Episode 497: Meet Jill Brooke, floral journalist and creator of Flower Power Daily

A quick note for you garden-lovers! We are giving away five virtual tickets to the Great Grow Along, a new, three-day, virtual gardening festival taking place this weekend, March 19-21 - online, of course. The Great Grow Along features more than 40 sessions across six topic tracks and YOU might win a free ticket to attend. The first five listeners who post a comment below will receive the complimentary registration, valued at $29.95. Be sure to tell us what's growing in your garden in the comment section. If you miss out on this giveaway, the folks at the Great Grow Along have also shared a $5 off promo code for all of our listeners to join in: that code is: SlowFlowersDiscount. Several past guests of the Slow Flowers Podcast are in the lineup -- and you'll want to grab their presentations, including Lorene Edwards Forkner, Sue Goetz, Kelly Norris and Allison and Sean McManus. And our friend Teri Speight of Cottage in the Court, author of a forthcoming book for BLOOM Imprint, will also be presenting. Sounds like the perfect way to celebrate a new season! Meet today's guest: Jill Brooke Jill Brooke of Flower Power Daily I'm so happy to welcome Jill Brooke to the Slow Flowers Podcast today. She is the creator and editorial director of Flower Power Daily, an online news site for all things flowers. Jill and I were introduced to one another about a year ago through our mutual friends at Fleurs de Villes, the floral fashion exhibition that was staged at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival in 2020. We've chatted by phone a few times and I appreciate it when Jill sends me newsy emails about how flowers are showing up in our world. Jill has a journalist's uncanny ability to identify and unearth (pun intended) the floral angle to any news topic of the day. If it's a trending hashtag, on any subject, Flower Power Daily will elevate the conversation through flowers. A few examples to illustrate my point: In the performing arts, she wrote about the Barcelona Opera Playing to Flowering Plants Instead of People; in fashion, Flower Power Daily recently covered the new Kenzo and Vans shoe collaboration featuring floral prints. In politics, sports, wellness and mental health, food and wine, and beyond-- Flower Power Daily interprets every subject through a floral lens. It's a way to view the world that I wholeheartedly endorse! We all want flowers to be universally important, and the stories covered by Flower Power Daily underscore this truth -- that humans need flowers. Here's a bit more about Jill Brooke: She has been a CNN correspondent, an Editor in chief at Travel Savvy, Avenue and Show Circuit, a columnist for the New York Post, Ad Week and Metropolitan Home, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, and many women’s magazines. With all this professional experience, Jill says nothing has ever felt as right as Flower Power Daily, which she established in February 2019. Jill gathered seasoned professionals who share the same passion for flowers and respect nature’s gifts and insights to help curate the stories, videos and images you can find each day at Flower Power Daily. You can visit Flower Power Daily's website, subscribe to its newsletter and follow more flower posts on Instagram -- and I'll share those links in today's show notes. As Jill says: If you look at life through the prism of flowers- you will be happier. She believes that flowers are here for a reason and teach great life lessons. Flowers comfort and congratulate; they express sentiments without many words. No matter what is going on in your life – flowers are here for you. Thanks so much for joining me today. Talking with Jill is entirely invigorating -- her energy level is bound to boost anyone else's metabolism, too. And it's all because of flowers. Flower Power Daily recognized Slow Flowers last summer with a story titled 'Five Americans Making History in the Flower World." Subscribe to Flower Power Daily's weekly newsletter Follow Flower Power Daily on Instagram Click on the link below to read more about the just announced nominations for "Aspire Design and Home magazine's 'Best Dressed Rooms in TV and Film Awards.'" Jill is quoted in the press announcement, saying "Because we are spending so much time indoors, we're all talking about what TV shows to watch and ways to redecorate. People are appreciating and focused on design more than ever, so it's a perfect marriage and perfect timing" for an awards program honoring the fabulous interiors of TV shows and films. The awards will be announced