Day 1
Friday, January 30, 2026
Shane Connolly
Learning to be Kinder to Nature
Through an illustrated lecture that spans centuries, followed by several dazzling floral design demonstrations, Shane presents ways that gardeners and florists can make their arrangements more nature-friendly and environmentally responsive. His own ethos is based firmly in what is thoughtful and respectful of the planet. His designs will demonstrate his signature tablescape styling, a biodegradable funeral wreath, and the creation of large-scale arrangements of seasonal and local flowers, inspired by his muse Constance Spry.
Note: This presentation was filmed during Shane’s fall 2023 appearance in Seattle. We are thrilled to share it with the Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit audience and are especially pleased that Shane will be joining us LIVE for a Q&A.
Friday, January 30, 2026
8:00 a.m. PT/11:00 a.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Dee Hall Goodwin
Growing + Designing Sustainably: What’s New?
Join Dee and Cel, two experienced specialty cut flower growers from opposite sides of “the pond,” as each discusses new ideas for branding a floral business with eco-conscious messages, content, events, and product offerings. Drawn from real-life case studies, these panelists introduce their successful communication and marketing strategies that inspire customers to value sustainability and embrace local flowers. While Dee and Cel are flower growers and farmer-florists, their experience and insights are equally applicable to all Slow Flowers enterprises, including designers and retail flower shops.
Friday, January 30, 2026
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Celestina Robertson
Growing + Designing Sustainably: What’s New?
Join Dee and Cel, two experienced specialty cut flower growers from opposite sides of “the pond,” as each discusses new ideas for branding a floral business with eco-conscious messages, content, events, and product offerings. Drawn from real-life case studies, these panelists introduce their successful communication and marketing strategies that inspire customers to value sustainability and embrace local flowers. While Dee and Cel are flower growers and farmer-florists, their experience and insights are equally applicable to all Slow Flowers enterprises, including designers and retail flower shops.
Friday, January 30, 2026
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
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Rizaniño “Riz” Reyes
Lilies in the Cutting Garden and Design Studio
The genus Lilium is having a renaissance and grower-designer Riz Reyes couldn’t be happier! He is eager to share his vast knowledge and undeniable passion for this classic and elegant “Queen of summer-blooming bulbs.” His widespread enthusiasm inspires farmers, gardeners, and growers to incorporate more lilies into their production plans and offerings to the public. Riz will present a most valuable primer to understand the botanical basics of lilies; from their wild origins to the latest breakthroughs in breeding; he will also discuss his favorite lily varieties for the cutting garden and landscape, and offer reliable tips on selection, growing, harvesting, and designing with well-known, but also non-traditional species and cultivars. A demonstration will follow that features lilies with seasonal botanical elements – some cultivated and some garden-gathered, expressed in Riz’s exuberant signature style.
Friday, January 30, 2026
2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Joan Thorndike
Supplying Florists and DIY Wedding Clients with Seasonal Flowers
A pioneering organic flower farmer, Joan Thorndike has served the southern Oregon destination and local wedding market for more than three decades. In that time, in addition to wholesale sales of specialty cut flowers to retail florists and regional studio designers, she has fine-tuned a unique retail business model to serve DIY wedding clients without damaging her relationship with floral professionals. A portion of Joan’s presentation includes a video tour of her warehouse floral market and an overview of the purchasing process tailored to DIY customers. Gain tips that you can adapt for your own farm or studio, and learn how Joan empowers DIY wedding clients to embrace seasonal flowers for their ceremonies.
Friday, January 30, 2026
4:30 p.m. PT/7:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Katherine Raz
The Fernseed Story, Small Business Practices for Retail Floristry
Katherine launched The Fernseed in 2018 as an online store featuring handmade designs for potting and displaying houseplants. In 2019, she opened the first Fernseed brick-and-mortar location in Tacoma, Washington, focused exclusively on indoor plants and locally made pottery. When the pandemic hit in 2020, she pivoted by adding cut flowers to the business, a move that grew into a central part of the shop’s identity. Today, The Fernseed sources 60–90% of its flowers locally and continues to support artists and small-batch makers.
Katherine is active in small-business advocacy and frequently shares her experiences with the media and fellow entrepreneurs. In 2025, after years of frustration trying to acquire property in Tacoma, she made the leap from paying rent to building ownership by purchasing a vacant retail garden center in Centralia, about an hour south. There, she has big plans to launch a destination nursery, plant store, and flower shop while continuing to operate in Tacoma. Be encouraged by her journey in small-business ownership and take away important lessons for your own floral enterprise, no matter its age or size.
