Dirt By Amy Stewart

More Green Floral Fabulousness

Check this out, y'all.  Oh, and by the way, my "Twelve Reasons to Shop at a Local Florist" will start on Tuesday, right after Labor Day.

Southern California Wedding and Event Floral Designer to Feature
Organic Roses in the Architectural Digest Green Room at the
59th Primetime Emmy® Awards

Anaheim Hills, CA – August 29, 2007 –  The Spiraled Stem Floral Design has been selected to create floral arrangements to complement the "eco-luxury" aesthetic of the Architectural Digest Green Room at the 59th Primetime Emmy® Awards, which airs September 16, 2007 from 8:00-11:00 pm (ET/PT) on FOX, live from the Shrine Auditorium.

The Spiraled Stem is committed to using environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional products, materials, and practices available in the $20 billion floral industry. A key component to carrying out this commitment is by sourcing flowers grown and harvested using practices that aim to improve the quality of farm working conditions, minimize damage to ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and enhance environmental quality for future generations.

Owner Christine Saunders has selected a sensuous variety of fragrant organic roses that will overflow vintage vases strategically placed around the Green Room. “These organic roses are captivating, and even in the hustle of final preparations before going onstage, those in the Green Room will be compelled to literally stop and smell the roses.”

The key to unlocking the fragrance of the rose is in how it’s grown to organic standards without the use of harmful pesticides. Commercially grown roses have sacrificed their fragrance for greater durability through the global supply chain and longer vase life for the consumer.

Architectural Digest Top 100 designer Timothy Corrigan, creator of the sustainably-designed Green Room, is intrigued by the introduction of organic flowers as a key design feature. “Flowers are an integral element of rich interiors, and it is wonderful there are ‘green’ alternatives to the conventional cut flower. I am delighted to be working with Christine Saunders to incorporate organic roses into this year's Architectural Digest Green Room."

Twelve Reasons to Shop at a Local Florist

Money magazine's 1.9 million readers and the Today Show's 6 million viewers got the message that they should splurge on florist flowers rather than save on supermarket flowers.  (This came after an interview I did with Money a couple months ago.)

So that's a lot of people who just heard that they should take another look at their local florist.  I hear from a lot of florists who want ideas about how to get the message across to their customers about why their flowers are better.  Getting on the Today Show is one idea--but are there some other, more affordable options?

Well, I'm not a florist, but since you guys have been contacting me and asking for my ideas, I'll share them.  Coming up over the next couple of weeks:  a dozen reasons to shop at your local florist.  Check back after Labor Day for the first post.

Take these ideas and do what you want with them.  Make a poster or a brochure, put it on your website, use it in your newsletter, issue a press release, run a series of twelve ads in the local newspaper.

For that matter, run a contest in your shop!  Ask your customers to guess the reasons, and give them one rose for every reason on your list that they come up with on their own.

And most of all, show some personality!  I'll give you my general ideas, and some suggestions for customizing them for your shop.  Enjoy!

Another Florist Goes Green

Check out this story about Magickal Florist  in Nevada City here.

The Today Show

Check out this episode of the Today Show, which gives advice about when to splurge and when to save on common household items, based on this article in Money magazine, in which they interviewed me about whether it makes sense to save or splurge on flowers.  What do you think I told them?

This Week in Dirt

Things are busy around here, but....

I talked to a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News about changes at the San Francisco Flower Mart--follow the link to the story.

And here's a story I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle about GardenWalk Buffalo and other similar walks.

NYC, 9th Ave & 15th

This kind of architecture amazes me--the new busting out of the old.

Buzz Lives!

At the Missouri Botanical Garden

A flower demo before my talk -- from the St Louis Florists Network

Meet Me in St. Louis

Any St. Louis readers out there?  I'll be at the Missouri Botanical Garden this Saturday.  The St. Louis Florists Network is doing a floral demonstration at 11:30, then I'll speak at 12:30.   Tell your friends...come out and say hello...see you there!

Live from the Denver airport

I'm on planes a lot this month. When I fly I've been reading Chuck Klosterman IV, a collection of his essays on music, sports, and pop culture that have run in Spin, Esquire, NYT magaine, etc. When I get home, this book is going on a short stack of books I keep nearby and read when I need help getting going, just because the writing is so damn good. (other authors in that stack include EB White and Sue Hubbel)

So I've spent the better part of several flights in awe of how good Klosterman is, and feeling mildly annoyed that he's three years younger than me and already managed to put this kind of amazing work together. Damn him for being so sharp and funny and good. Like every great nonfiction writer, his work is fascinating even if you're not interested in the subject. (I could care less about White Stripes.)

It wasn't until the plane approached Denver that I realized that if I said this to any of my friends, they would imediately point out that I have written three books and have a fourth in the hopper. I would try to explain how that's not the same, but it probably wouldn't make much sense, and it would sound like I was looking for reassurance, which I'm not. Some wruters are just so good, in some very specific and peculiar way, that they just bowl you over and show you something just beyond your grasp, in a way that is both inspiring and irritating at the same time.

I still think Klosterman's book is better than anything I've read in a long time, including--especially--my own books. If you read one book this summer, make it his. Available right now in airports everywhere.