Building a Business with Local Flowers with Ellen Frost

Do you just love local flowers? Are you a designer or grower yourself? This episode is for you. 

Ellen Frost is a floral designer, and owner of Local Color Flowers in Baltimore, Maryland. Over the past 16 years, Ellen built a business from a passion for flowers and a connection to local farms in her area. Through several key changes and evolutions, Ellen has taken her original concept of arranging local, wedding florals for friends into a multi-faceted business with both brick-and-mortal and online offerings. 

Through the story of the growth of her business, Ellen also illuminates how she built up personal confidence in her craft, resisted the endless push to scale her business, developed her own supply chains, and found her voice as an educator. It was such an illuminating episode for us, and we know you will learn so much from Ellen, too. 

Corinne and Ellen discuss: 

• Why Ellen was initially attracted to working with local flowers 
• Ellen’s journey from working with affordable housing development to a custom flower shop focusing on local production
• Ellen’s intention to make local flowers available for any wedding at any budget 
• The differences in flower quality and pricing with local versus commercial flowers 
• How Ellen spends just as much time educating clients, as she does designing 
• Factoring employee wages, land access, and environmental inputs create higher pricing in flower markets
• Ellen’s practice for choosing clients, and helping them understand her business
• Growing into confidence in her craft, and learning to say “no” to opportunities that are not the right fit
• How Ellen navigates the potential pitfalls of working with smaller, local producers
• Ellen’s journey building relationships with farmers in the mid-Atlantic 
• Building a supply chain from zero
• Why seeing the long-game is essential 
• Ellen’s experience as an entrepreneur learning the floral business
• Getting out of the growth-at-all-costs mindset, and Ellen discovering her sweet-spot in terms of scale
• The way Ellen has added more educational opportunities in her business, and how that has accommodated her changing vision and needs
• The excitement Ellen sees burgeoning around local flowers
• The three flowers Ellen *always* purchases locally 
• Ellen’s free weekly newsletter— you want to subscribe! 

If you want to connect with Ellen Frost (and trust us, you do), there are a few places to find her online: Local Color Flowers, Ellen Frost’s personal site, and instagram. 

Find her newsletter here

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

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And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

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Thanks for being here.
– Corinne