A Year in Flowers Q&A with Erin Benzakein and Jill Jorgensen

happy launch day today urine Flowers is finally in the world hopefully you're holding it in your hands as we are we're so queer so pumped can you tell yep thank you so much for your support of the book it really means the world to us all your pre-orders all your orders just everything you guys have done to rally behind this project is just like made it the success already and it's just starting to be out in the world so I'm Aaron and I'm Jill and we've got this and the three of us plus Jul each I worked on this book together for well over a year yes just the writing and photography part and then oh my gosh the copy editing and the proofing and all that was another year so we have all poured a lot of our life love love in these pages yeah so we're really excited Oh cameras on yep so I met Aaron about 13 years ago and I was the first florist to buy flowers from the farm as it was just getting started and we used to make bouquets through the night in the garage and talk about wouldn't it be so fun if we could work together someday someday and we're like how would we ever do that like how would we ever be able to what would that even look like and then all these years later we're like living our dream yes so we finally have the opportunity to write a book together and it really started about two years ago and now it's finally here yep okay so this is Timmy the cat okay she's she it seriously knows when the camera comes out Sam and put you down Timmy say hi to all your fans everybody Australia culture the ginger awesome so we really we wrote this book to really show what's possible using local seasonal flowers yep and the goal was really to show you examples in real life with real blooms and also put a face to the local flower farming scene connecting farmers and florists and home gardeners and just really like connect people with nature and flowers all in one package is so distracting and really to like it close that loop yep and really yeah put a put a face and the names together and really kind of hype up what local flowers are doing yeah or local growers are doing yep so if you haven't ordered a copy of the book don't worry it's available from online retailers and we're also Aaron's been signing away thousands so many thousands four thousand so far but more to go but yeah we have signed copies in the floret shop but they are also on Amazon Barnes & Noble Powell's down in Oregon we've got like international sellers like wherever books are sold you can get it yeah and we have this great two-part video series if you order the book you can go to our website go to the book page and you can enter your receipt number and we have a two-part video on how to make a hand-tied market bouquet yep so this was one of the most popular projects from the book when we asked readers what they would like to see us bring to life yes it's kind of a tie between a centerpiece and then the gifts okay and so we but we feel like this is the most usable like you could take anything that's blooming in your garden you could take stuff from the grocery store you can whip up a super beautiful low case so when you get the book you also get these two videos plus like a little worksheet thing that every guy's so it's super it's like our way of saying thank you or your support oh my gosh to me so last week Erin hopped on Instagram and asked viewers what they would like us to answer on camera about the making of the book so we're here today to answer some of your burning questions and also kind of give some insight into the book writing process yep so we are in the floret shop you can see the seed racks behind us we've got the last of the books like we're almost out the magazine yeah but we want to do is welcome you into our world okay so let's dive into some questions so there are a lot of new followers that would like to know how you got your start flower farming and then arranging so can you fill them in so it started a long time ago we moved from the city up here to the country because we just wanted to have a life more connected to nature I was trying to figure out what to do where I could be home with our kids but also make a little bit of money just enough to do like help contribute to groceries in the heat stuff like that but I could do something connected to nature but also be home with the kids like what could I do so I tried out a lot of business a little bad I had a baby vegetable business and found out it takes a lot of really small zucchini yeah we tried a good heirloom cider orchard didn't take into account that it would take like ten years for the trees to bear fruit had a rainbow egg goodness all my neighbors just got out all the time yeah my neighbors still hate me because of that because they crapped all over their porches I take him eggs as an apology but it was out of control we had a hundred chickens in our yard what else do I do candle business mandals a lot of ideas I mean they weren't bad ideas I just did them badly so but I finally found flowers so my great grandmother who had really helped me connect with nature as a child had always grown sweet peas so when she passed away I was able to bring some of her ashes home and put it in my first garden and I grew sweet peas and they bloomed so abundantly I cut them I gave him to the neighbors I failed our house I gave him to everybody I met and then somebody ordered a $5 jar of sweet peas he drove a long way yeah I drove all the way out to Camino Island it's like a 45-minute Drive to deliver my five dollar jar I was so nervous I just like wanted to ding-dong-ditch I hit the doorbell and I was gonna set him down then lady open the door she took the flowers she smelled them started