Catching up. Saying YES.

Hello friends, gardeners, flower lovers, and all!

I have written a lot of newsletters in my head over the last few months: my November/Thanksgiving newsletter-that-wasn’t stated how deeply grateful I am to you all, for taking the time to read and connect, supporting me through my business and just being generally rad; my December/Solstice edition I wished you a restful, soul-feeding winter holiday season however you celebrate; and for the January/New Year missive, of course I went on about regeneration and “fresh starts” by detailing the garden’s regrouping, growing roots, composting, centering and slow awakening…. But the words never reached the page partly because life is busy (messy! joyful! infuriating! engrossing!) but also because I felt so flooded with newsletters, holiday sales and e-mail pleas for my attention myself, that I imagined you might all feel a little overloaded too. I never want to add to the noise, and consider it a privilege to hold your attention with these letters.

So here’s a little catching up: We made a trip home to see family in NY, arriving with a duffel bag stuffed with enough fresh eucalyptus from my friend’s farm to make a huge garland over my sister’s living room windows. Most of all we visited, but we also took some beautiful wintery hikes, hung out in the bass workshop, helped with the annual butchering, flipped through old photos, saw lots of family, ate lots of cookies and played in pillow forts.

Our Bellingham winter has also been wonderful so far, with some timely snow during winter break and a few beautiful skiing days since then. We’ve had our fair share of viruses (I’m home with Covid as I write this… or I’m writing this because I’m home with Covid), but I will go ahead and mark us down as lucky, happy and healthy.

So here we are in early February! It is go-time for starting seeds indoors, making garden plans that build on all the successes and failures from last year, designing and negotiating wedding flower orders, and getting you all set up with flowers for the spring. (That’s a little tiny plug for my bouquet subscriptions a.k.a. flower CSA. There’s a 4-week spring bulb edition this year, and then early and late summer sessions.)

It’s also time to send valentines. You’ve got one week! I like to give Valentine’s Day a whole week, just like birthdays (because it’s that important!), so if you’re in my camp of extended holidays, that gives you a little longer.

I love making and sending valentines. If any of you have been jaded by the over-commercialization and ridiculous pressures attached to Valentine’s Day, I get it. It’s totally silly. But I want to make a case for reclaiming the kernel of what can make it fun and lovely! What could be better than sending little notes of appreciation and/or adoration, especially when you can justify slipping in some fancy chocolate? When I was little we would take scissors to my mom’s stack of seed catalogues and paste up flowery heart-shaped collages. Even when I was single and wishing (so hard!) for romance in my life, I considered Valentine’s Day a holiday worthy of a good effort. I distributed hand-drawn cards, heart-shaped cookies, long-distance phone calls, seed packet gifts and tried to find ways of really celebrating all the people I loved. I’m lucky in that no one has ever expected me to take them out to dinner or present them with gifts or engagements rings. But now that I’m a florist I certainly feel pressure because it’s supposedly the holiday that puts florists in the black. But I’m playing it way down this year for several reasons: the gorgeous California blooms are pricey and involve a drive to Seattle; I’ve never felt right selling imported roses (for SO many reasons) and there’s no competing with the crazy loss-leaders at the grocery store; delivering flowers is exhausting (and often coincides with sketchy road conditions); and I’m over doing pop-ups where I just barely break even. So this year I’m saying YES to the things that I can really get behind and letting the other stuff go. No judgement here, this is just me moving from the heart rather than following the crowd.

[And that may be my theme for this year: saying “yes” in ways that actually feel like YES. Moving forward and taking on projects that feel affirming to me, in my life, rather than to someone else’s process or expectations. I guess part of the trick may be hearing “yes” too. A big project for me will always be parenting this spicy, highly sensitive, puzzling, wonderful child of mine, and I think it’s super important to make sure she hears (and feels) more “yes.” Perhaps (??) this will help her say “yes” more often? But the point is, it starts with me.]

I also feel like YES is a great theme for Valentine’s Day.

So anyway, my Valentine’s Day plan is to make some fancy Linzer heart cookies (for my sweet friends and family) and a batch of home-made, block-printed cards (taking time and creating with intention) to slip into the mail. >>In the online shop you’ll find packets of seeds collected from our own cutting garden (looking ahead, opting for hope, making a commitment) that I’ll send off with a valentine if you wish; gift certificates for bouquet subscriptions (making a promise and savoring the anticipation of beauty to come) that I can mail with a card and a packet of sweet pea seeds; and yes you can even order real flowers (for when there are no words) but they are cheerful bundles of dried strawflowers from the summer, that smell like sweet, sun-warmed hay and are light enough to be shipped, along with a card and seed packet, anywhere you want. You can find all that in the online shop. <<

In other news, I’ll be speaking at the Whidbey Gardening Workshop on March 4, 2023 about Growing Your Own Bouquet. I’ve enjoyed compiling notes on everything I know, highlighting sections in books written by expert growers over the last few decades, and reflecting on all the different ways someone could arrive at growing their own flowers. There are so many resources available online and in recently published books that my challenge is to share the pearls from my own trials and many, many errors and avoid repeating what’s already been said so well by others. There will be useful tidbits for those working with bright or shady spots, with high or low deer pressure, and all levels of time and financial commitment. I’ll also demonstrate some ways to satisfactorily put your flowers in a vase to enjoy, and how to build a spiral, hand-tied bouquet. I’ll be doing a trial run of this presentation via Zoom at the end of February, and if you would like to take part in this please let me know! Send me a message via the contact form or email annika@hazeldesigns.com. I’m also thinking of how to translate this class into a course at Whatcom Community College.

I have two other educational opportunities coming up that I’m excited about, so look out for more updates on these:

First is a sustainable floral design workshop that I’m planning to teach this spring in Bellingham, currently looking at late March dates. This one is mostly for other florists as I’ll be focusing on arches and “installations” that are often designed for wedding ceremony backdrops. These techniques can be applied anywhere, and I will only be teaching methods for designing and installing that do not utilize toxic floral foam, using alternative water receptacles or no water at all. Sign-up in the shop, and I will add a solid date soon!

Second, I’d like to start a monthly, live session much like “office hours” where I can answer your gardening questions and we can group-think our way through some planning challenges or workshop ideas for difficult spaces. It will probably be on Zoom, but I may try a Facebook or Instagram Live thingy (new to me). I’m open to suggestions on how to make this most useful!

I love hearing back from all my readers, so please keep in touch and catch me up on the latest in your gardening (or non-gardening) world.

Love,

Annika