OUR SPEAKERS
Shane Connolly
shaneconnolly.co.uk
@shaneconnollyandco
Shane is a renowned floral designer and ambassador for sustainable floristry. His clients range from great public institutions like The V&A; the RA and the National Portrait Gallery, to a veritable who's who of the great and the good of British life. He is perhaps best known for his public work for The Royal Family. His most recent commission was The Coronation of TM The King and Queen in Westminster Abbey in 2023. But he also designed the flowers for their marriage at Windsor Castle in 2005 and for the wedding of The Prince and Princess of Wales in 2011. He is honoured to have been awarded Royal Warrants of Appointment to both HM The King and HM The Queen in 2024. And an MBE for services to sustainable floristry in 2025. Shane has approached all these iconic moments with the same respect for nature, season and setting. Everything is thoughtful, in all senses of the word. Shane has designed events in countries as diverse as the USA and India, and always with the same aim: to leave the smallest footprint behind and be led by what is local and available. Shane works with the RHS to improve sustainability in floristry in their annual shows, and is also a judge at RHS Chelsea. He has written five books and teaches his approach to flower design all over the world, with its roots and ethos firmly in sustainability.
Dee Hall Goodwin
Dee Hall Goodwin is the founder of Mermaid City Flowers, an urban flower farm and design studio in Norfolk, Virginia. She grows on borrowed plots, specializing in native plants, unusual cut flowers, and sustainable, foam-free design practices. Dee is also the founder of the Tidewater Flower Collective and Black Flower Farmers, and her work has been featured in Black Flora and Garden & Gun. She shares her expertise through talks and workshops with organizations including the Garden Club of America, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and Norfolk Botanical Garden, focusing on floriculture, floral design, and the power of flowers to connect culture and community.
Celestina Robertson
Celestina "Cel" Robertson is the owner of Forever Green Flower Company, a flower farm based in North Norfolk, England. Forever Green grows at market-garden scale and supplies high-quality cut flowers; Cel is passionate about the farm's ethos of producing seasonal, sustainably-grown blooms for local customers.
She grows flowers on an acre of land in Aylmerton, halfway between Sheringham and Cromer. The wide selection of flower varieties and seasonal blooms are available for sale through the British growing season between April and October. Flowers are grown in a sustainable way, without synthetic chemical inputs and with space devoted to nature within the production area.
Forever Green supplies local florists with Norfolk-grown blooms and provides bunches, bouquets, and flowers for weddings and events to the flower-loving public. Bouquets are distinctive and blooms are arranged in a signature seasonal ‘garden-gathered’ style with thoughtful colour combinations. Flowers truly are the essence of the seasonal English garden.
Rizaniño “Riz” Reyes
Rizaniño “Riz” Reyes immersed himself in the remarkable diversity of plants that thrives in the maritime climate of the Pacific Northwest shortly after immigrating from his native Philippines. He sought out every opportunity to learn everything he could about the field of horticulture and earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Environmental Horticulture and Urban Forestry from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.
He began his independent venture, RHR Horticulture & Landwave Gardens, as a specialty hobby nursery propagating rare and unique plant selections and offering fine-gardening and design services. Now, his work focuses on garden education/consulting and floral design. Riz published a children’s non-fiction book released in March 2022 titled “Grow: A family guide to plants and how to grow them.”
Riz is currently the Assistant Director of Heronswood Garden in Kingston, WA.
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Joan Thorndike
lemeraflowerfarm.com
@lemeragardens
Joan Ewer Thorndike has been farming flowers in southern Oregon since 1992, inspired by her Chilean roots where flowers are part of everyday life. She began Le Mera Gardens to make seasonal blooms accessible and joyful, not just reserved for special occasions. Today, through her partnership with Fry Family Farm, Joan continues to share her passion by supplying fresh, local flowers and foliage across southern Oregon and northern California from spring through fall.
Katherine Raz
Katherine Raz is the founder and owner of Fernseed, a plant and flower shop based in Tacoma, Wash., with a second location opening in Centralia, Wash., in 2026. A longtime advocate for independent retail and community-driven development, she combines hands-on retail leadership with research and writing on the structural challenges facing Main Street businesses. Through her Substack newsletter Storefront Revolt, public speaking, and local organizing, Katherine champions policies and practices that strengthen small businesses, equitable real estate ownership, and vibrant neighborhood economies. Her work has been featured in media outlets including CNN, and she has been a speaker at Camp Thundercraft and Washington Main Street’s PLACES Conference, as well as a panelist for organizations such as the City of Tacoma and the Chicago Community Trust.
Françoise Weeks
Françoise Weeks, born and raised in Belgium, has infused her work with a quintessential European reverence for flowers and nature. Combined with creativity and mechanical ingenuity, she has crystalized her singular style of Textural Woodlands and Botanical Haute Couture pieces, garnering a global following. Her generosity of knowledge and perspective in use of floral materials, structure and techniques, create rigorous and exciting learning opportunities for the students who explore all that nature has to offer. Françoise’s studio is located in Portland, OR. She teaches workshops in her studio and offers online courses as well. She has taught in many cities of the US as well as in Canada, Mexico, England, Sweden, Iceland, France, China and Australia. Her dynamic work has been published in many national and international magazines, as well as an Emmy-winning TV feature on OPB. In 2019 she was invited to participate in the renowned flower shows Fleuramour and FlowerTime in Belgium. In December 2018 her book “The Herbal Recipe Keeper” was published by Timber Press. In April 2024 her new book, “Wonder of the Woodlands,” was published by Clarkson & Potter.
Monique Morris
epiphanyeightfarms.com
@epiphanyeightfarms
Monique “Mo” Morris is the co-founder and joyful heart of Epiphany Eight Farms, a Black-owned cut flower farm nestled in Southern Maryland. Together with her husband, David “Moe” Morris, she tends just under two acres while transforming their homestead into a place where charming blossoms and stories unfold.
