About Flori Flowers

I have loved digging in the dirt since I was about four or five. I used to collect big, sun-bleached clam shells at the Jersey Shore and gave people shell terrariums with moss, tiny plants and stones in them. I am sure they were highly prized. That is how my love of giving gifts of nature started really. My mom grew lilacs, peonies, roses and lots of marigolds around tomato plants on our farm in southern NJ. It was with my mother Claire that I learned to love “arranging” flowers – at the time it was picking whatever was in bloom and putting it a simple canning jar.

What I learned from my mother is that flowers don’t need to be upscale to be meaningful or beautiful. A bunch of fragrant peonies just picked from the garden will always remind me of her. Flori is born out of hundreds of jars of peonies jostling in the car with my mom over the years to today.

Flowers have more meaning than just being beautiful and fragrant. They have been used in religious ceremonies and special occasions dating back to Ancient Egypt. I love the history and meaning of flowers. In Victorian times, flowers had specific meanings attached – the language of flowers – and you could convey your thoughts with a posy.

I grow seasonal, organic flowers and herbs and forage in the woods for greenery including native plants like fern and salal. I am influenced by what nature is doing at any given time in my garden and surroundings…sort of a slow flower philosophy. Recently I picked fading hellebore, French lilac, columbine, and fern all wrapped up in a hosta leaf inside of an upcycled glass jar and gave them to my friend Kelly. I love to walk around my garden, cut flowers, branches and herbs and see what happens from the color and texture.

In addition, I am a mom to two, a wife to one, and keeper of many animals including horses, goats, dog, cats and fish. The goats eat my peonies through the fence sometimes much to my dismay.