The Earth Dress with Alanna Messner-Scholl of Waverly Flower Co., the American Flowers Week Botanical Couture Series, Part Three The “Earth Dress” is a slender, floor-length gown that appears to grow from a demure pair of seed-embellished ballet flats. It seems fitting that a sustainable farmer-florist who once attended the Fashion Institute of Technology would conjure up this organic-looking garment using compost, soil, moss, roots, seeds, and vines. “I wanted it to be a concept piece with an organic, natural feeling,” said Alanna Messner-Scholl, owner of Waverly Flower Co. “I’ve used the term woodland, and I’ve also called it “Earth Dress” or “Dirt Dress.” Having designed botanical couture fashions for Slow Flowers Society’s past two American Flowers Week collections–both of which featured blooms, petals, and foliage straight from her cutting garden–Alanna wanted to highlight other aspects of flower-growing, so she turned to her potting shed. She explores the lifecycle of a flower through botanical fashion. Her concept helps us better understand what it means to grow and design. I know you’ll love learning about Alanna’s ideas and design process!
Our 12th annual American Flowers Week is coming right up – June 28th through July 4th. To showcase this year’s Botanical Couture collection, I’m welcoming return guest Françoise Weeks to the Slow Flowers Podcast. A longtime Slow Flowers Member, her name is synonymous with botanical couture. As an educator, she has taught thousands of students around the globe, as well as from her Portland, Oregon-based studio, and online. Slow Flowers asked Françoise to create a lily-inspired floral fashion for this year’s American Flowers Week collection, an idea originally proposed by Flowerbulb.eu, a Slow Flowers sponsor that that promotes lilies grown from European bulbs for U.S. gardeners, flower farmers, and florists. Françoise designed and created two alluring styles to highlight lily petals and blooms. In addition to discussing this project, Françoise shares some of the techniques and mechanics she has developed for botanical couture – and you might want to add them to your floral tool kit!
In the runup to our American Flowers Week’s annual Botanical Couture collection, we welcome Caitlin Mathes to the Slow Flowers Podcast. A longtime Slow Flowers Member based in New York’s Finger Lakes Region, Caitlin has been cultivating the Tagetes species, also known as the marigold, since 2019. Her passion led to establishing The Marigold Gardens as a singular flower farm, specializing in more than 40 marigold varieties. When planning this year’s American Flowers Week floral fashions, we asked Caitlin if she would like to create a marigold garment – and she joined in the fun, growing, designing, fabricating, and modeling her playful look. Join me as we learn more about Caitlin’s floral enterprise, her love affair with marigolds, and her charming, Medieval-inspired garment fashioned with a multitude of colorful and uniquely-formed varieties. You, too, will fall in love with marigolds because Caitlin’s passion is contagious!
In the ongoing tradition of commissioning a signature work for each annual American Flowers Week celebration, we’re delighted to be collaborating with Amy Rice, a Twin Cities-based painter and printmaker, who for four years owned and grew cut flowers at County Line Flower Farm. Of course, her flower farm-inspired artwork is a perfect fit for American Flowers Week!
After Debra Prinzing fell in love with and purchased one of Amy’s linoleum prints, entitled: “I Can Grow My Own Flowers,” she approached Amy about participating in the 2026 American Flowers Week project. Slow Flowers has licensed the rights for two of Amy’s pieces to use in celebrating this year’s American Flowers Week campaign.
Amy Rice’s Artist Statement: I use non-traditional printmaking methods–including hand cut stencils and a Japanese screen-printing toy called a Gocco printer–as a starting point for original mixed media pieces. I use spray paint, acrylics, gouache, and inks, and print on a variety of surfaces including wood, fabric and antique papers (preferring handwritten love letters, envelopes, journal pages, sheet music and maps). I am most satisfied when I can make a tangible or visceral connection between the materials used and the image rendered. My work is deeply layered, often both literally and figuratively. My imagery–nostalgic and wistful–is largely biographical and reflective of my pensive nature. I am as inspired in my art as much by childhood memories of growing up on a Midwestern farm as I am the urban community in which I now live. I am influenced by bicycles, street art, gardening, and random found objects, collective endeavors that challenge hierarchy, acts of compassion, downright silliness, and things with wings.
