Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing

Florist School Online:

Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing

with Ellen Frost

Build Your Business with Locally Grown Flowers!

Calling aspiring & established florists, farmer-florist, and flower farmers to learn how to embrace, participate, and build businesses with locally sourced flowers.

Course Cost: $495

Enroll Now!

Florist School Online: Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing

Invigorate your sales and create new ones by building a community of local flower lovers that want to support and participate in your business and become your loyal customer. Learn how to source, use, build community, market, and sell locally grown flowers to grow your business.

Learn in this course:

About the landscape of the cut flower industry
Why local flowers? The motivation, definition, and goals
How to build relationships with local growers
The logistics of local flowers such as pricing, availability, etc.
Marketing and selling local flowers
Making your business a community asset

Course includes:

6 sessions of classes that include 16 hours of videos
2021 Bonus Sessions: What we can do NOW during this unprecedented global flower shortage.
Each class is made up of many video sessions
PDF downloads and resources
Unlimited lifetime access to this entire course and its resources
Optional Private Facebook Group for students to network with each other and to interact with instructors during school. After school is complete, students continue to be a member of the group and the instructors monitor for questions.
Watch How Online Courses Work
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn from Lisa about our online course style here.

Course Cost:

One Payment Option: This 6-week course is $495 with one payment at registration

How online courses work: Learn how you access courses from any device with the internet, how you have lifetime unlimited access, the refund policy, and more here.

Learn from Lisa about our online course style here.

Our Guarantee:

Money-back guarantee within 7-days of course going live with no questions asked. Details in the FAQ.

Meet Ellen Frost

Ellen working in her studio in the Waverly neighborhood of Baltimore, MD. (Photo by Laura Chase de Formigny)

Ellen Frost loves flowers. Even more, she loves owning and operating a flower studio that exclusively sources local flowers. Ellen founded her company, Local Color Flowers, in 2008 as a part-time wedding floral business to provide Baltimore area couples a more sustainable flower option for their celebrations. Over the past 12 years, Ellen has grown Local Color Flowers into a thriving business adding floral design classes, corporate events, subscriptions, and retail as well as creative social and educational community events – all using 100% locally grown flowers. Ellen’s business is a vital contributor to Baltimore’s local economy and a vibrant community resource. Ellen, herself, is an innovative entrepreneur and expert in the floriculture industry sought-after for teaching, business consulting, podcasts, interviews, panels, and speaking engagements both locally and nationally.

A Masters of Business Administration (MBA) graduate and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified professional, Ellen has valuable credentials and years of business experience. Her training in operations management, supply chain, and social entrepreneurship provides a unique professional perspective among floral designers. With all her time in the classroom and boardroom, Ellen has not been shy to get her hands dirty. While achieving her Master Gardener certification from the University of Maryland Extension program, Ellen worked several seasons for Breidenbaugh Farm in Carney, MD planting, watering, harvesting, weeding (so much weeding), and selling at market.

Ellen was recognized in 2016 by the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers with the Allan M Armitage Award for Leadership for her business success, commitment to locally grown flowers, and role in developing the US floriculture industry. She has mentored and supported new growers in Maryland for years including a buying promise of the new growers’ entire first-year harvest. She writes a regular column for Cut Flower Quarterly with Laura Beth Resnick of Butterbee Farm called “The Farmer and the Florist.” Ellen has taught over 100 design and business courses to garden clubs, flower enthusiasts, budding entrepreneurs, and students from grade school to graduate school, in addition to her formal business consulting relationships.

Note of interest: Listen to the podcast of the Botanical Brouhaha chatting with Ellen Frost about starting her business, how it works, and a list of how she is leading her business through the 2020 pandemic.

Listen to all of Ellen's Podcast: Florists Buying Local.

Ellen is excited to tell the stories of her love affair with flowers and share her business insight and years of experience through her online course: Florist School Online: Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing.

Podcast: The Secret Power of Local Flowers, meet Ellen Frost

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Emailed instantly are replays of Ellen's most recent webinars:
- Selling Local Flowers When Global Wholesale Supply is Disrupted
- 10 Reasons Florists Don't Buy Local: Strategies for farmers and florists to make the process easier

Samantha O.

Ellen’s course was incredibly valuable to me as a specialty cut flower grower. Ellen has deep expertise in the flower industry as a whole, and she has a uniquely important role as someone in the local flower world. I was able to take her curriculum and start building relationships with designers, florists and wholesalers in a way that worked for all of us. I’m so happy that I invested in myself and my business by participating in this course.

Kassi Y.

This course was very helpful to me as a third-year micro flower-farmer who is trying to figure out how to transition into a farmer-florist role and eventually a florist who grows “some” and also sources 100% locally grown flowers. Her passion for this work is contagious. One of my favorite parts of the online classes offered by The Gardener’s Workshop farm is the community of like-minded folks I have met. The FB groups continue to be a valuable resource of knowledge and inspiration to me, and there is no price tag on that. Community is everything!

Lise-Ann J.

This was a terrific course, taught by a very experienced, knowledgeable and passionate instructor. There was so much content and ideas packed into this course and the weekly Q&A sessions were the icing on the cake. Ellen has given me so much to think about as well as practical ideas to put into practice. Highly recommended!