crying sort of telling me about her grandmother of course Grammy had just passed so I start crying telling her about Grammy and then I was like I knew that was a you know it was like a light bulb moment like I knew that that was what I was supposed to do with my life so the whole way home I cried the whole way home like finally after all these years of struggling and trying I finally found what I was supposed to do so started flower for me and it started very tiny in my backyard grew a little bit more a little bit more and then along the way I didn't just want to be the grower of flowers I also wanted to make beautiful arrangements but the world was very divided at the time that you're either a farmer or you're a florist you couldn't be both you had to pick a camp and if you did both you were somehow competition but I didn't agree with that I felt like why couldn't I make beautiful arrangements of all the flowers I worked so hard to grow so I made up the word farmer florist and that's what I became yeah yeah so it was really hard to learn about seasonal floral design using local product because all the books in the library yeah nobody was really they were just starting in New York to use natural ingredients but all of the resources at the time were like very stiff bouquets with like baby marshmallows in the base and like spray paint and I didn't recognize anything in the book so the technique was helpful but I didn't recognize any of the ingredients so it was many years of trial and error trying to figure out how to make natural beautiful looking arrangements that lasted in the base the didn't wilt didn't fall apart but using the ingredients that I could grow in my own garden so it's a long story short like that's this book right yeah the years and this is really the book that we wish existed when we were both starting out in floral design because we needed like the real techniques like how do you really make a boutonniere how do you make a corsage but how do you make one using flowers that you can source locally like how do you have really really killer technique yeah so that the thing lasts but it looks beautiful and natural and elegant so that was the real that was the challenge yep so what's the difference between cut flower garden your first book and this book ok so cut flower garden was all about growing flowers definitely from start to finish how to grow flowers in your backyard on a small scale just how to grow them and we touched on design just a little bit but there wasn't enough room to do a deep dive so hearing flowers picks up where cut flower garden left off and I think of them as sister books right they're meant to be a pair you're meant to use them together so you can learn how to grow the flowers and this is where you can learn what to do with them once you pick them this will also the way that we designed this book will also inspire your garden choices because we showed you so many varieties and we label each one everything is labeled down to the variety names so you're not gonna be guessing what something is and all they're okay sorry about Timmy she's really trying to steal the show there ever girl yeah okay so really we had touched on this a little bit but the goal with this new book besides the gorgeous photos what sort of information does it contain for the home gardener well the bit the best thing about this book is that okay so for a project we show all of the different varieties and we've labeled them with a variety name so that you can order the seeds you can get the plants you can tuck them into your garden and then we also show them growing so that you can see what does a pansy look like growing a lot of people don't know a lot of people that don't aren't super connected to nature don't know what things look like growing in the soil so we wanted to bridge the gap between like the end product the arrangement all the way down to the plant in the garden and connect the two worlds and then we listed every single Jill listed every single variety with like tiny hands that he taped under the pages like this we picked the most complicated way to do a book that you possibly could but we wanted this to be a resource that you pull off the shelf that you've never it never runs out of being um kind of usefulness that it's like this resource that you can go back to your enemy again so yeah so yes a lot of love in the page it's our third baby for each of us hopefully so can you share a bit about the process from idea to manuscript what makes you decide that a book idea has to become real and then do you wait for the publishers approval or do you go look for partners afterward so with this project I really we were really torn do after cut flower garden people love now love growing flowers do we start diving into crop specific books like dahlias lion peonies garden roses or do we make the book that is still missing in the world that people really need and honestly we did not want to do this book in the beginning because we knew how challenging it would be to actually make it this is not easy we go into color theory but in a very clear approachable way we go into all of the ingredients selection we have an A to Z section in the back we do all the bouquets how did step by step how to make them examples through every season this was so unbelievably challenging but it had to come to life like the book like hanging above it like we knew we had to make it right so the goal I mean we have the first book here's the second these two belong together to make one like they are a cent and then from there we will go into like dahlias peony sweet peas but this book needed to exist in the world at this time in history and so we took up the torch to do it yes but we had so many