on April 22nd. ASPIRE Awards Nominations & Judges (PDF)Download Jennifer Jewell, creator and host of "Cultivating Place: Conversations on the Natural World and the Human Impulse to Garden" This week, I want tell you about Jennifer Jewell, creator and host of "Cultivating Place," a public radio program and podcast. Jennifer is a past guest of this prodcast and she will be speaking at the 2021 Slow Flowers Summit in June. Click here to subscribe to "Cultivating Place" Podcast. Earlier this month, Slow Flowers and AIFD teamed up to record a webinar called "From Farm to Florist," featuring Brad Siebe, general manager of Seattle Wholesale Growers Market; Cassie Plummer of Jig-Bee Flower Farm; Diane and Lillian Calhoun of Calhoun Flower Farms; Amelia Ihlo of Rooted Farmers; Gina Thresher, AIFD, EMC of From the Ground up Floral and Renee Tucci AIFD -- all Slow Flowers Members, as well as Marisa Guerrera AIFD of Debbie's Bloomers. https://youtu.be/Rh_gkRa9eI8 Together, we discussed the benefits and best practices to incorporate locally-grown flowers into everyday designs and event work. It was a fantastic session and I love the meeting of the minds between florists and flower farmers. Click above to watch the video! Thank you to our Sponsors This podcast is brought to you by Slowflowers.com, the free, online directory to more than 850 florists, shops, and studios who design with local, seasonal and sustainable flowers and to the farms that grow those blooms. It’s the conscious choice for buying and sending flowers. And thank you to our lead sponsor for 2021, Farmgirl Flowers. Farmgirl Flowers delivers iconic burlap-wrapped bouquets and lush, abundant arrangements to customers across the U.S., supporting more than 20 U.S. flower farms by purchasing more than $9 million dollars of U.S.-grown fresh and seasonal flowers and foliage annually, and providing competitive salaries and benefits to 240 team members based in Watsonville, California and Miami, Florida. Discover more at farmgirlflowers.com. For each Podcast episode this year, we will also thank three of our Major Sponsors. Our first thanks goes to Red Twig Farms. Based in Johnstown, Ohio, Red Twig Farms is a family-owned farm specializing in peonies, daffodils, tulips and branches, a popular peony-bouquet-by-mail program and their Spread the Hope Campaign where customers purchase 10 tulip stems for essential workers and others in their community. Learn more at redtwigfarms.com. Our next thanks goes to Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, a farmer-owned cooperative committed to providing the very best the Pacific Northwest has to offer in cut flowers, foliage and plants. The Growers Market’s mission is to foster a vibrant marketplace that sustains local flower farms and provides top-quality products and service to the local floral industry. Visit them at seattlewholesalegrowersmarket.com. Our final thanks goes to Longfield Gardens, which provides home gardeners with high quality flower bulbs and perennials. Their online store offers plants for every region and every season, from tulips and daffodils to dahlias, caladiums and amaryllis. Check out the full catalog at Longfield Gardens at longfield-gardens.com. Thanks so much for joining us today! The Slow Flowers Podcast has been downloaded more than 703,000 times by listeners like you. Thank you for listening, commenting and sharing – it means so much. As our movement gains more supporters and more passionate participants who believe in the importance of our domestic cut flower industry, the momentum is contagious. I know you feel it, too. I value your support and invite you to show your thanks to support Slow Flowers' ongoing advocacy, education and outreach activities. You can find the donate button in the column to the right. (c) Mary Grace Long Photography I'm Debra Prinzing, host and producer of the Slow Flowers Podcast. Next week, you're invited to join me in putting more Slow Flowers on the table, one vase at a time. And If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto iTunes and posting a listener review. The content and opinions expressed here are either mine alone or those of my guests alone, independent of any podcast sponsor or other person, company or organization. The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Brenlan. Learn more about his work at soundbodymovement.com. Music Credits: Pat Dog; Thannoid; Turning On the Lights; Gaenaby Blue Dot Sessionshttp://www.sessions.blueLovely by Tryad http://tryad.bandcamp.com/album/instrumentalshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ In The Fieldaudionautix.com