underplanting methods for waste and labor reduction
Small-scale composting
As we build these resources to help your flower growing practices embrace and utilize conservation and sustainability, we know the result will be more beautiful both in the field and in the vase.
Birds Love Flowers
Creating Bird Habitat for Pest Management
In half a decade of farming cut flowers, I have never sprayed insecticides on my fields for pest management and here's the reason why: birds. Creating bird habitat directly affect insect populations through a symbiotic relationship that not only conserves our growing environment, it saves us money on pest management, helps us produce beautiful blooms and makes our farm a safe place for children, humans, and animals. Learn how to create a bird-friendly habitat where ever you grow flowers by downloading this guide from the National Wildlife Federation.
Go one step further and identify the specific birds in your area with the Audubon App.and use their native plant list for bird habitat building.
Sustainable Design
Look to Native Texas Prairies for Cut Flowers
Sustainable floristry goes beyond ditching the floral form (though that's an awesome start!). Texas has some of the most amazing prairie flowers and protecting these flowers is critical to providing future flower lovers with local, native, cut flowers. This means protecting the native prairies on which they grow. We partner with a privately owned Certified Native Prairie to sustainably forage and source flowers for design use. Growing your own prairie flowers in the garden or as part of your cut flower production is a great place to start. Look for upcoming educational posts and videos of our favorite prairie flowers and how to use them in floral designs.
Planting Natives
Beyond wildflowers and prairie flowers, our Texas ecosystem has a diverse plant list of species native to North America that provide cut flowers or foliage. Planting small bush natives provides habitat for birds and helps curb soil erosion while still providing beautiful cut flowers. They can even do double-duty as landscaping shrubs.
