Hudson Valley Seed Library is featured significantly in the New York Times!!

The “Art of the Heirloom,” as the title goes, is ecological, historical, commercial and participatory.  The collection of  59 seed-pack designs are featured in an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden thru July 19, before going on a yearlong tour, with stops at the Philadelphia Flower Show; the Tower Hill Botanic Garden, outside Worcester, Mass.; and the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa, Calif.)

From right to left, top to bottom:  Chives by Sarah Jacoby; Common-milkweed by Nancy Blum; Midnight Garden Flower Mix by Tonja Sell; Snapdragon Mix by Olivia Mew

Stupendous beauty from G. Page wholesale market, NYC!!

We applaud Random Acts of Flowers!

Random Acts of Flowers recycles and re-purposes flowers by engaging dedicated volunteer teams to deliver beautiful bouquets and moments of kindness to individuals in healthcare facilities across the country.

With branches in Knoxville and Greenville, TN; Pinellas Co, FL;  Chicago, IL; Silicon Valley, CA; and in development for Salt Lake City, UT and Cincinnati, OH.

As a recycling “green” nonprofit organization, Random Acts of Flowers is committed to nourishing the health of the environment, individuals, and the community.

After a wonderful time at the Green Festival in SF this past weekend, we discovered a plethora of dynamic startups focused on a greener and brighter future. One of our favorites was Salvador’s Garden, an upcylced home goods line founded by artist John Waguespack.

One of the most interesting things about Salvador’s Garden is that their fabric is made of 100% recycled post-consumer plastic bottles, which also wears 7 times longer than traditional cotton material. When our BBrooks associate first examined the fabrics, she couldn’t believe that it was recycled from plastic bottles as they were so soft and impossible to distinguish from traditional cotton fabrics.

Waguespack was inspired by the works of Salvador Dali, a surrealist painter. Salvador’s Garden is a derivate of Waguespack’s original painting, My Salvador, as the garden, flowers, and animals were all transformations from the original portrait. These bold and intricate graphics were minimal in their approach, drawing the viewers in seeing the complexity of the design, and best described as “the perfect marriage of fantasy and simplicity”.

Salvador’s Garden was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter and you can visit their new winter collection here: http://salvadorsgarden.com/

BBrooks member Dragonfly Farms in Healdsburg, CA is the place to be on Oct 25!  The farm will host a pop-up dinner with Chef Matteo from Chalk Hill Cookery. 

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Thyme-scented Cashew Cheese Ravioli

Tierra Vegetables Flageolet Bean Pistou

Escarole Salad w/Persimmon, Pomegranate, Toasted Walnuts & Vinaigrette

Crepinette of Roasted Pumpkin

Pear and Hazelnut Torte

To read and see more, visit Flowerona

As seen in C magazine September 2014 issue.

The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) is putting on an amazing program October 19-22, in Newark, DE, for designers interested in using locally grown materials to elevate their creations.

“Growing Growers”
Growers’ School – Oct 19, 2014
National Conference – Oct 20-22

ASCFG Vice President Mike Hutchison of Robin Hollow Farm, Saunderstown, RI and feature speaker Sullivan Owen of Sullivan Owen Floral & Event Design, Philadelphia, PA are both BBrooks member florists!  They will be joined by dozens of other talented designers and farmer florists from around the country for an intensive of design demonstrations and frank round-table discussions on the art and science of working in the floral and wedding worlds with a focus on seasonal, local flowers.

Registration is nearly full!  www.ascfg.org

As seen on Botanical Brouhaha.

The future of the Wholesale Flower Mart may be in the hands of The City’s voters come next year.

On the heels of a pending sale of half the site at Brannan and Sixth streets, a group of flower vendors, florists, wholesalers and concerned citizens plan to file paperwork with The City today to get a measure on 2015′s ballot that would protect the San Francisco wholesale flower market from a planned tech office development.

With roughly 100 vendors, the more than 50-year-old covered market connects growers with buyers from across Northern California and beyond and is the nation’s second-largest flower wholesaler. In the early-morning hours, trucks delivering flowers unload their wares for sales inside the large airy building. To many, it is a San Francisco icon whose presence is part of The City’s fabric.

The San Francisco Flower Mart Protection Act will make it impossible for The City to give any planning exemptions, which might facilitate turning the site into a tech campus or other office space.

“We thought we’d take it to the voters of San Francisco,” said Patrick McCann, a vendor at the site. “The Flower Mart has a long history of being heard and it should stay here.”

Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos.

Public efforts to protect the Flower Mart began in August when a group of local politicos, including former Mayor Art Agnos and former supervisors Aaron Peskin and Quentin Kopp, held a news conference announcing their fight to save the more than 80 local businesses located there.

Those efforts were meant to notify the public about a pending sale of the site and keep working-class jobs in The City.

Despite such protests, on Sept. 11, a majority of the San Francisco Flower Growers Association voted to sell their half of the Flower Mart to Kilroy Realty Corp. The price, according to opponents, was $26.6 million.

Kilroy, which plans to construct a 655,000-sqaure-foot tech campus on the site, has promised to include flower sellers in any future space. But many fear they will be excluded, at worst, and left without a home for years of construction, at best.

As it stands, many long-term leases at the site expire at the end of the year, and no guarantees beyond vague promises have been given to the tenants, McCann said. Thus far, no communications have been made to tenants by Kilroy, McCann added.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit was filed Sept. 11 by David Repetto, a shareholder of the SFFGA, alleging that the association’s board of directors breached its fiduciary duties by secretly brokering the sale and merger of the SFFGA to Kilroy. It is asking for the court to invalidate the board’s actions.

Before the vote to sell, the SFFGA filed a proposal in 2013 for a 160-foot office building on the site and have until January to file a development proposal.

Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the district, has also introduced legislation that would postpone construction of offices on land zoned for light industry and distribution until a full-fledged rezoning of the area is complete, a process still several years away.

Next steps for moving the ballot measure ahead include circulation of the petition to San Francisco voters in order to qualify for the ballot.

To read more, please see article by Jonah Owen Lamb from Sept 30, 2014 www.sfexaminer.com

Barbara Flowers is an international artist who lived most of her life in a small village near the Rhine Valley in Germany. A deep desire to create art began at a young age. Barbara’s parents encouraged her artistic growth with private art lessons and visits to Europe’s museums to see the collections of masterpieces.

Barbara’s art may include energetic brushwork, palette knife work, soft passages of blended paint or a heavy build-up of paint.  She strives for just enough variety without too much unity so as to capture the viewer’s attention.
Barbara’s work is held in international private and corporate collections.