Let Me Introduce You: Floret Original Flowers

this is so exciting the thing that's kept me motivated when it comes to breeding flowers it's not the goal the goal would be to have a beautiful Variety in the end to share with the world it's actually getting to spend time with the [Music] plants to wake up each morning and see these beautiful little creatures to work with them and listen to them and ask them who they want to be that's been the best part for me they are unique and they have little tiny beautiful flaws they're streak and watercolored with a little bit of glitter spring on them they're so full of life is that cool both Hearts yeah I'm excited to see what kind of effect they have on other people because I know how powerful it's been in my own life okay here's flores's daughters I think this is the best bucket of the bunch what why do you love that one the most well they're just so beautiful every one of them o except that one she looks a little beat up I've just never seen aalia where all of the seedlings from it are beautiful look at that it is freaking spectacular that's just like such a surprise I started breeding flowers I would say six or seven years ago and in the beginning I didn't even know what I was doing I had been a flower Farmer for a dozen years and I still every year was ordering my seed in packets and it like didn't occur to me where my seed came from it was really just kind of a quest for understanding and learning golden hour golden hour start of all of it that wild just one flower I know I just had found one plant in a giant field that I wanted to save seed from they look good they do they look so good yeah thank God I was able to collect a few flower heads at the end of the season off that one plant I saved it then next year we grew it out and saved seed off of that and each year I have been planting it again been roguing it and working on it and now it is a lovely stable uniform variety called Golden hour getting dangerous now probably 80% of the new Zas like all the things behind me came from some little sport or offshoot of golden hour I mean it really is like the mother of all it's the mother of The flored Originals really tell me about Chris's rainbow well this is really unicorn Sunset we also call it Christ rainbow it's going to be the next big thing it is going to be the next big thinger it Chris is Rainbow okay so we are filming Chris is standing on the tailgate all flowers are beautiful all of them and they all deserve a place in the garden but I think up until recently what made it to Market kind of had to fit in a box and what's so cool is I got to throw all those rules out and write my own there's our first girl beauty we go start all okay I think they've been there all along it's just they weren't being picked they weren't being chosen going and that's where all of this has come from okay so will you just make sure that there's no cruddy flower heads cuz I can't really see all good yeah it looks pretty nice is that swooping so good girls and guys and creatures this doesn't even look real at that those so cute H they're like little kind of babies they're like little flower pills they are since named after my four-year-old self okay beautiful got it I can't even not so [Music] pretty I don't feel like anything's missing I have the language about using the email when available feature for the varieties people are interested in and that's all clear but I want in the introduction for to kind of like lead with that excitement yeah mhm hey Timmy okay we want to just read what we got so okay this this is this is what I led with here on the farm we've been busy harvesting and cleaning all of the seed that's part of our breeding program and the crops are looking incredible that's good yeah right and then after more than six years of dedicated intentional work I'm thrilled to announc that we finally have enough breeding seed to share like how long am I waiting to say that and that deserves an exclamation point yep yep so over in the flet shop there are 26 varieties that are going to be part of this first offering that are going to go out into the world in the new year but here on the farm we've got close to 400 unique varieties maybe 500 that are part of the breeding program so there is a lot going on that is not ready to put out into the world quite yet all right I just wanted to check on them make sure everything is getting watered and then I wanted to put all the labels in mhm just cuz why not yeah they look good don't they yeah that's really exciting look there's a little Robin on the post yeah love it whenever I'm looking at a new potential variety I love anything that is unique or different like that's always the first thing I'm looking for and and then does it have a beautiful color good old Al glow she lives to see another day I'm definitely drawn to the soft more pastel colors because the market is really lacking those and it needs it we need more natural flowers that are attractive to pollinators that are in beautiful soft colors that can be grown in a wide range of climates especially hot ones because the planet is heating up and the weather is becoming more extreme feels a little bit like a rally cry definitely like kind of stamping my rod down and saying like this is what I believe in this is what I stand for this is what I think should change which feels [Music] very scary but at the same time it's time to talk about it I'm really excited to start that conversation totally yeah [Music] yeah why is this so calming I love doing this the work that we're doing here we're focusing on varieties that can be grown in a wider range of climates and they cannot be shipped typically nearly every variety that makes it onto the market is being bred with transportation in mind it is meant to be part of a global flower distribution chain the varieties that we're breeding they just can't handle it they are not able to be taken out of water and put in a box and I think that's so fantastic because if you want to work with them and if you want to enjoy them you you either have to grow them or find someone locally to do it you have to support your local farmer precious metals I look at this like these are the biggest Zas I've ever seen look at that and that's just normal like I was just in the hoop house and just grabbed any old random flower is that great amazing I mean I've got a lot of seed I've been stashing so squirreling I've been squirreling I've been waiting for the big day feels like at the time is right for it like the world needs them so this first offering that we're going to be putting out into