emails and questions from followers fans readers asking about floral designs so we thought well is this even a good idea to do a flower arranging book we had 5000 people yes or our survey you guys are amazing like you can't that doesn't even have it yeah so taking everyone's input what they wanted us to cover what should be included I mean holy all of us all of it so we actually created a book based on what you said you wanted like it is all in here oh man is it all in here so based on that the surveys we then put together the outline for the book right and that's like based on all of the things that you guys want and then we ran that outline by a bunch of our flower farming friends and designers and said what's missing yep what what else should we elaborate on do you see any holes in this and then we had a very solid base to work from totally and like how complicated do we make this do is it for the beginner is it but what the goal was to like bridge the two worlds like really solid mechanics the advice like how to do this like in a professional way but then explained in such a clear easy to understand way that anybody with no experience could start and have success yep so we put we spent a lot of money - yeah seeing if this was even a good idea if it was a viable idea so by the time we went to the publisher to chronicle books with this idea we had proved that you guys wanted it that the professionals in the industry agreed that it was a good idea in our approach to explaining it so we had we had proof mm-hmm but we were still like of course then we still had to make it but we had a lot behind it to tell that it was a good idea yeah yeah so when we went to pitch the book to Chronicle we had a really a full book proposal we can tell a little bit more about like well the components of that so both proposal usually spans it can be like 20 25 pages the first part of it explains the project it's kind of like a business plan for a book so you're explaining the project you're really selling it then you've got to sell yourself we've got our BIOS and all of the social proof and social media numbers which is it feels really yucky when you have to make it you're like oh I don't have to sell this but so you've got the project you've got the people that are making it you have a sample chapter so you usually have to include that so they get a sense of your writing style what the photos might look like like how you're suggesting you're going to approach the book and then in the back part you do comparable titles so that would be other books that are in my same genre like floral design and flower growing yeah so that we have to lift those and those weren't always the easiest to find because we could find a lot of floral design books but nothing with local flowers so that was a bit of a challenge but to show them that the idea was a good one and that the book would sell because a publisher they're taking a risk you're taking a risk because you're spending all this time and energy to write the book but they're taking a risk because they're printing it and shipping it all over the world and they want to make sure that people are gonna want the book that you're gonna write hmm so a question that came through is like how far into the writing process do you have to be before you pitch it we just wrote a sample chapter and then had that little sample to go with the book proposal but we didn't start writing it until we had like full buy-in yes because with cut flower garden the heartbreaking part was I pitched what I thought the book should be how it should be organized and they took the whole outline and reworked the entire thing and which was okay in the end and ultimately it was very it turned out wonderful but it was super challenging for me to have to sit for this book we didn't get too deep into it we were very clear on our idea very clear on everything you guys wanted it included but we didn't like write most of it knowing that we might have to change that knowing that this book is fluid like a it's like a creature that wants to be born and we're the midwives that bring it into the world like it's not our book I mean we were we helped tell the stories and Chris documents the process and all the beautiful photos but the book it's its own being almost yeah it really is all weird but it's true yeah so next question I would love to know your writing process in the midst of all your flower farming marketing and multiple multitude of responsibilities so with cut flower garden I wrote it a little bit at a time like one essays say like black-eyed Susans I'd write down then I'd write the next one then I wrote the next one it was the hardest year of my life like I it was so difficult to break it up like that so with this book Joe and I have a really great way we call it going dark and it's how we have done anything where we've created something that's very complicated very layered challenging we just go into my dining room close the curtains yep Chris makes food for us make sure all the meals are ready we have a lot of coffee a lot of Lucroy and we just go dark and we just write like as soon as we start writing like I'm pacing the room she's typing we're like got these big post-its on the wall we're writing ideas and where do we just start we just go because we've found that if we try to wait for inspiration to strike it doesn't and really once you get over the hump of resistance yeah then it starts to fly so we can go for a five six seven days of writing solid rather than writing one day a week more three hours a day that might work for some other people but we found that like the team just covered for us we hid away and we took like a three-month window of time where we wrote all of the text