Slow Flowers Summit in the Press

"Budding Geniuses to gather at the Slow Flowers Summit"

Published June 17, 2022, in The Bedford Record-Review by Joyce Corrigan

While the COVID-19 era has seen tremendous loss on the human front, Mother Nature has quietly chalked up a few wins. People traveling less meant gashouse emissions and commercial activities were curtailed, at least for a time, so not only was there cleaner air in New York City, but pumas (the wildcat, not the sneaker) were spotted happily wandering the streets of Santiago, Chile, and dolphins were seen swimming in the unusually clear waters of the canals in Venice, Italy.

As the world rises and opens up lotus-like from the COVID mud — with all the human hustle and bustle that entails — the budding geniuses behind the Slow Flowers Movement are optimistic that some eco benefits of the virus’s earth-shaking effects will be long term.

“I hesitate to use an over-used term, but there was surely a ‘silver lining’ to the pandemic,” said Debra Prinzing, a Seattle-based gardening writer and domestic flower advocate who coined the phrase, “slow flowers” in 2013. At its most basic, she explained, slow flowers advocates cultivating flowers grown with sustainable farming practices, harvested in their natural season of bloom, sourced as close to you as possible, and produced by florists who are using green, chemic