Inspiration for American Flowers Week:
“Flower Power,” with pickup truck in the flower field by Amy Rice
Flower Power, Enamel, Gouache and Acrylic 24″ x 32″, 2018
“Flower Bucket,” by Amy Rice
Bucket of Zinnias, Enamel and Acrylic 20″ x 16″, 2019
Celebrate American Flowers Week with our 2026 Social Media graphics
Download SIX social media badges to post and share – and help us promote American Flowers Week! LINK is HERE
Q&A with Amy Rice
AFW: Amy, we are so excited to collaborate with you this year to promote American Flowers Week! You describe yourself as a painter and printmaker. Can you tell us about your artist’s journey?
AR: I’ve made art my entire life with the exception of the four years I went to college to study sociology. I went to Augsburg University in Minneapolis. I grew up on a dairy farm in southern Wisconsin, and by the time I was done with college, I wanted to be an organic vegetable farmer. Of course, my parents were like, “um, no,” but I was determined. The week I graduated from college, I moved to northern Wisconsin and started working on a collective vegetable farm. Two years from that time, I had my modest vegetables at the farmers’ market in Bayfield, Wisconsin. But I also had all of the art I had made since college – art about wanting to be a farmer, etches of the first wheelbarrow, my seed packages. People loved that way more than my vegetables and it was kind of a live-affirming moment. The next week, I went to the library in Ashland and I checked out a book – it was from like 1984 – called “How to be an Artist.” I just followed the directions.
AFW: You were 21 or 22 at the time?
AR: Yes, just fresh out of college. And then, another three years after that, I had my first solo exhibition. It was in a bar! But throughout that time, I was trying to find a balance between wanting to be a farmer and loving my life in the city. Wanting both has been my entire life’s story.
Sunny Day Strawflowers, by Amy Rice
AFW: So, it’s almost like you drew or painted your life that you wanted.
AR: Exactly. My art career was kind of an accident. I always wanted to make art as a hobby. Northern Wisconsin was hard living. I was really poor and it wasn’t a great zone for growing vegetables during a five-month season. And when people liked (my art) and were buying it, I ended up moving back to the city. I started working with people with disabilities and I had a 20-year career as an activist for art and disability. Fifteen years ago this week, I decided that I was going to focus on my own art. I’ve been a full-time artist now for 15 years.
AFW: Do you describe yourself as “self-taught”?
AR: Well, I was in a studio for people with disabilities for 20 years. It wasn’t art therapy. I worked with folks who had master’s degrees in art whose disabilities made it so that it was an obstacle for them to make art as a living. So it was a vocational program. I learned so much about helping others with their art careers and I learned a lot about how to do that for myself. I was showing artwork to galleries for clients and I was meeting gallery directors and making connections. It was kind of nerve-wracking and scary!
Garden Gifts, by Amy Rice
AFW: Where did you sell your art in the early years?
AR: I was one of the first people on Etsy. For the first few years, it was absolutely amazing. I haven’t been on Etsy in years and years, but they helped me create a huge reach. They posted my work and that was pretty fantastic. I eventually got to the place where my art career was doing so well and the program for artists with disabilities was doing so well – and I couldn’t be good at both! There’s a lesson in there that I just cannot learn right, since I started flower farming with a successful art career underway.
AFW: Have flowers always been among the subjects of your art?
AR: I want to tell you my cut flower origin story! I grew up on a multi-generational farm. I remember as a kid, we were entirely self-sufficient – food-wise. My mom and dad and brother and I had an extensive vegetable garden. Almost everything we ate, we grew and canned ourselves. It was the 70s, and my mom started working outside the home at the time when many women were starting to do that. It was late winter and we were planning our gardens. My mom came home from work in town and she had two things: A can of green beans from the store. And cut flowers – I believe they were tulips. And she had an announcement. There was a lot of math, and I don’t remember how much per hour she made at her job, but the can of green beans cost 40 cents. The result of her announcement was that she was not going to grow green beans anymore – she was done. Instead, she was going to turn the entire row of green beans into gladiolas, because flowers gave her joy and green beans only cost 40 cents. By the time I left for college a decade later, that entire garden was gladiolas and babies breath, and our house was filled with cut flowers. There’s never been a time where my mom doesn’t have fresh cut flowers in her house, no matter what the finances were. Even a few were important to her. And so, they became very important to me!
Flower Trucks are the Future, by Amy Rice
AFW: Tell us about the flower farming!
AR: I really wanted to be a flower farmer, which made me an eighth-generation flower farmer. I’ve always loved growing flowers. I love arranging flowers. Of course, my husband and I were busy. We’re people who like to be busy, so we bought some property because we knew we wanted to grow.