mm-hmm and then the only thing that we wrote in the moment were the essays about the bouquets yes we've make them Jill's typing and writing us we're going we're taking notes so those were written throughout the season but the rest of it was written in my one big chunk chunk of time and then we obviously had to go document the flowers as they were blooming so we had to do kind of fits and spurts of the overheads and the essential techniques so that was really we matched that as well but we had to kind of wait for things to come on in yeah so it took us a year to photograph it because we had to document things throughout the season but the writing we tried to batch it that's how we did it and we would highly recommend we didn't do that with the Delia book that's coming in about a year and I was way harder it's a lot harder so it's like once you get into the zone and you're like obsessing about flowers keep writing there okay how did you decide on which types of arrangements to include in the book is it your specific style or did you include unique styles inspired by other designers so we I mean there's a million different things you could make hanging installations big beautiful crazy stuff but well the goal of this book was to help people learn the basics like how so we we really narrowed it down to the arrangements that you're going to use most often exactly you're gonna come back to these you're always gonna need to know how to make a centerpiece you're always gonna want to be able to make a statement piece hand tied gift okay a bridal bouquet like these are the things you're really going to use and then we also sprinkled in bonus projects like a wrist corsage that Suman Cleary taught us how to make and then a flower crown yeah the Jill is so great at and then we did two different types of wreaths so we did our tried-and-true bouquets where we give you step by step instruction and they'd be gained in the book and then we show those bouquets we show a centerpiece in all four seasons we show an urn in all four seasons and then we do one project per season to inspire you so we tried to narrow it I mean in the beginning there were like 20 different options but we narrowed it to the top six yeah types of arrangements that you're gonna go back to all the time yeah okay and then do you like the bouquets in this book we're inspired by other designers or how how do you feel with your like personal aesthetic well of course they were inspired like everything that we've created is inspired in some way by another designer someone who came before us someone who's alongside us that's doing something interesting so you'll see the beautiful wrist corsage that we teach you how to do in here we originally taught this technique by Sue McCleary a passion flower so there's just of course it was they were inspired by other designers but what I found is that your own personal style always emerges even if you don't want it to so it's like your fingerprint exactly so this is definitely like my style of arranging our style of arranging it's abundant its lush its natural it's a little bit out of control we stuff as many ingredients but we also are really showing you like step by step how to do it so it's not just emotional and we're going for it it's very like specific and focused and we break down it step by step to show you exactly how yeah what advice do you have for an aspiring floristry student ok advice I would say again with your style like you can go learn from the best designers in the world the most talented people and all of that is fantastic but your style will always emerge and that's not a bad thing it might feel bad in the moment you might want your work to look like Ariela shazar or Sara Ellis I show up because they're so talented but the world needs to see what you have like what your style is so I would say you can learn from all of the amazing teachers but really coming back to what you think is beautiful and not having to like copy everyone else copying in the beginning that's great I mean that's how I started I would take a picture of Ariela centerpiece that would tape it up in my garage and I would try to figure out how to do it which was impossible because I didn't know the technique at the time which we teach you in here and I'd end up in tears like but I was trying to copy the people I admired the most which is a great starting point but eventually your own style is going to emerge and that's an awesome thing and really embrace that yeah because what's beautiful to you that's what's most important exactly ok next question has Chris always been into photography what a wonderful duo that you are one growing beauty and one capturing beauty that's a good way to frame it no he is not always been into photography I was taking an online photo class and it was super helpful but I also really challenged when it comes to technology and understanding the digital camera and I was asking his advice and he was helping me he was reading the material and watching over my shoulder and then he started to pick up the camera like I wanted the photographer and then he started taking way better photos than me and it was actually awesome so he learned through this online program and it was like the rest is history he just started documenting the bouquets I was making things were happening in the field and it really gave us this massive advantage when it came to blogging and writing and books and all the things that have come afterwards but I was only able to ever do these things because his beautiful photography was there to wrap all of the words around so yeah he's self-taught and okay quickly done yeah good job Chris okay I would love to know more about your favorite sources for supplies we've