the world this winter includes three main groups of plants we have zenas cogia and delas the first is zenas which are easy to grow super productive they're the ultimate Cut Flower the more you pick them the more they bloom pollinators love them but all of them are really lovely kind of pastel colors Salia are a great hardworking group of plants they have these unusual kind of velvety blooms they either come in these big kind of candelabras or kind of silky tassels or big fan shaped blooms they kind of look like a coral reef underwater they're very textural and unusual they love the heat they love humidity and they're super easy to grow the last group are dalas they're so wild and unexpected and uncontrolled like you just you kind of don't know what you're going to get but we have figured out how to refine dalas down into these groups so while you don't know the exact varieties you're going to get you do kind of have a sense of the shapes that are going to come out of the [Music] mixes so I'm in the middle of making different selections of zenas from our breeding program so what we've done is we've planted out seeds from each of the selections that we saved last year and not all of them come back true to what I want them to be only a small percentage the first year a larger percentage the next year and then each year you keep working on them more and more of them look like the ones that you want so what I'm doing is when I look at a Bed full of flowers I want to compare it to what what did the mother of it last year look like so I'm going to look up DC giant blush selections and I'm gonna hold it up next to it and be like yeah okay that looks right that one's good um where that one not so much still beautiful but not what I'm going for so the what I'm doing is I'm wanting to like confirm against what I had last year and then find the ones in this bed that came back true and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to dig them up take all the ones that are correct and I'm going to move them to a smaller Greenhouse or what I call a fly solation which is basically a little tiny space where I can put the plants that I want inside and then I can introduce flies which is what we use for pollinators to help with pollination and Seed set and then I'll save the seed from that grow it out next year and hopefully more of the flowers that return will look like their mother I this might be my favorite zenia flower of the entire year look at that she's just perfection have you ever seen anything like that or look at the one behind her with this little fuzzy middle and then these almost look like feathers sticking out of the center all of the varieties that are in this his house originated from seed that was gifted to me by um Corey at dawn Creek who is a Zenia breeder and she sent some of her stuff for me to try and grow out and I started discovering Little Treasures in the mix now I have an entire Greenhouse full of different selections but it's all thanks to another breeder sharing their seed with me so someone else's great ideas can kind of spark and give way to new ideas that bless you and then people after me will get them and it's just this like beautiful kind of Flowery ripple effect Corey is a really interesting beautiful soul that I met some years ago when I was first getting into flower breeding I saw some pictures of these pastel colored zenas that she posted online and I was totally freaking out like there was nothing like it that I'd ever seen they were colors that didn't exist and we struck up like an instant friendship and have been pen pals back and forth for years and years and we've exchanged seeds few years ago we started talking about some of her limitations cuz she's on a very small piece of land and we actually have ground to grow in up here we started playing around with the idea of us taking a few of her mixes helping to refine them and work on them kind of in the direction that she was hoping to go and then being able to offer some of her seeds along with ours when the time was right they're so cute this one has such great energy like just out of control sweetness yes but it is like with your pictures and your description and then trying to follow that and be like I think this is what you want to be and I think this is what you want this one to be like I don't want to mess this up they're beautiful Aaron they're so beautiful I am so happy for these little guys living their best Liv they're having a good time yes what's really exciting about this first big like initial offering is that there are four different Dawn Creek mixes that are going to be going alongside of all of our flowers at the same time I have these very particular ideas about what I'm going for and then like realizing that once they're out there in the world the magic is that whoever picks it up like they'll resonate with certain ones you're empowering people to save the seeds you know save seeds this is how you do it you can do it you don't want to like hoard it or hold on to it but at the same time it's like there's got to be some kind of like code of conduct or like a a general like set of not rules but like respect and like this is how we're all going to play this is how we're going to play you can follow or not but like set tone of for all the years that work that have gone into this that is the big question is how can an independent plant breeder actually make a living this is I don't know yeah it's going to happen we're in Uncharted Territory but I think that that's our that's the problem to solve which sounds like such a fun problem to solve love that problem I love problem I mean yes I do actually I love them so here's all your these are all your babes outside so like here's the coral Cactus and then oh my God I know this is where you just need to go like lay down so good wow each of us as breeders are channeling something into the world and that takes so much [Music] yeah how do we honor that I really have a lot of faith in like your first steps here starting with the royalties starting with the like building up of people's awareness so that there's more of like a knowledge and language around what is the effort it takes for like people to grow these seeds out and have them be what they are being with a certain plant over Generations it's like building a community with the plants and you get to see them through all their different stages and you get to look forward to what new surprising beautiful things you could have never predicted are going to come next I don't want to keep people from that it's like that saying you know you hold sand too