AFW: How and when did that occur?
AR: It was your podcast. I had to look it up. It was in 2017. I was on an airplane on the way back from the opening of a solo art show in Philadelphia. I kept having my husband listen to little pieces of your podcast. I can’t remember specifically who the guest or what the topic was, but I was really emotionally connected to wanting to have a flower farm. And whatever your podcast was that day, it was very practical about money. And my husband was like, “yeah, I feel like that does sound like a good investment.”
AFW: I hope that your husband doesn’t resent Slow Flowers!
AR: No, it worked out! Even though I’m not flower farming anymore, I had four really good years – from 2019 to 2022. There were a couple of years ahead of that when we prepped and planned and got everything ready. But there were four beautiful years when the flowers were beautiful. And the inspiration was there. I was physically in some of the best shape I’ve ever been in. So much of it I loved. Of course, there was a lot that I hated: The tics. Being up before sunrise. Or, I was too hot or I was too cold. There was always some new bug or disease.
Prairie Coneflower, by Amy Rice
AFW: What did you call your farm?
AR: County Line Gardens.
AFW: Do you still have the property?
AR: Yes. Now, it’s just like extensive perennial gardens. I still think something like a niche agricultural business will stem from it. I’m sure you know that native plants are huge and people are really interested in native plants. I started growing every single native plant I could get my hands on a decade ago, so I have lots of them!
AFW: What prompted you to stop flower farming?
AR: We had a very serious drought. Deer got all my starter plants, like every single one. It was shocking. At the same time, I had really amazing art opportunities that year. So it was another choice. I just had to choose: Are you going to be a full-time artist with an already established career or are you going to try to be a flower farmer in Zone 4?
Pretty Harvest, by Amy Rice
AFW: We support your choice, Amy. And yet, the flower farming experience does inform your art! I feel like that Ford pickup truck with the beautiful field behind it – your art we are using to promote American Flowers Week – maybe that was your farm!?
AR: Yes, I’m still working on those stripes of color in the fields. My husband and I are super committed to that. Every year we expand the line of purple bee balm and we expand the line of red bee balm, and we try to think of what else we can plant to make those lines!
AFW: Can you tell us about the second image we selected for American Flowers Week? The white bucket filled with flowers?
AR: Yes, that was actually the logo for our flower farm.
AFW: That makes us so happy! Can you talk about the actual technique used for these two pieces?
AR: So both of the pieces were made with stencils that I cut by hand. I do the drawing and then I cut stencils from a piece of plastic. It’s like that material you would see if you had a plastic sign that read “Garage Sale.” It’s a very durable plastic that will let you use over and over again. Once I spray the stencil, the image looks like a big black-and-white coloring page. But then I paint it in and reapply the stencil and then cover that again. I often cut up the whole thing and collage it together in different ways.
AFW: It has a mixed-media sensibility, right?
AR: Yes, mixed-media. I wrote a book called “Playing with Stencils.” I don’t think it’s still in print but you can definitely still find it.
Precarious, by Amy Rice
AFW: It sounds like you developed your own technique.
AR: Yes, I developed it. I love applying the black with the stencil with super-flat camouflage black paint. Once that dries, you can start painting with other colors. My early inspiration was graffiti and street art.
AFW: What are some of the pieces that you sell through your studio?
AR: Almost everything is original. I do sell some digital prints, and I make cards from digital prints. My linoleum prints are hand-pulled, so each is an original. Most often, I print on antique ledger pages, or my grandfather’s homework, or sheet music, journal pages, and love letters. I love finding old love letters to print on!
AFW: What are you working on presently?
AR: I received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant this year and the money gave me the opportunity to be a better printmaker, including to find better tools and to explore the kinds of papers I could print on. The theme of the grant is “Hand Crafts,” including things that my grandmothers passed down, such as embroidery, lace-making, mending and sewing. There’s also a community component, so for mine, I’m going to be teaching small workshops on mending. I was going to do an embroidery class, but then I realized that people don’t even know how to thread a needle. Mending is something close to my heart (and it was to both of my grandmas), so I’m going to make linoleum printed patches on found fabric and then people will have the opportunity to bring some clothes to mend with them – at different venues this summer.
AFW: Where do you make art?
