JANUARY 31 – FEBRUARY 1, 2018
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED LEARNING & RESEARCH
DANVILLE, VIRGINIA
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED.
Maps and Directions to the Conference Location
This special conference serves growers who are interested in beginning or improving cut-flower businesses. Conference sessions and speakers will be on hand to provide valuable education, demonstrations and helpful advice for industry practices.
CONFERENCE AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31
8:00am Registration Opens
10:00am Welcome
10:15am Keynote Speaker Lisa Ziegler, “Practices of a Pesticide-Free Farmer”
11:15am Networking, Vendors & Exhibitors
12:00pm LUNCH
1:00pm SESSION 1
- Marketing Panel Discussion (Barbara Lamborne, Mimo Davis Duschack, Dave Dowling)
- Orchid Growing & Care (Art Chadwick)
- Getting Started with Seed Starting (Lisa Ziegler)
2:00pm BREAK
2:15pm SESSION 2
- Bulbs (Dave Dowling)
- Floral Designs for Market (James DelPrince)
- Growing Lavendar (Ellen Reynolds)
3:15pm BREAK
3:30pm SESSION 3
- Growing Woody Varieties (Bob Wollam)
- Orchid Growing & Care (Art Chadwick)
- Flowers (Mimo Davis Duschack)
4:30pm Networking, Vendors & Exhibitors
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1
8:00am Breakfast
Keynote Speaker Mimo Davis Duschack, “Growing Flowers in High Tunnels”
9:15am SESSION 1
- Bulbs (Dave Dowling)
- Floral Design (James DelPrince)
- Cool Flowers, Beyond the Book! (Lisa Ziegler)
10:15am Networking, Vendors & Exhibitors
11:00am SESSION 2
- Growing Woody Varieties (Bob Wollam)
- Lavendar (Ellen Reynolds)
- Marketing Panel Discussion (Barbara Lamborne, Mimo Davis Duschack, Dave Dowling)
Contact agent Susan Cheek (scheek@vsu.edu, 804-720-5539) or call the Small Farm Outreach Program office at 804-524-3292.
If you are a person with a disability and desire any assistive devices, services or other accommodations to participate in this activity, please contact the Small Farm Outreach Program office at 804-524-3292 / TDD (800) 828-1120 during business hours of 8 am. and 5 p.m. to discuss accommodations five days prior to the event.
AREA HOTELS
Attendees are responsible for reserving overnight accommodations, if needed, during the conference. For your convenience, nearby hotels are listed below:
Hampton Inn Danville
2130 Riverside Dr, Danville, VA 24540
(434) 793-1111
Courtyard by Marriott Danville
2136 Riverside Dr, Danville, VA 24540
(434) 791-2661
Best Western Windsor Inn & Suites
1292 South Boston Rd, Danville, VA 24540
(434) 483-5000
Sleep Inn & Suites
1483 South Boston Rd, Danville, VA 24540
(434) 793-6090
Holiday Inn Express Danville
2121 Riverside Dr, Danville, VA 24540
(434) 793-4000
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Karen “Mimo” Davis has been growing specialty cut flowers in Missouri since 1994. Her first farm was called WildThang located in Ashland, Missouri. Her current project is Urban Buds: City Grown Flowers, an acre urban specialty cut flower farm located in the south St Louis Dutchtown neighborhood. Season extension techniques feature prominently in the Urban Buds production, as does diversity of plant varieties grown, typically 70 different beauties annually. The flowers are sold at Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, wholesale to florists, and are used in Urban Buds wedding and event design. Mimo holds a graduate degree in horticulture from North Carolina A & T University. She is married to her farming partner Miranda Duschack, and together they have a son.
Barbara Lamborne owns Greenstone Fields in Loudoun County, Virginia. In her 12th year as a farmer, Barbara grows over 90 types of cut flowers using organic practices. She sells at two metro Washington, DC farmers markets, provides the flower share for two farms’ CSA programs, and has a wholesale, e-commerce sales channel for florists and designers. Barbara is a passionate advocate for the local flower movement, and is a past Board member of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.
Ellen Reynolds is the owner of Beagle Ridge Herb Farm in Wythe County VA. Specializing in Lavender, she manufactures a line of bath and body products, available both wholesale and retail, as well as providing classes both at the farm and all over the country. Beagle Ridge has a retail shop, a plant sales area, 4 miles of trails, a 2-acre pond along with several acres of formal gardens. In addition, Flying Flowers, southwest VA's only native butterfly house and Serendipity, their new wedding venue are all on site. Since opening Beagle Ridge in 2001 she has hosted visitors from all 50 states and 26 foreign countries.