Friday, January 30, 2026
6:30 p.m. PT/9:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Day 2
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Françoise Weeks
Botanical Couture with Françoise Weeks
Françoise is undeniably the queen of botanical couture. Recognized for her innovations in wearable floral art, Françoise combines a deep knowledge of the mechanics and curiosity when it comes to her material sourcing from nature – together, these attributes are a springboard for stunning creativity. In her presentation for the Slow Flowers WORLDWIDE Summit, Francoise will introduce some of her favorite botanical couture projects to date and give us exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to her Portland studio as she creates a floral look for American Flowers Week 2026.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
8:00 a.m. PT/11:00 a.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Monique Morris
Building a Farmer-Florist Business
Moderated by Dee Hall Goodwin, founder of Black Flower Farmers, this insightful panel will introduce four farmer-florist entrepreneurs who are blending growing and design expertise into their brands. Meet each expert and learn more about how they have developed their business format to fit their creative goals and to serve their community with local and seasonal flowers. Bring your questions to dive deeper into the ins and outs of running a farmer-florist business and explore the various models that our panelists have created for themselves.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Alicia Houston
Building a Farmer-Florist Business
Moderated by Dee Hall Goodwin, founder of Black Flower Farmers, this insightful panel will introduce four farmer-florist entrepreneurs who are blending growing and design expertise into their brands. Meet each expert and learn more about how they have developed their business format to fit their creative goals and to serve their community with local and seasonal flowers. Bring your questions to dive deeper into the ins and outs of running a farmer-florist business and explore the various models that our panelists have created for themselves.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Marilyn Griffin
Building a Farmer-Florist Business
Moderated by Dee Hall Goodwin, founder of Black Flower Farmers, this insightful panel will introduce four farmer-florist entrepreneurs who are blending growing and design expertise into their brands. Meet each expert and learn more about how they have developed their business format to fit their creative goals and to serve their community with local and seasonal flowers. Bring your questions to dive deeper into the ins and outs of running a farmer-florist business and explore the various models that our panelists have created for themselves.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
Max Gill
A Florist’s Guide to Cultivating and Designing With Clematis
A luxury wedding and event florist who has developed an enviable clematis collection in his own cutting garden, Bay Area designer Max Gill considers clematis the special defining detail for many of his floral creations. In “The Flower Farmers,” a book by Debra Prinzing and Robin Avni, Max introduces his favorite clematis varieties, adding: “There are literally hundreds still to discover . . . I love that there’s no end to the varieties – and I love that ‘cousins will marry,’ a quote from a gardener whose name I don’t remember that refers to how readily clematis naturally hybridize!”
In his presentation, Max will share his advice on favorite species and cultivars for the garden (and vase) and tips on when to plant and how to harvest. He’ll end the session with a design demonstration featuring clematis as the star!
Saturday, January 31, 2026
2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
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Diane Szukovathy
Floral Standards for Profitability
As co-founder of Jello Mold Farm and the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, Diane Szukovathy has decades of experience as a specialty cut flower grower with roots in gardening and horticulture. She brings an heirloom body of knowledge to not only flower growing, but to the successful practices that ensure proper care, handling, and harvesting of both popular and uncommon botanicals loved by her floral design customers. “Floral Standards for Profitability” is based on the new SWGM Floral Standards book to which she was principal contributor. This essential guide covers successful growing and harvesting practices for hundreds of the best annuals, perennials, vines, bulb flowers, deciduous and evergreen foliage, ornamental grasses, shrubs, and trees for the floral design customer. Diane will discuss best practices and the importance of crop planning and harvesting for profitability.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
4:30 p.m. PT/7:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.
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TJ McGrath
Slow Flowers-Inspired Design Techniques
According to TJ McGrath, the floral industry flies under the radar in consumers’ minds when it comes to thinking about the environment. By designing with and teaching foam-free design techniques and featuring primarily locally grown flowers, TJ demonstrates that there is a better way to beautiful – one that’s sustainable and in alignment with his Slow Flowers values. In his capstone presentation for the Slow Flowers Summit, TJ will demonstrate three arrangements that illustrate a hand-tied technique, a pin frog technique and a Constance Spry-inspired design. Using all locally-grown blooms, his designs will be a treat for the senses – and an illustration of floristry for the good of people and the planet.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
6:30 p.m. PT/9:30 p.m. ET
Registration required to attend all sessions of the Slow Flowers Worldwide Summit online. To attend this session, register today! Clicking the 'Add to Calendar' button does not register you for this session.