AR: My studio is on the top floor of a six-story brick warehouse and I have a view of the Mississippi River – gigantic, west-facing windows. That makes it unusable in the afternoon for a good part of the summer – like it’s just too hot to work there. So in the summer, I start my day before the sun rises and go to my studio to work really early. And in the winter, I’m a sleeper-inner. But I spend time at my studio almost every day (I have a home studio and I have a studio at the cabin, too). I get crabby if I don’t get to make some art!
AFW: When is your next studio show?
AR: It’s coming right up on May 15th-17th. It’s the largest art crawl in all of North America – it’s 31 years old, called Art-a-Whirl. And my studio is in the original building. There are 120,000 people who attend, and easily, there will be 5,000 people coming through my studio in three days. This is my 23rd year, so I’m used to it and I can make a big part of my income in three days.
AFW: How do you price your work?
AR: I sell stickers for $4 and I have a $4,000 painting. Last year, my median sale price was $50.
AFW: It sounds like a wonderful tradition for people to support local artists!
AR: It is. I live in the best city and state for art-making. We’re super supported. Artists are appreciated. There’s a lot of opportunities. It’s part of the reason my flower farming was successful, because the people who supported my art were excited to support the next thing I wanted to do.
Fresh-cut branches, berries, and greenery get all dressed up
Photography by Matt McDaniel
Continental Floral Greens in Oregon was the setting for this beautiful photo shoot. The company’s Madison Milgard modeled the botanical gown.
Last fall, Jennifer Reed and Kelly Shore traveled from their east coast studios to Forest Grove, Oregon, where they taught a holiday design workshop at one of Continental Floral Greens’ satellite farms. The event was captured for Slow Flowers Journal’s Fall 2024 cover story, photographed by Matt McDaniel (read the story here). Slow Flowers asked the women, American Flowers Week botanical couture designers for past seasons, whether they wanted to create a botanical couture look using classic Pacific Northwest greens and foliage.
On location with Kelly Shore, Madison Milgard, and Jennifer Reed
Owner of Jennifer Designs, Reed said yes and took the lead, enjoying the chance to design with freshly-harvested conifer greens, broadleaf evergreen sprays, and berry-laded boughs. While also producing the two-day design workshop, Shore, owner of The Floral Source, found time to assist her frequent collaborator.
In planning her dramatic look, Reed says researched for Oregon-themed cultural and artistic influences online. “When I googled ‘Oregon,’ the movie ‘Goonies’ kept popping up,” she laughed. “So my original idea was some sort of pirate look.” Fans of the 1985 cult classic may will recall the plotline: A group of young misfits called The Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on an adventure to find a legendary pirate’s long-lost treasure. The production was filmed in the coastal fishing town of Astoria, Oregon. Reed continues, “I asked myself, why would a pirate be on a flower farm? It made no sense.” Even after she moved onto other ideas, it turns out that a swashbuckler vibe remained – and the look Reed created is both an ode to the best foliage crops produced in Oregon, and a playful nod to some of the corseted attire worn by the “Outlander” series’ lead actress, Caitríona Balfe.
Reed sent her sketches to Madison Milgard, brand director for Continental Floral Greens, who helped source the ingredients on Reed’s list. Milgard, whose family co-founded CFG, grew up surrounded by acres of conifer trees and shrubs, so it wasn’t hard to convince her to model Reed’s floral garment, too.
“Madison sent me the magnolia leaves ahead of time so I could get started on the corset,” Reed recalled. She shaped overlapping layers of the leathery foliage over an actual fabric corset, exposing the soft, caramel-colored indumentum that appears on the back of each glossy green leaf. “Every single part of the leaves had to be glued and then held in position with the heat of my hand to keep their shape around the body,” she explained. I didn’t want the edges to pop up or crack once the magnolia dried.” Little details give the garment its character, such as bits of lichen tucked into spaces between some of the leaves, resembling torn lace.
The field of snowberry shrubs surrounds Madison at the Golden Hour
It’s often hard to avoid a bulky look when a human model dresses in botanical couture, but Reed’s corset fit Milgard like a glove. Clasps along the back allowed for a snug fit when worn. Botanical accents grace the neckline, shoulders, and upper arms, including vibrant Oregon native vine maple and nandina, which resemble a vintage mantilla scarf. The high-low skirt was comprised of two sections, which simplified the mechanics and achieved an important goal of Reed’s: “I always want my models to be able to move in my floral garments.” The underskirt, worn across the front of the body like an apron, has a chicken wire base with a tapestry of intricate texture and color patterns provided by branches of nandina, Ilex with red berries, and branches with rose hips. Reed attached most of the pieces to the waistline, starting with a dense placement at the belt and allowing sprays to softly drape and weave together closer to the hemline.