Lisa Mason Ziegler is a cut-flower farmer, author, and nationally recognized speaker on all-natural cut-flower gardening. Lisa has been farming since 1998; her urban three-acre farm produces thousands of stems of flowers each week in season. She sells her flowers to florist and through her member-only programs.
Lisa is owner of The Gardener’s Workshop, an online store offering the gardening tools and supplies she uses in her own gardens. Lisa gathers experiences from day-to-day life on her farm, hosts on-farm workshops and travels about speaking and teaching on this good life of farming.
Dave Dowling grew cut flowers in Montgomery County, MD for 20 years. With field, high tunnel, and greenhouse production, his business, Farmhouse Flowers & Plants produced cut flowers year-round. Most of the flowers raised were sold at farmers markets, including two-year round markets in Kensington, MD and Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. Flowers were also sold direct to florists from Baltimore to Washington, DC through Capital Flower Growers, LLC, a cooperative formed with two other flower growers in 2013. He served as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers from 2002 through 2004, as President from 2006 through 2009, and again from2016 through 2018. Early in 2014, Dave closed his cut flower business and now works full time for Ednie Flower Bulbs, now a division of Fred C Gloeckner & Co, Inc. Living in northern New Jersey, he keeps busy as the inside product manager and sales rep/advisor to cut flower growers across the country.
Jim DelPrince is a Horticulture Specialist at the MSU Coastal Research and Extension Center, Biloxi. He is a Laureate Member of the American Institute of Floral Designers and has published numerous articles and books on floral design and interior plant scaping design. His latest book, co-authored with Pat Scace, landscape designer with the Missouri Botanical Garden, titled Principles of Floral Design (Goodheart-Willcox), is used in high school, collegiate, and state floristry certification curricula throughout the US.
On faculty with Mississippi State University since 1996, he has taught floral design to over 5,000 students and professional florists. At MSU Coastal, he has developed educational and research programs benefitting flower growers, florists and floral enthusiasts.
Dr. DelPrince delves into both the scientific and artistic world of flowers. He has held research fellowships at Winterthur, Wilmington, Delaware and the Smithsonian Institution on 19th century horticulture studies. As an artist, he was the solo floral designer in seven performances of “Concerto for Florist” with performances in Mississippi, California and Oregon. His historical floral design work has been featured at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts. DelPrince has delivered talks and written about the flowers of Tennessee Williams’ plays, and delivered an interactive talk at the Tennessee Williams in Europe Conference, The University of Nancy, France.
Chadwick & Son Orchids Inc was founded in 1989 by long time orchid hobbyist Art A. Chadwick, and his wife, Anne, of Wilmington, DE, and their son, Arthur E. Chadwick, who purchased 18 acres of farmland in rural Powhatan County and built the first redwood greenhouse. During the following year, another greenhouse was added. Before long, there were nine greenhouses and many devoted employees.
The early success of the company can be traced to Art Sr., who had been growing orchids since 1945, and provided invaluable cultural and hybridizing experience. His many Cattleya hybrids adorn the pages of orchid magazines worldwide and he continues to be a regular feature writer for the American Orchid Society. Visitors enjoy the personalized tours of the greenhouses where they often bring friends and neighbors and "make a day of it". They are always amazed at the enormity of the boarding operation where more than 13,000 plants are currently being grown for customers. The sales area offers the largest selection of blooming orchid plants in the area, and our knowledgeable staff can answer the most challenging cultural questions.
Bob Wollam is the farm’s guiding light. He started growing cut flowers in 1988. With the gardening genes of his grandparents he’s turned these 11 acres into fields of beautiful varieties. He’s full of knowledge and great stories.
Bob splits his time between the farm and Washington, DC, where he's resided for 28 years as a community activist, husband, and father. He is married to Anne Montgomery, a longtime friend. they were the first to be married in the farm’s new pavilion in 2015.
Wollam Gardens is a cut flower farm located 60 miles west of Washington D.C., in the small village of Jeffersonton, Virginia. The farm's 11 acres grow a variety of unique perennials, annuals, trees, and shrubs. Flowers supply farmers' markets in the D.C. area, designers, specialty florists, and locally focused retailers. Wollam offers custom florals for weddings, special events, and styling. Wollam Gardens is a flower, events, and farm stay destination for weddings, workshops, festivals, yoga, and educational programs.
