2022 Speaker Profile: TJ McGrath

Meet floral designer and sustainability influencer TJ McGrath. Contributor Jo Ellen Meyers-Sharp recently interviewed TJ for this Slow Flowers Summit feature.

It wasn’t until his father retired and took up gardening that TJ McGrath even thought about gardening. He helped his dad build a koi pond, “and that’s how I started thinking about gardening.”

He grew up in a big Irish family that planted only tulips and daffodils, because his mother thought perennials were messy. “We had mostly lawn,” recalls TJ, who will speak and design florals at the 2022 Slow Flower Summit (June 26-28).

After a few years in an apartment, TJ bought a house, a move that started him on the road to floral design. The house had peonies. Everywhere. There must have been dozens of the plant. TJ impressed the seller, who had an Irish brogue, by being of Irish descent and by knowing the plants were peonies. His real estate agent told him that’s why he got the house on a low-ball offer.