The longer overskirt wraps three-quarters of the way around the waist, so that the decorative underskirt peeks out from its opening. Reed fashioned the garment with CFG’s pre-made garlands, lining the skirt with extra pine branches.
After Milgard stepped into these two skirt pieces, Reed added cedar boughs at the hips, cutting them short to resemble a flouncy peplum. Accessories complete this look, including a charming pair of shoes that the designer covered in magnolia leaves.
“This was a fun way to show off evergreens without it looking Christmasy,” Shore observed. “It really reads ‘Northwest’ and isn’t pigeonholed in the winter season.” The garment highlights some of the best Oregon-grown options for florists, Shore continued. Through The Floral Source, she supplies florists with many of the greenery, foliage, and fruiting branches grown by this farm. “I don’t think people realize how fun it is to explore a farm to see what it grows,” Shore raved. “There is so much cool material here that many florists around the country aren’t used to having.”
The ability to clip extra ingredients on a moment’s notice, while designing, fabricating, and photographing this look at the farm, was a dream, Reed said. Add the gorgeous almost-sunset moment in the CFG fields, as the backdrop for photography, and this creative collaboration between a farm and floral designers was immensely satisfying.
A joyful day in the garden turns a crop of perennials into a charming garment
Photography by Alex Dickey
A backyard photo shoot at Three Sepals, Portland, Oregon
Andee Zeigler owns Three Sepals, a Portland, Oregon-based studio for ceramics, floral art, and bouquets. She grows flowers to share with neighbors, occasionally selling buckets of blooms to DIY designers. She embellishes her pottery using creamy, earthy, and aqua blue glazes in distinctive scallop patterns. That detail appears in Zeigler’s most recent botanical creation, a ruffled skirt with sections of feverfew placed in scallop patterns, and curved sword fern scallops across the hemline. She fashioned the skirt, purely for the joy of it, collaborating with her husband Alex Dickey to photograph the look one recent summer’s day.
Andee Zeigler’s Feverfew Frock for American Flowers Week 2025
“I love making botanical couture,” Zeigler proclaimed. With a “unicorn” property equivalent to four city lots that add up to just under one-half-acre, there is plenty of soil for the Three Sepals garden. Each year at the end of the season, she harvests everything still in bloom to create wearable looks for herself, her family, and her friends. “I spend all year growing this garden and there’s an abundance of everything here. Why not be ‘in the garden, in the garden’!”
People ask, ‘What do you do with it?’ when they see what I have created. Some might ask, ‘Is this a waste of time?’; ‘Is there a point to it?’; or ‘Are you wasting resources?’” For Zeigler, the answer to such questions is that art is an essential expression of who she is. “I make a lot of art and I have never quite wrapped my head around melding my art with the world of capitalism. I grow flowers mostly to give to my community. We have a Free Library and it is like a little house with two sections. On one side are books and the other side is full of pottery and flowers. From the beginning of July until our first freeze, every Saturday, I put out free flowers for our neighbors. When I have extra pottery, or even rejects, or when my studio feels overwhelmed, I add those.”
It’s fun to dress up in your garden’s bounty, she said. “I just think there are too many people hung up on ‘What am I making this for?’ and ‘Do I need to be marketing this to someone?’ instead of doing it for themselves.” The gardener-maker has an inspiring philosophy: “Dress Like Your Garden,” and it’s one all flower lovers should embrace.
Andee Zeigler, Three Sepals
Giving away bouquets of flowers feels right, she added. “It doesn’t even look like I picked a single stem!” Making floral fashions also feels right. When a small crop of feverfew – three varieties, including ‘Magic Lime’, ‘Virgo’, and ‘Magic Single’) — expanded into a four-foot-square patch, the proliferation inspired Zeigler to make something with all those fluffy stems. She harvested the feverfew, filling three large buckets, and set up production in her pottery studio. A dress form made it easy to attach dozens of feverfew bundles to a chicken wire skirt, their downward-facing heads forming those botanical scallops. Thicker wire runs vertically through the mesh prevent the weight of the flowers from collapsing the flared skirt form.
