Upsetting the flower cart

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This article was published 09/02/2024 (273 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This week, Erin Benzakein, owner of Floret Flowers, took a giant, transformational step in a new direction. Floret Flowers is a family-run flower farm and seed company in Washington’s Skagit Valley. There is not a flower farmer in North America who has not been influenced and inspired in some way by Benzakein’s visionary approach to building a successful flower business. Her creative vision has impacted flower farmers and gardeners not only in North America but also Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Benzakein is more than just a seed seller. She specializes in breeding new cut flower varieties for gardeners, farmers, and designers. This week, Benzakein released her first offering of farm-bred seed called Floret Originals. The new seed varieties have never been available to the public and they are not grown anywhere else on earth. As exciting and unique as that sounds, it also means that flower varieties carried in the past by Floret Flowers will not be available. Floret Flowers is at the height of its success so why make a change now in the seed varieties it offers? Why switch to breeding and developing new flower varieties which has become the largest and most ambitious project in the farm’s eighteen-year history? Some of the answer lies in Benzakein’s passionate motivation to champion small business. Pioneers are destined to shake things up and take the lead on innovation.

“Breeding for new flower varieties typically happens within giant corporations,” said Benzakein who I talked to recently by phone. “There really are so few if any independent plant breeders doing any kind of breeding work. There is such a disconnect between the breeder and the end consumer – the home gardener and the flower farmer.” Benzakein saw a better way. She skipped all the middlemen and went directly to the growers. She talked to American flower farmers, Canadian flower farmers, and flower farmers around the world.

“We asked them what they needed, what kind of flowers and colours that would make a difference on their farms and in their businesses,” said Benzakein. “We have a very large global network and all of us have been frustrated for so many years by the lack of flowers being bred with a local small flower farm in mind. We went to work trying to create flower varieties to fit that need.”

It has taken seven years of growing and refining hundreds of flowers and now, twenty-six varieties that Benzakein has put her heart and soul into developing are available to purchase. They are unique cultivars of zinnias, celosia, and dahlias. “While we are only seeing 26 varieties as part of this first offering,” said Benzakein, “we have nearly 500 unique varieties that are being developed at Floret as part of our breeding program. This new offering marks a turning point for us in the business and we are retiring the old varieties.” Let’s take a closer look at what makes the new Floret Originals so special, not only for flower farmers but also home gardeners.

Mass-produced flowers are typically hybrids and big seed companies do not put resources into educating growers about flower seed saving and breeding, said Benzakein. “If you save seed from a hybrid variety and grow it out the following year, the plants that you get from that seed will not come back true to the plant you collected it from. It can be very frustrating.” The varieties that Floret has bred are all open-pollinated which means the flowers are fertilized by bees, birds, etc., and even the wind and rain. When you save and grow seed from an open-pollinated plant, the same plant is produced the following year.

Why the focus on zinnias, dahlias, and celosia and what makes these new varieties so unique? “Zinnias are one of the most popular summer blooming cut flowers you can grow. Every flower farm that I know of has zinnias in production in their fields but the big complaint has always been that they are all so bright and bold and while that is wonderful for farmers markets or selling to grocery stores, brides and florists want softer colours and more pastels so I went to work on that,” said Benzakein.

Zinnia Golden Hour is a new variety with large flowers that come in soft melony shades of warm honey and cantaloupe. “I named this variety after the last hour of the day on the farm when the light gets golden and covers everything in almost a glitter. In September, when the flowers are in their full glory, they are the exact colour of the golden light.”

Zinnia Little Flower Girl is another variety close to Benzakein’s heart. When she was a small child, her nickname was Little Flower Girl. Miniature button-like flowers in shades of blush, soft pink, pale peach, and champagne are carried on tall, strong stems that are ideal for flower arranging.

Dahlias, too, are what every flower farmer and gardener wants. In the last few years, interest in growing dahlias from seed has surged, says Benzakein. “You can save the tubers, they will come back true, and you can actually discover and name a dahlia that has never existed before,” said Benzakein. “And it’s so much more affordable to grow dahlias with seed than it is with tubers. What’s amazing about growing dahlias from seed is that it’s only about 90 days from the time they germinate to the first flower, so it is very similar to a cosmo or a zinnia.”

Benzakein has created four dahlia mixes. One of the mixes called Petite Florets, offers a beautiful and muted range of pastel tones including lavender, peach, apricot, dusty rose, sunbleached raspberry, and buttercream, each one with an iridescent quality. “They’re not like any other dahlias I’ve seen before,” said Benzakein.

Celosia is the unsung hero of the garden, said Benzakein. But much of the breeding has gone into bedding plants for flower gardens and containers in colours like bright scarlet red, canary yellow, or magenta pink. There was a need for heavily-branched celosia varieties with long stems and more muted colours that would be much more versatile for flower arranging and complimenting other plants in the garden. New Celosia Rose Gold, for example, is a very unusual antique colour with two or three different tones mixed into the petals and a metallic wash over the plumes. The free-flowering plants are very productive, easy to grow, and blend in so beautifully, said Benzakein.

A growing guide is included with every seed order from the three different plant groups. Later this summer, Floret Flowers plans to offer a free online seed saving course. To learn more about the new Floret Originals farm-bred seed varieties, visit www.floretflowers.com .

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