had a lot of comments about the flower frogs and the pillows yeah bring those so in the book we have all of our favorite supplies all the ribbon that we use the wire the all the stuff so it's all in here and then their sources are listed in the back so they're all there but we wanted to highlight a couple of our faith favorites right now so this beautiful compote was created or designed by our friend down in Australia Oh flora Tommy Shaw these are so unbelievably beautiful that's a perfect size they say she has three different colors for wedding work these are so great for table arrangements and we sent these out to all of the influence or goodie boxes as a gift and these are like their incredible work of art yeah so she's amazing Francis Palmer I mean these are these are something you pass on to your children like this is a yeah I have a big collection now we splurge to get these for the book to be able that we were like this is our be able to do it so this is from Francis Palmer her work every piece is one-of-a-kind they're all handmade in her studio by her she wraps these are works of art yes and then this is farmhouse pottery I have a whole collection of these these are really great like they're super sturdy yep you can do like big beautiful things they're just like they're they're stunning very like farmy those guys are great so those are like my three favorite vessels yeah and this is the Holly Chapel pillow yep this been a game-changer because instead of using floral foam you can use chicken wire or one of these pillows yeah and it nests in the vase and you can tape it with waterproof tape yeah and then you've got this beautiful grid that you can hide with all yeah and our chicken wire works great but the nice thing about this is it's reusable you can wash these suckers off you can you don't have to bend anything isn't rust exactly these are incredible so Holly Chapel is a like very well-known floral designer she teaches classes all over the world and she really saw a need in the industry trying to help the industry become more green and move away from toxic flower foam so she invented these pillows that are offered by syndicates tails and we'll link that places to get them they're in multiple sizes and then she also made one called the egg which is for making like a hand tied bouquet that looks very loose and natural if you wanted to do a bridal bouquet but these inventions are transforming the floral industry so Holly you're our hero these are a change and everybody's like them and then this is a pin frog from floral genius and this is another game changer we use these all the time until you adhere at the bottom with adhesive clay and then you can stick it down into the bottom of your base yeah and then it really helps kind of keep all of those woodier stems in place yeah so once it's secure you can poke into there and then you get this beautiful drippy arrangement it's wrapped in plastic that's why it looks like that but all of these are featured in the book Plus favorite ribbon sources everything we gave you all the goods so these are our favorites our go to those okay and Erin what was your favorite bouquet in the book and what was the most challenging they are the same one okay let's see that's your favorite part we pre marked this so we wouldn't fumble okay so my favorite bouquet was the bridal bouquet and it I was really I got to study with Ariela shazar who is the godmother of flowers she is incredible and she really inspired me to like go big or go home Yeah right so this arrangement was also the most challenging because we had to show it I don't know if you see this if it's too shiny we had to show the step by step process but the problem with that is that I was so focused on trying to show you the exact steps that it was very challenging to have the end bouquet look like we didn't get to fluff it as much so after we made it did all the stat O's I remade it because I wanted it to be even more beautiful and I'm so happy with how it turned out but I love these colors I love the ingredients and I love Arriola great so my favorite is a centerpiece oh sorry I'm summer and it's got the echinacea in it so it I love it because it's a very kind of approachable garden flower but it's elevated with this color palette and I I don't know Erin seemed you put this together like so seamlessly it came together so fast so fast it was like we made a nest of hydrangeas all these different and then just layered in all of the ingredients and we're like whoa like a lot of them were really difficult because what looks beautiful to your eye doesn't always look beautiful to the camera and so the challenge was to get the arrangements to look really beautiful to the camera as well and this one just it was like effortless yeah on the first try I love the colors and then this antique Bowl that Erin found at the Rue was it the industry up so it's just it's one of my favorites and then she most challenging most challenging oh man you guys color is so hard - we got a gray hairs for sure so when you when it comes to color theory there are so many theories but there's a very traditional way of approaching explaining color hmm and it makes absolutely no sense right and the color wheel does not include brown or silver or all the colors that have cranberry tinged foliage right the things that we know in nature that are in the garden are not always found on the color wheels so in the beginning we were like we had this idea of how we're gonna explain it we finally just threw it out the window and we're like okay he'll explain color to me and just like well I would show you I would show you the difference between warm and cool like I can't explain it to you I have to show you and and once we showed