Three types of feverfew comprise the botanical skirt, complete with scallops
Zeigler attached the curved sword fern shapes as the final trimming. It’s a detail she has used in the past, thanks to all of the fern plants inherited from her garden’s prior owner. An opening in the back of the skirt allowed Zeigler to step into it; small twists of wire hold it closed. Underneath, her leggings kept the mesh from scratching her skin. A dark green top complements the verdant look. Earlier this season, Zeigler planted intentionally to ensure she has plenty of dahlias, annuals, and perennials to harvest for multiple floral garments. “I’m growing for our ‘Fall Ball’ in September. There will be 10 of us and I’m plotting to make some sort of floral garment for every guest to wear when they arrive. We’ll be in our backyard with everyone wearing their own botanical couture style.”
It’s fun to dress up in your garden’s bounty, she said. “I just think there are too many people hung up on ‘What am I making this for?’ and ‘Do I need to be marketing this to someone?’ instead of doing it for themselves.” The gardener-maker has an inspiring philosophy: “Dress Like Your Garden,” and it’s one all flower lovers should embrace.
Hundreds of creamy tulip petals bring romance to a bridal gown
Photography by Tess Schilke
Tulips, hellebores, ranunculus, and tulip petals for a botanical wedding, designed by Arianna Messner-Scholl of Waverly Flower Co.
Growing and designing wedding florals is part of Waverly Flower Co.’s brand, so it’s no surprise that Alanna Messner-Scholl reimagined a bridal gown fashioned not from silk yardage, but with a flurry of tulip petals from her own tulip harvest.
For the Philadelphia area farmer-florist, the character of her selected venue complements the dreamy botanical couture concept.
Messner-Scholl’s editorial-style photo shoot took place at Elkins Estate, an historic manor built in 1898 and situated on 42-acres in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. “It felt like we were in an elegant setting in the French or Italian countryside,” she said. The collaboration with Tess Schilke was fortuitous, because the photographer was quite familiar with Elkins Estate from previous bookings. “This location is so ornate, you almost don’t need flowers; they’re just kind of an accent to complement the rooms,” Messner-Scholl laughed, adding that she’s planning flowers for a 2026 ceremony at the property.
The models, Shannon McConnell and Brett Morris, are clients of Waverly Flower Co., and they plan to marry in October. “Having already met Shannon, I imagined her wearing the silhouette of a slender, strapless gown with a neck scarf that draped over her shoulders,” Messner-Scholl explained. For the groom, rather than making a conventional boutonniere, she created an oversized botanical lapel featuring tulips, hellebores, ranunculus blooms and Pieris japonica. “It is a statement piece that reads like part of his tuxedo rather than a boutonniere.”
Black and White photography showing off the gown’s details (c) Tess Schilke
The gown’s production and the photo shoot were planned for peak tulip season. “I was pretty set on having our own flowers for this gown, and my vision was to use about 250 fully-double ‘Mondial’ tulips, which are a gorgeous, creamy white hue.”
Unpredictable weather created some tulip production challenges, requiring Messner-Scholl to choose a second variety to round out the design recipe. “I added ‘Avant-Garde’ tulips, which are ivory with a yellow center.” The mix of cream and ivory petals adds depth and dimension to the pale floral gown. “I originally thought I would fasten tulip heads with reflexed petals to the gown, but we didn’t have enough,” she said. “So instead, I removed all the petals and glued on each one individually – which took a lot longer than I anticipated.”
Messner-Scholl’s editorial-style photo shoot took place at Elkins Estate, an historic manor built in 1898 and situated on 42-acres in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
The use of tulip petals (rather than full flower heads) created a softer, ruffled texture but avoided bulk in the bust area, the designer said. However, she found it hard to maintain the freshness of her tulip petals once they were glued to the base garment. “The tulips didn’t hold up as much as I had hoped for, but that’s part of the process,” Messner-Scholl explained. “We started constructing the gown at 8 a.m. and at noon, it looked perfectly fine. Even with misting the heck out of the dress, though, by 3 p.m., it just nose-dived.” The unseasonably warm, late April date and a one-hour drive to transport the dress to the venue took a toll on the delicate petal shapes. “Thankfully, I’m overjoyed with the photographs,” she added. “They tell the story that I wanted to tell.” DESIGN + CONCEPT: Alanna Messner-Scholl, Waverly Flower Co., waverlyflowerco.com, @waverlyflowerco PHOTOGRAPHY: Tess Schilke, @tess.schilke VIDEOGRAPHY: John Feher, @johnfeher FLOWER SOURCE: Waverly Flower Co. VENUE: Elkins Estate, @elkinsestate FLORAL ASSISTANCE: Elliana Haines, Waverly Flower Co., @ellianamadison_ MODELS: Shannon McConnell and Brett Morris, @shanmcconnell, @brettmorris10 HAIR: Krystin Curry of Mane & Moon, @krystincurry_hair MAKEUP: Sarah Capizzi of Inner Glow Hair Lounge, @innerglow_hairlounge AIRBRUSH TAN: TLS Spray Tan Bar, @tls_spraytanbar
Student Life in Flowers, with farmer-florists of the future
Melanie Morgan and Charlotte Bayer served as designers and models for this charming agriculture-inspired floral vignette.
