American Flowers Week • Botanical Couture
American Flowers Week, now in its fifth year, is an education and outreach campaign started by a journalist and advocate for American-grown flowers.
"Like everyone in the Slow Flowers movement, I think American-grown flowers deserve celebrating every week of the year," the campaign's founder says. "But setting aside one full week for awareness draws more attention to the cause, both from the media and from the public."
We encourage everyone who grows or designs with American flowers to celebrate the campaign with the #americanflowersweek hashtag.
As the campaign's botanical couture collection grows each year, its founder notes that flowers presented as fashion spark the imagination and help people notice domestic flower farming and the craft of floral design.
This year the Hensley's flower team worked with a Maine floral designer from Flora's Museto make a piece of botanical couture for the fifth American Flowers Week (June 28 – July 5).
On a cold morning the previous fall, the designer and our team gathered several wheelbarrow loads of fresh flowers, foliage and herbs from the trial fields and meadows, then raced to stitch them into a gown before the day was over.
Since beauty like this doesn't last, the photographers stood ready to capture the gown at its fullest before the light, and the flowers, began to fade.
The gown was one of nine floral fashion looks from around the country featured in a June 2019 issue of Florists' Review in a story called "Red, White & Bloom."
Describing her approach, the designer says:
"I hope my love of Maine's natural beauty and of my work as an artist shows."
— the project photographer
DESIGN ASSISTANT: our flower and herb product manager
FLOWERS AND FOLIAGE: annual cut flowers and foliage
'Queen Lime Orange' Zinnia
'Sunday Gold' Celosia
'Dara' Ammi/Daucus
'Sonja' SunflowerMODEL, HAIR AND MAKEUP: a Maine model
PHOTOGRAPHY: two Maine photographers, pinchbeckphoto.com
