American flower growers promote locally grown
September 18, 2015 |06:11 AM
Guests dine among the flowers at the LynnVale Flower Farm and Studio in Gainesville, Va., this month, a stop on the American Grown Flowers "Field to Vase Dinner Tour” of U.S. flower farms. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Americans may have gotten so used to the idea of cheap, imported flowers from Colombia and Ecuador that they don’t realize there are still flower farms all over the country.
Growers of American flowers have spent the summer publicizing those farms with a series of “field to vase” dinners in California and in Boulder, Colo., Brooklyn, N.Y., and on September 3, at the LynnVale Studios, a flower farm and art gallery near Gainesville, Va., about an hour from Washington.
Dinners are scheduled this fall in Portland, Ore., Fallbrook, Calif., and Detroit.
The idea is to bring together people who not only like local food and wine, but eating and drinking among beautiful, locally grown flowers.
“It’s not common that people think ‘Where did the flowers come from?” said Kasey Cronquist, the executive director of the California Cut Flower Commission and administrator of the “American Grown” flower certification label.
The hostess of the Virginia event was Andrea Gagnon, an architect who started the LynnVale flower farm after she and her husband Lou, who had been a designer for Disney, decided to leave California and move back to the Virginia farm that had been in his family for eight generations.
After a tour of the farm, with its more than 100 varieties of specialty cut flowers, foliages and herbs, guests sat down to a four-course dinner prepared by Michael Kozich, a chef who with his wife, Christina Kozich, owns Bluewater Kitchen, based in Bluemont, Va., in nearby Loudoun County.
Gagnon, who grew up in a tobacco growing area of Connecticut, said she sells her flowers at farm markets in Burke, Va., Dupont Circle, and the Palisades neighborhood of Washington.
With local food and gardening so popular, growing and selling flowers “is a natural evolution,” Gagnon said.
The “Field to Vase“ event this month at LynnVale Flower Farm and Studio served guests a four-course meal after they enjoy a tour of the farm. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Left: Max Gagnon, son of flower farm owners Andrea and Lou Gagnon, helps himself to some Mount Airy Farm lamb prepared by Michael Kozich. Right: Gay Lynn Gil-Monterro, the mother of Lou Gagnon and owner of another farm nearby, offers some salad. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Andrea Gagnon and Kasey Cronquist, the administrator of the American Grown label, pose amidst the rows of flowers that Gagnon grows at LynnVale. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Left: Bill Frymoyer, a senior adviser at the Stewart and Stewart law firm who represents the California Cut Flower Commission in Washington, and his wife, Michele, enjoy the evening. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report) Right: Andrea Gagnon gives a flower arranging demonstration using blooms from her farm. (Katherine Blakeslee)
A stunning array of blooms at LynnVale Flower Farm is highlighted by the setting sun. (Katherine Blakeslee)