Professor Sarah Berquist teaches farmer-florists of the future through the sustainable flower farming and floral entrepreneurship curriculum at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.
During spring semester, she challenged her Farmer-Florist Practicum students to join Slow Flowers’ American Flowers Week campaign with their own botanical couture designs. For many, this was their first foray into wearable florals, and like most of the projects Berquist assigns, the young floral artists and growers fearlessly embraced the opportunity to creatively experiment with local and seasonal blooms.
Stockbridge Floral Design team, with student growers, designers, and models and instructor Sarah Berquist (far right).
“The practicum is an advanced version of our retail floral design course,” Berquist explained. “We did a series of projects during spring semester – from working in the greenhouse and holding plant and tuber sales, to producing an annotated bibliography of Slow Flowers articles. When I proposed the botanical couture project, the students dove right in.” With “Student Life” as their prompt, class members brainstormed design themes around familiar university, agriculture, and farmer-floristry themes.
“There’s something magical about the collective energy of this program,”
Sarah Berquist, Instructor, Stockbridge Floral Design
Four design concepts emerged: The Shirt, The Boots, The Backpack, and The Graduates. “Everyone liked the symbolism of education and creativity,” said Allison Virzi, a graduating senior and teaching assistant in the program. Added Sarah Johnson, “We had so much going on at the end of the semester. We were growing for plant sales and we were also making bouquets for markets. We kept asking ourselves, ‘how are we going to be able to do this?’ But, we obviously found the time and it was definitely worth the experience!”
Here’s more about each look, along with comments from the student-creators:
The Shirt During the student brainstorming session, Aeryn Willingham was doing what she often does: working on a knitting project. Then she heard Berquist suggest using spring tulips grown by the class, adding, “maybe Aeryn could knit something for it.”
Aeryn Willingham created a hyper-local knit tunic into which her classmates inserted a riot of tulips and ranunculus.
“My brain started going a mile a minute, because I love fiber crafts – I’ve been knitting since I was three and spinning since I was ten,” said Willingham, a food and farming major. She created a hyper-local knit tunic into which her classmates inserted a riot of tulips and ranunculus. “I bought a pound of fibers from a nearby spinnery and spun my own skeins,” Willingham explained. There is a lacy openness to the soft, knitted garment, the gauge of which emulates chicken wire mesh. “I did a little work to figure out the best diameter of openings to accommodate tulip and ranunculus stems and I just made up the pattern as I went.”
With Willingham serving as the garment’s model, several of her classmates added tulips to the knit bodice.
With Willingham serving as the garment’s model, several of her classmates added tulips to the knit bodice. They devised an ombre effect with darker orange flowers blending into yellow ones, working from the base of the top to the neckline and shoulders. Reflexed tulip petals add to the look’s ruffled appearance, echoing the flared sleeve design.
“I enjoyed combining slow fashion with Slow Flowers,” Willingham added. “This is a handmade shirt from local wool that I’ll wear again and again. It can be worn for years to come,” she said. The flowers had an afterlife, as well, Berquist noted. “We reused a lot of these tulips a couple days later for bud vases at a commencement event. So we were really leaning into sustainable floristry!”
The Boots Two pairs of iconic farming boots symbolize the life of a farmer-florist, and the footwear was transformed with spring flowering bulbs, a beautiful embellishment that transformed functional footwear into wearable art.
Specialty daffodils and tulips, plus ranunculus and lily of the valley stems, emerge as if growing from inside the boots, Staples of many farmers’ closets, the leather Blundstones and Hunter rain boots owned by these students inspired them to use the boots’ openings as floral vessels.