Her flower journey began with a love for creating beauty and a desire to share joy through blooms. Guided by the farm’s philosophy that “each bloom tells a unique story,” Monique blends her financial background with her love of family, faith, and community. While balancing a full-time career, she cultivates flowers that bring delight to neighbors and customers alike.
Epiphany Eight Farms reflects Monique’s warm and bubbly spirit. With Moe’s DIY craftsmanship and her mother’s dedication in the garden, the farm is a true family effort, weaving love, resilience, and growth into every row.
Beyond the farm, Monique is an active member of the flower community, learning and connecting through ASCFG, Slow Flowers, Black Flower Farmers, and her local Maryland growers’ association. She has traveled internationally to study growing techniques, attended conferences to deepen her knowledge, and continues to approach farming with a spirit of curiosity and growth.
For Monique and Moe, Epiphany Eight Farms is more than a business. It is a dream in bloom. From roadside bouquets to future subscriptions, workshops, and community gatherings, they are cultivating a legacy of joy, wonder, and love one flower at a time.
Alicia Houston
Alicia (she/her) has been gardening for three years and sharing flowers with her community and local farmers markets for the past two. Her journey into farming began after moving from San Diego to care for her grandfather, one of the early vendors at the Bainbridge Farmers Market who sold eggs, fruits, vegetables, and jams. Wanting to bring him back to the market, Alicia combined that legacy with her own love of medicinal plants and time spent in a San Diego floral shop. Inspired by a documentary on a Skagit Valley flower farmer, she enrolled in a course that launched her path into flower farming. Since then, she has attended a sustainable floristry and farming conferences, participated in multiple workshops, and learned from fellow farmers. Today, Alicia shares that knowledge through workshops, farmers markets, and floristry services for weddings, events, styled shoots, pop-ups, and more.
Marilyn Griffin
griffingardensdetroit.com
@mylittlegreenspace
Marilyn Griffin is a flower farmer, gardener, and the founder of Griffin Gardens, a vibrant five-lot neighborhood garden and community space in Detroit. What began as a family discovery soon turned into a passion project. At the start of the pandemic in early 2020, Marilyn broke ground on Griffin Gardens, transforming the vacant lots into a flourishing community space. Her work at Griffin Gardens, which includes hosting events such as the annual Art in the Garden Art Exhibition, a Farmers Market, yoga and meditation classes, and wellness workshops has inspired connection and creativity in the neighborhood.
Driven by her love for community and the land, Marilyn started a flower farm to expand her offerings and make a living doing what she loves. In 2025, she’s excited to grow her flower business by introducing more fresh-cut flower options and organizing new events to bring neighbors and visitors together.
Max Gill
After receiving his degree in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley, Max Gill was compelled by more creative pursuits, eventually finding floral design the perfect medium as it seemed to him to draw from all of his greatest passions: gardening, sculpture, painting and art and theater history.
Originally from upstate New York, Max has called the Bay Area home for over 40 years. Perhaps best known for his work at Chez Panisse where he did the flowers for two decades before stepping aside in 2024, Max started Max Gill Design in 2005 and now offers full floral services for weddings, special events and private clients such as Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Lauren McIntosh.
Informed by natural process, Max’s work is distinguished by his reliance on specialty blooms and botanical rarities gleaned from local growers, his own formidable cut flower garden in Oakland, and a long list of bay area nurseries.
Diane Szukovathy
jellomoldfarm.com
@jellomoldfarm
Diane Szukovathy is the co-founder with her husband Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm in Mount Vernon, Washington. A flower farmer for nearly two decades, she previously designed and maintained Seattle area gardens through Jello Mold Landscape. Jello Mold helped establish the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market in 2011 and Diane has served on the cooperative’s board since its beginning. These days, Diane and Dennis say they are more “leaf farmers” than flower farmers, as their 5-acre farm has matured to produce foliage, greenery, and woody flowering branches that complement botanicals from other farms. Diane is a frequent presenter for flower farming and gardening audiences. Most recently, she worked with growers and staff to coordinate the SWGM Floral Standards book, a tool which is intended to help flower farmers work together to build a lasting industry based on quality and shared knowledge.
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TJ McGrath
In 2020, during the upheaval of the Covid pandemic, many found themselves at a crossroads - including TJ McGrath, who chose to turn six years of experience in event floristry into an independent venture. Rather than joining an established studio, TJ stepped into the unknown and built a business rooted in sustainability and creativity.
Recognizing the significant environmental impact of the floral industry, TJ set out to champion better practices in design and sourcing. Through workshops for florists, designers, and flower enthusiasts, TJ teaches foam-free techniques and emphasizes the use of locally grown blooms, often collaborating with some of the industry’s most talented and influential leaders.
Today, TJ is also growing organic flowers at Jardin de Buis, with guidance from the experts at F2 Environmental. A custom cutting garden provides fresh, chemical-free blooms that are featured in TJ’s event designs and occasionally made available to other designers through wholesale offerings.
Our Founder
DEBRA PRINZING
SLOW FLOWERS SOCIETY
@slowflowerssociety
Debra is the producer of SlowFlowers.com, the online directory to farms, florists, shops and studios who supply domestic and local flowers in the U.S. and Canada. Each Wednesday, approximately 2,500 listeners tune into Debra's "Slow Flowers Podcast," available for free downloads at her web site, slowflowerspodcast.com, or on iTunes and via other podcast services.
She is the creator of American Flowers Week, launched during the July 4th week in 2015 with more than 5.0 million social media impressions in 2017. Debra has authored more than 12 books, including Slow Flowers, The 50 Mile Bouquet, and The Flower Farmers (with Robin Avni).
