More on Floret
Workshops
Floret Workshops teach you step-by-
step how to grow, harvest and sell
stunning seasonal blooms. Attracting
new and experienced flower farmers
and florists from around the world,
Floret Workshops incorporate
technical training, plus time tested
techniques and down-to-earth advice
to help you build a thriving flower
business. By the end of the workshop,
you’ll have invaluable new skills plus
the courage and confidence to create
the flower-filled life you want to live.
Visit their website to learn more and
register for an online or on-farm
workshop. Registration for the next
Floret Online Workshop will open in
the autumn of 2018.
Attendee arranges centerpiece for the farewell dinner on day three
loaned for the workshops because the
property has a large barn — the same one
where Benzakein and Merrick held the
first workshop. Out the windows, in the
distance, were the North Cascades. I had
arrived the day before. A group of helpers,
most of them florists from around the
country who assist during the workshops,
were going in and out of the barn, where
a corner was massed with buckets of cut
roses, peonies, poppies, irises, anemones,
calendula, spirea, delphiniums, mint, and
honeysuckles, all waiting for the guests
to arrive and dip their hands in. “I’m not
interested in taking it all or dominating,”
Benzakein told me. “Really, I want it to be
a win-win for everyone, so that’s why we
went deep into education.”
She would be the first to say that, in
the beginning, she wasn’t thinking of
community power or taking out the
middleman or any of the qualities that
have inspired so many to become farmer-
florists. (The Association of Specialty
Cut Flower Growers says its membership
has doubled in the past five years.) But
by sharing what she knows, she has
influenced other farmer-florists to do
likewise. Floret’s workshop manuals
contain an impressive amount of
information, like per-acre earnings.
After my initial skepticism about spending
a weekend with 25 women arranging
flowers, I softened quickly. First, most
of them were really good at it. Working
alongside them makes you get better, and
you gain respect for people craving more
fulfillment than their careers provide. (The
number of “dreamers” — that is, non-
farmers and non-florists — attending the
workshops has increased markedly in
the past two years.) “It’s like a drug,” a
corporate executive said as a bunch of us
met for dinner at a local bar. “I can create
something and feel good about it. It’s not
against sales and numbers, and you’re
not going to be benchmarked on it next
year.”
floretflowers.com/
workshops
[email protected]
1 360-424-3403
Floret
P.O. Box 281
Mount Vernon, WA
98273
Bloom | Spring 2018
15