Frequently Asked Questions

The Difference in “On-Demand” and “School” Courses:

May I watch the courses more than once?

I live outside of the USA, may I purchase a course?

Can I watch my course right away?

How does the money back guarantee work?

How do I ask questions on the course subjects?

Rebecca M.

I highly recommend Ellen’s class to florists. As a true believer in the benefits of local flower sourcing, I came to this course expecting to learn from the master – and I was not disappointed. Ellen is both knowledgeable and relatable, and her course was paced perfectly for me to learn, set goals, and feel progress. I left the course with a renewed sense of pride in my work and the rich traditions it honors, and I met a community of florists and growers who share my passion for supporting local. Well worth the investment!

Beth P.

I learned so much from Ellen and found her style and interactive teaching style very welcoming. She has helped us pivot our design studio to local blooms and given us the confidence to believe that the work we do is valuable and the blooms worth purchasing. I am really grateful for all
the nuts and bolts work she shared about pricing and logistics and sharing the story! Very helpful. I shed a tear when it was over and look forward to continuing to learn from her and others in the course. Thanks so much!

Lorri

Ellen is a very thoughtful and knowledgeable instructor (and even visionary) in the movement to grow and sell local flowers. As a second year flower farmer, I feel that about half of the course content was applicable to me now, but will likely benefit more as I grow my business and reflect back on Ellen’s insights. I highly recommend Ellen’s course for florists and farmer florists. And I look forward to staying connected with Ellen and my newfound peers.

Read More Student Reviews!

Wendy Whitfield Zoe Dellinger	I recently completed this course, I am a flower farmer, in training, and found the information to be very helpful from that point of view. Understanding what future clients are looking for is invaluable. I loved the history and all of the local stories Ellen told. Education is the key! Thank you Ellen. Ellen’s passion for using local flowers is contagious and teaching style is so engaging. She provides so many real life examples from her own business experience that illustrate the concepts she presents. Her business model of supporting local businesses and community engagement with her “flower people” is awe inspiring to me. Ellen’s course provides the knowledge and tools to “be an expert” in your florist/farmer/farmer florist business. I am a micro flower farmer specializing in dahlias and heirloom flower varieties- and I gained so much knowledge about the floral industry. I am drilling down on “who my flower people are” and how I can be the floral expert they turn to for quality flowers, thank you Ellen!
Samantha Ortiz	Ellen’s course was incredibly valuable to me as a specialty cut flower grower. Ellen has deep expertise in the flower industry as a whole, and she has a uniquely important role as someone in the local flower world. I was able to take her curriculum and start building relationships with designers, florists and wholesalers in a way that worked for all of us. I’m so happy that I invested in myself and my business by participating in this course.
Kassi Yancey	This course was very helpful to me as a third-year micro flower-farmer who is trying to figure out how to transition into a farmer-florist role and eventually a florist who grows “some” and also sources 100% locally grown flowers. I’m sure I will continue to refer to the materials and references of this course for years to come. I have been inspired by Ellen and her knowledge of the rich history of the flower industry in the United States and hope to use my business to grow the sense of community where I live, just as Ellen has. Her passion for this work is contagious. One of my favorite parts of the online classes offered by The Gardener’s Workshop farm is the community of like-minded folks I have met. The FB groups continue to be a valuable resource of knowledge and inspiration to me, and there is no price tag on that. Community is everything!
Lise-Ann Jackson	This was a terrific course, taught by a very experienced, knowledgeable and passionate instructor. There was so much content and ideas packed into this course and the weekly Q&A sessions were the icing on the cake. Ellen has given me so much to think about as well as practical ideas to put into practice. Highly recommended!
Rebecca Muller	I highly recommend Ellen’s class to florists. As a true believer in the benefits of local flower sourcing, I came to this course expecting to learn from the master – and I was not disappointed. Ellen is both knowledgeable and relatable, and her course was paced perfectly for me to learn, set goals, and feel progress. I left the course with a renewed sense of pride in my work and the rich traditions it honors, and I met a community of florists and growers who share my passion for supporting local. Well worth the investment!
Beth Preuss	I learned so much from Ellen and found her style and interactive teaching style very welcoming. She has helped us pivot our design studio to local blooms and given us the confidence to believe that the work we do is valuable and the blooms worth purchasing. I am really grateful for all the nuts and bolts work she shared about pricing and logistics and sharing the story! Very helpful. I shed a tear when it was over and look forward to continuing to learn from her and others in the course. Thanks so much!
Lorri	Ellen is a very thoughtful and knowledgeable instructor (and even visionary) in the movement to grow and sell local flowers. As a second year flower farmer, I feel that about half of the course content was applicable to me now, but will likely benefit more as I grow my business and reflect back on Ellen’s insights. I highly recommend Ellen’s course for florists and farmer florists. And I look forward to staying connected with Ellen and my newfound peers.

Sign-Up for Course News!

Don’t miss out on course registrations!

Sign-up to receive notifications when course registration opens, exclusive information from Ellen, and more!

Florist School Online: