As a Black woman-owned business with a multi-racial, queer inclusive, majority female team, Pine House Edible Gardens stands for more than just healthy food and beautiful landscapes. The design firm is committed to making gardens accessible to all through its equity pricing program and the Black Sanctuary Gardens project. The primary goal of Black Sanctuary Gardens is to create garden spaces for Black women to rest and be restored. A further goal is to define, uphold and celebrate Black community spaces, amidst gentrification and displacement of historically Black communities in Oakland. Founder and lead designer Leslie Bennett says, “We believe an edible garden can be a transformative space to grow and practice the better ways and world we want for ourselves and for our communities.”
This project is a model for creative entrepreneurs seeking ways to be guided by values and mission. As Leslie shares the story of Black Sanctuary Gardens, she’ll feature landscapes and spaces from her influential book, Garden Wonderland, while also inspiring you to contribute your talents and resources improve your community and meaningful causes.

Illustrated Lecture, followed by a book-signing with Leslie Bennett

In her idea-packed book, Garden Wonderland, Leslie Bennett urges readers to “create possibilities for experience, beauty, connection, and belonging.” Her landscape design principles include: Making plants part of your daily life; surrounding yourself with beauty; making space for connection; and fortifying your sense of belonging, not to mention making a garden that works for clients’ lifestyles. While planting for food harvests is a priority for most, Leslie and the Pine House Edible Garden team also bring a floral design sensibility to their clients’ landscapes. They recommend creating an all-season framework with evergreen plants; choosing a unifying color scheme; considering floral shapes; planting blooming perennials and annuals throughout the landscape; and filling open pockets with annual cutting flowers.
Leslie will illustrate her lecture with some of her favorite flower-forward projects, as members of Pine House Edible Gardens team design floral arrangements using an uncommon mix of botanical ingredients – cut from their gardens. Your takeaway? Consider how you can offer cutting garden design or cut flower projects to your customers – as you help more gardeners connect to nature through flowers.

Lecture, design demonstration, followed by a book-signing with Leslie Bennett

With Filoli Historic House and Garden located in her backyard, artist and floral designer Melissa Olson is inspired by the cultivated and wild landscape and plantings that thrive on the grounds there. She believes humans have an innate connection to nature, and this connection is at the heart of her lush plant arrangements and her strong commitment to sustainability. To kick off our Welcome Reception on Sunday, June 20th, we’ve asked Melissa to work closely with the Filoli horticulture team (which includes her son Matthew), to harvest hyper-local and seasonal ingredients for a large-scale vase arrangement. It will be “of the moment,” a perfect reflection of place and time – and a fitting way to kick off the Slow Flowers Summit with Filoli as her muse.

Design Demonstration

In preparation for our group’s floral design takeover of the Filoli Mansion, Nichole Skalski will demonstrate some of her proven methods for producing a large-scale, elevated, free-standing, and foam-free floral installation that brings drama and intrigue to its environment. As you gather with a small team to “flower” one of the Mansion’s interior or exterior spaces, Nichole’s instruction will inspire beginners and provide design direction for more seasoned florists -- giving all of us ideas for working with scale, proportion, and volume, whether there’s a high ceiling overhead or trees and sky above. The demonstration will feature how Nichole approaches three-dimensional floral design using compostable and foam-free mechanics. Her piece will be completed with a few volunteers and will ultimately be on display in the final Floral Takeover.

Design Demonstration

At the heart of the Slow Flowers Movement is the intersection of floral design and flower growing, which is why we invited three of our members who are expert growers and influencers to bring these practices together in one informative panel discussion. Each one is associated with a popular flower: Kristine Albrecht (Dahlias), Jacqueline Pham (Peonies), and Jennifer McClendon (Roses).
In their extended session, Design-Forward Flower Farming, each will introduce their botanical specialization (selection, breeding, cultivation – and best varieties for design) and much more.
Expect a little show-and-tell of just-harvested specimens as we are wowed by these key focal flowers and the back-stories that inform their production. The designers on the panel (Jacqueline and Jennifer are farmer-florists) will create an arrangement to demonstrate how they use their blooms, and we’ll all drink in the beauty of Kristine’s dahlias (since we all know that dahlias can arrange themselves)! This panel has something for everyone. Gardeners, growers, designers, and flower lovers will draw new insights and knowledge for their own practice.

Panel presentation and design demonstration, followed by a book-signing with Kristine Albrecht 

As our Summit comes to a close, we will gather for a final experience in Filoli’s Redwood Grove, a scenic natural sanctuary featuring towering coastal redwoods, family-friendly trails, and permanent art installations. We’ve invited Full Belly Farm’s Hannah Muller, an expert grower and designer of dried flowers, to bring her favorite selections and install a botanical display in the woods. Enjoy learning from Hannah as we gather, network, and toast the close of the Slow Flowers Summit.

Demonstration, followed by a book-signing with Hannah Muller