Melanie Morgan and Charlotte Bayer served as designers and models for this charming agriculture-inspired floral vignette. Staples of many farmers’ closets, the leather Blundstones and Hunter rain boots owned by these students inspired them to use the boots’ openings as floral vessels.
Specialty daffodils and tulips, plus ranunculus and lily of the valley stems, emerge as if growing from inside the boots, playfully dancing around the models’ ankles. The addition of a shovel as a prop brings vibes of the painting ‘American Gothic,’ reimagined as a joyful (rather than dour) scene. “It’s cool that this photo shoot happened inches away from our plot where many of these flowers are grown,” Berquist said.
The Backpack Susan Nadeau chose the ubiquitous Jansport backpack to symbolize the student lifestyle. “At first, she was going to fill it with a bouquet of flowers, but then decided to design directly onto the outside surface,” Berquist explained. “She used cable ties to attach a ‘tube’ of chicken wire to the backpack; then inserted flowers into that base.” As both designer and model, she embraced the joy of a “just-about-to-be-free” senior by giving her reliable accessory its own floral tattoo.
The Graduates Sarah Johnson and Allison Virzi partnered to “flower” their traditional cap-and-gown graduation attire. “The photo shoot happened during graduation week, and this project symbolized how close we all became as the Stockbridge Floral Design team,” Virzi said. “We decided to make tulip stoles and daffodil tassels with the flowers we were harvesting that week.”
The Graduates by Stockbridge Floral Design for American Flowers Week 2025
Graduation stoles are often decorated with symbols, colors, or text that represent the student’s academic achievements or honors, so it’s fitting that the farmer-florists chose from their crops to design floral stoles. Ruby DiGregorio created the tassels by threading several daffodil varieties, attaching to the mortarboard caps. The construction of the stoles required two different mechanics. Virzi assembled her stole with a strand of tulips (complete with bulbs), attached to a long tube of chicken wire that draped around her neck. “It has so much movement because of the drapey quality of the foliage,” she said. Johnson’s stole features daffodils threaded onto a wire base. “We wanted to play with the mono-floral concept,” she said. “We had so many varieties of daffodils that when we started stringing them together, they looked really cool.”
Fiber and flowers created this handmade tunic
Berquist stepped out of the way in order to encourage student teams to explore their ideas and assume leadership for designing and producing, modeling, and handling photography. “There’s something magical about the collective energy of this program,” Berquist said. “We could have just come up with one botanical couture scene, but there were so many ideas and these students embraced the creative opportunity as they metabolized their learnings. As the instructor, I can corral people and get the materials there in one spot, but once that was done, it was amazing what happened next!”
Fifty state-by-state floral quilt squares comprise this vibrant illustration by Jenny M. Diaz, Slow Flowers Society’s longtime graphic artist and designer. Hand-painted by Diaz over the past several months, the 8-by-8- inch water color originals are based on a 1970s book of state quilt blocks. Truly stunning!
summer in bloom.
Welcome to our 2025 Botanical Couture edition celebrating American Flowers Week! As the original domestic flower promotional campaign, AFW was founded in 2015. By 2016, we commissioned our first botanical couture look, a red-white-and blue flower ‘fro designed by longtime Slow Flowers member, Susan McLeary. You can read more about that iconic look, as well as McLeary’s insights about how floral wearables have evolved over the past decade, in our new Q&A with her on page 20.
The looks continue, with seven floral garments created for 2025. We welcome returning botanical couture designers, Jennifer Reed, Kelly Shore, and Alanna Messner-Scholl, and are thrilled to welcome new contributors, including Andee Zeigler of Three Sepals, and students of Stockbridge School of Agriculture (University of Massachusetts), led by instructor Sarah Berquist. We love the inventiveness and we especially love Zeigler’s philosophy of growing flowers so you can “wear your garden.”
We also have inspiring features about several of our members’ creative expression through art and nature. You’ll enjoy reading about The Art of Floriography, the recent Indigo in Bloom exhibition in Charleston, and whimsical floral street art in Burlington, Vermont. It’s a busy season for everyone, and we look forward to following our community through American Flowers Week. Post your local blooms as we share the beauty and message of local flowers – we’re excited to see what you grow and create!
Installations, Floral Features, Q&As and Botanical Couture
Red, White & Bloom
American Flowers Week’s 10-year Restrospective of the “Best of” Botanical Couture opens with a new Q&A with our original designer of wearable flowers, Susan McLeary. This story is followed by iconic botanical couture looks, through the years – from 2016 to 2025.
