Dirt By Amy Stewart

Eco-Friendly Flowers in the New York Times

"And as in other industries with increasing demand for green products, the floral industry is debating what is environmentally correct. Should flowers be organic — that is, grown without synthetic or toxic pesticides? Or should the emphasis be on fair trade, meaning that the workers who grow and cut them are safe and well paid? Or should consumers favor flowers grown locally, not flown or trucked over long distances? In other words, what, exactly, is a green flower?"

Read the whole article here.

Flower Confidential a February Booksense Notable

The February 2008 Booksense Picks are out from the American Booksellers Association.  This is a sort of national "staff picks" list put together by independent booksellers.  Last year they chose Flower Confidential for the list, and this year the paperback edition is listed again in the "Notables" section. There is really nothing more exciting for me than getting a little love from independent booksellers, so I'm happy today in spite of the wind and the rain.

I should have copies of the paperback by the end of the month--I'll post a photo when they arrive.

Stirring the Pot

When you record a commentary for NPR, you don't always know exactly when it will run.  Breaking news can really move things around.  So I didn't know that my All Things Considered commentary on this nearly-finished Year of Eating Locally was going to run until I started getting pissed-off emails from complete strangers.

The commentary is  posted here, and I'll have more to say on the subject over at GardenRant.  If you wanna get into it, head over there. 

GardenRant is too awesome for words

We got picked up on BoingBoing, y'all.  It's been a busy week over at GardenRant World Headquarters.

GardenRant in USA Weekend

Read all about it 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.

Building an Archive

I've been slowly working on getting some of my garden columns and articles online.  It's a work in progress, but you can check it out here.  I'll keep adding to it. 

In particular, I've had many requests from florists who did not read the Valentine's Day op-ed I wrote for the New York Times about the value of flower shops to society.  (Florists were a little busy on February 14, naturally.)  I'm a little late responding, but here it is--read the complete op-ed online.

Lady Bird's Lupines

In honor of Lady Bird, a flower that is impossible to resist:  the lupine.  She favored the Texas bluebonnet,  Lupinus  texensis,   which blooms all over my native state thanks to her efforts.  But there's more to lupines that bluebonnets. 

The lupines in this photo, which I took at Pike Place Market in Seattle, are probably the 'Russell' hybrids or the 'Band of Noble' series.  They're bred just for the cut flower industry, and they're a little fussy, so it can be frustrating to grow them in a garden.  (OK, they're frustrating to grow in my garden.  Maybe they grow like weeds in your garden!)

Here in California, the yellow bush lupine L. arboreus is gorgeous, but it gets invasive outside of its range.  It's a beloved native plant a few hours south, but here in Humboldt county, we try to eradicate it from fragile ecosystems.

The lupine to grow here in California is the native Lupinus albifrons, or 'Silver Bush Lupine.'  It's a lovely silvery shrub with purple spikes; you can order it through Annie's Annuals.

Lupines are in the bean and pea family, and like their edible cousins, they fix nitrogen in the soil.  Some gardeners plant them with a special inoculant, Rhizobium lupini, that encourages that nitrogen fixing relationship, but if your nursery doesn't have it, just plant the seeds.  Like peas, lupine seeds can be tough; it helps to nick the seed coat with a knife to encourage germination. If you're buying them as seedlings or potted plants, choose plants that are not rootbound and then try not to disturb the roots when you put them in the ground.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center offers a plant database with 53 different lupines.  Check it out;  there's bound to be one that grows in your backyard.

And go here to listen to my NPR commentary about Lady Bird on All Things Considered.

Foreign Policy

I wrote an article for the July issue of Foreign Policy magazine about globalization in the cut flower industry.  You have to be a subscriber to read the whole article online, but the July issue will be on newsstands soon.