it we could figure out how to explain it so we cut the heads off these garden roses and peonies it was like hundreds of them and then we arranged them with what Reed's warm to the eye and what is cool to the eye and then after we did it we're like that's how you explain what is cool totally and then we went on to foliage and to show all of the different shades of green that are available because you don't really think about it you've got the dark emerald green you've got silvery green you've got chartreuse and then you have Apple like if you start to sort your ingredients in the gardening you're foliages into different piles they kind of fall into four main categories so it was the process of actually doing it and explaining it to each other I'm like okay well but how about that and she's like well I don't know but how about that so this was very much like us crawling around in the yard in my yard with a door and a bunch of foliage yep and I brought stuff from my yard and we went and just foraged around but this is what came up we didn't want to make anyone feel stupid and especially ourselves like we read about color through your like I feel like a total idiot I don't even know what they're saying what's the difference between chroma hue/saturation totally like show me show me like oh now I can see why I wouldn't miss mix chartreuse and emerald they might not look good together but our goal was to like its advanced techniques or concepts but explained in a very down-to-earth way that we can understand that you can understand that will hopefully be helpful and inspiring and liberating not make you feel stupid but like looking bad that's my favorite this has another great spread but like these are not represented on the color wheel you can't find copper or like this beautiful chocolatey Brown or the acid green but these are all the different colors available in foliage so we're really wanting to show you that like think beyond green if you're using if you're wanting to do kind of a rusty centerpiece look at all the foliage is you could use to tie in so for gardeners maybe you're not super interested in flower arranging yet but this is gonna inspire you like you need to plant all these things in your yard because then you can make the most beautiful arrangements so we're trying to sucker you into beautiful stuff and show you what's possible and then we're taking that even further and showing layering and we instill her bridging yeah but very complicated concepts explained and visually in a very down-to-earth way was our goal and we were dreading this section we laughs we did it laughs which we shouldn't have procrastinate but I'm glad we did and then we reshot it and the lot went into it but we stayed stayed friends yeah okay and then last question how long did it take you to sign all these books days we broke it out over because we could only fit so many on the tables and the poor tables were starting to buckle so I think I did it over a three-day period yeah and you can sign 10 in 45 seconds because I used to make market bouquets for years I think would I make 30 to 40 thousand biggest market bouquets and it was all about timing myself because you're gonna plan the day so I started timing myself setting books I'm like oh geez but yeah they were signed with love though but every book from the shop is signed it comes with seeds it's kissed by all the ladies that work here there's so much love so much love we are so grateful for all of your support around this project from start to finish if you answer the survey in the beginning you pre-order your copy if you haven't ordered your copy but you're excited like thank you so much like this was such a writing a book is such a labor of love and it's also such a risk like just it you don't know if anybody's gonna show up and want it or love it or share about it and you've all come out in full force to support this project it's making it so fun hear us it's really like that's the best part is the excitement around the book and it's also showing the world that local seasonal flowers are here to stay that they matter that the people that grow them and use them matter and we're really wanting to like bridge the gap and provide the information but the fact that this book is already like been so well received is going to make a huge positive impact in the gardening world and in the floral world so thank you for that I really like helping transform an entire industry which ultimately impact the planet and all of the people touching all these flowers and growing them in a really great way so you guys Rock thank you so much like we're so happy for you to hold this if you get a copy if you bought it from any an online retailer leave a review if you would we know it's annoying and it's gonna take you like five minutes but the more reviews the book has good bad or ugly we hope we hope good that we hope that you like it but it it will help the book climb to the top like more people will see it so if you leave a review we would greatly appreciate it yes and then as your books arrive I mean they're going out on pallets right now yep so you should hopefully be holding your hands today yeah so hashtag a year in flowers on social media so again we can see we want to see all these books arriving into your hands I'd love to see you holding it we're gonna do a contest where the most creative photos of the book are gonna win prizes in the floor up shop so we're so grateful for all of your support we're so pumped for you to get this and like thank you guys really thank you yes thanks

Channel: Floret

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Id: B1BplEHhJ1g

Length: 34min 22sec (2062 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020