tightly in your hand and it'll slip through your fingers M I don't want to do that with these so here's your flush my goodness wow ah right it's amazing hello everybody I know right that yeah what just there's so many little souls in there they're like yeah they're they're waiting they're they feel ready don't they I get us out there the breeding project is the biggest project that I've ever taken on one because of the amount of years that the project has spanned and then in terms of quantity we have never produced this much seed of any particular variety it's only 26 varieties but many many many more packets of each variety where in the past we had a much wider offering but a much smaller quantity of each one we're also retiring the flet seed line that we've offered up until this point we're you know all the kind of standard traditional varieties and we're focusing going forward on only the Flora originals and the breeding seed that's coming from the farm so it's kind of a it's a big deal in you know like our history or whatever like it's a it's a big moment when I'm harvesting I like to think that the plants are like so stoked about it cuz we're here to taking care of them and so much more of their seed will end up continuing on than seed would in the wild you know like this is like where it's at if you're a flowering plant so these hanging on to the base of the petals is the seed right there so when you pull that each petal has seed attached to it oh is this Chris's rainbow yeah this is the flower that's going to change the world I'm just saying Aaron thinks otherwise but you just wait it's going to be it's going to be the one it's beautiful but it doesn't really go with the the breeding colors like it's not like the color you would pick to do the style of Arrangements that that Aaron likes to do I think um I think they're really just beautiful like Standalone kind of colors but they're the ones that I got to pick out it does kind of look like a sunset I have to say Sunset is perfect yeah Chris's sunset this one is one of my favorites I'm just spreading these heads out so they can dry without molding so we'll spread them out on this breathable fabric so air can go underneath and in between um and let the seeds fully fully dry out I feel really connected to the varieties and I've never had something that I've worked on like this get released out into the world in in the same way it feels pretty important it feels pretty big to me so in the cup flower and gardening industry like where most plants and seeds are sold most of those varieties are hybrids and when it comes to hybrids if you want to save your seed from them they will not come back true to the plant that you saved them from we are going to always have to be dependent on these large companies to have to keep reing seeds it's like we've lost touch with being able to be independent the varieties that we're working on are open pollinated and that means that if you want to save the seed from them you can collect it and they will come back true year after year so really you only ever have to invest ve in that seed one time you can keep reproducing and saving the stock of that seat and for your entire lifetime you can pass it to your children and their children I don't want people to have to come back here after year I want them to learn how to save their seeds be empowered be able to not have to buy more every single year I don't want to hold on to it and protect it I want to put it out into the world and share it and how many budding plant breeders are there that just don't even know that they are yet that's what I'm so excited about is like the whole new generation of plant breeders that are going to come out of this project and this is the material they can start with oh look there's a blue her look you see him yeah okay that's a good sign I mean we have a blue heron it's been hanging out here all week I forgot to tell you that I always feel like if you were a bird you'd be a blue heron how do you feel like off as we approach Frost there's often a relief you know if it's been a hard season or um um or you do you feel like you're going to miss them or I feel a lot of excitement for these new seeds that we're putting out yeah like I feel like that feels so different and new to me it's something we've never done before really and so I mean we've been doing a l you know we've been doing the same thing for a few years now nine yeah and so even though some of the actions within that are the same uhhuh the whole kind of why behind all of it is different yeah and that to me is exciting I feel like yeah it's just cool to be moving on it's like our new Mission yeah I'm just proud of us yeah it a long haul yeah we still got a lot of work to yeah but like we're it's like it's truly moving into the next phace yeah I know like a new truly new chapter yeah more cuties those are beauties day want and Seed packing we have an army packets yeah sure is this is what 30,000 packets [Music] looks this project it has gone on to become something so much bigger than we imagined oh my god there are so many hands and so much care that has gone into bringing these varieties into form the seed is sewn into the tray so it's touched and then the little plants Sprout up and we thin them they're touched again and then they're watered and car cared for like gently touched again and then they get planted into the field then again and then they get pinched and they get strung up and coralled and staked and cared for and the bees come and do their work or the Flies and then once the seed is ripe then again they're touched they're picked every single flower head is harvested they're poured out and spread out onto tables and then they're crushed either by foot or hand and then they're cleaned and screened and then they're actually placed back into packets by hand the amount of collective energy that has gone into growing these varieties over the last 6 years is staggering each set of hands has been so loving and put so much intention and Care into those [Music] plants they're very very very loved little [Music] babies I feel like I'm their caretaker it's my job to make sure that they have gotten to become who they were intended to be now it's your turn make room for them in your life because they want to be part of it they'll not be like anything else you've grown [Music] [Music] before [Music] the

Channel: Floret Flower Farm

Views: 168,790

Keywords: Floret, flowers, cut flowers, flower farm, Erin Benzakein

Id: tZf7PbILKGY

Length: 30min 16sec (1816 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 30 2024