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Florist School Online:

Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing

Online School with Ellen Frost

Build your floral business with locally grown flowers!

Learn how to source, use, build community, market, and sell locally grown flowers to grow your florist business.

Ellen
(9 customer reviews)
Flower Farming School Online

Who is This School For?

Farmers

Florists & Designers

Aspiring Farmers

Farmer-Florists

Passionate Home Gardners

Anyone interested in using local flowers

Passionate Home Gardners

Flower farmers seeking knowledge of the floral industry

Why buy LOCAL flowers as a florist?

Sets your business apart

Long-lived plants

Unique selection of flowers & foliages

Builds passionate & loyal customers

Fresher, longer lasting flowers

Supports your local economy

Your Instructor, Ellen Frost

15+ Years As A Florist

Sells only 100% Local Flowers

Masters of Business Administration

2016 ASCFG Allan M Armitage Award for Leadership Winner

Meet Ellen

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 15 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.

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.

Ellen Frost

283 Students Enrolled

What Past Students Are Saying

Follow Our Simple Step-by-Step Process

Online Learning at Your Own Pace

Study from anywhere, at any time, on any device for life. Purchase this school today & get full access to all the content immediately at your fingertips!

Ellen’s comprehensive curriculum is designed to take you inside of sourcing local flower with OVER 16 HOURS of presentations and how-to videos spread out over 6 bite-sized modules. PLUS, 346 easily accessible & searchable past Frequently Asked Questions with Ellen.

Website Bulb Online Course Learning Is Convenient & Easy!

School Content

Video Sessions

Hours of Video

Printable Handouts

Class 1 - Landscape of the Cut Flower Industry

Session 1 – Introduction
Session 2- Why Do I Need To Know This Stuff
Session 3 – The Global Cut Flower Industry
Session 4 – The US Cut Flower Industry
Session 5 – Evolution of Flower Retail
Session 6 – Consumer Trends
Session 7 – US Cut Flower Industry: Big Issues
Session 8 – Conclusion

Class 2 - Why Local Flowers: Motivations, Definitions and Goals

Session 1 – Introduction
Session 2 – Motivation
Session 3 – Motivation: Environmental
Session 4 – Motivation: Ethical
Session 5 – Motivation: Business
Session 6 – Motivation: Product
Session 7- Motivation: Community
Session 8- Local Sourcing Goals
Session 9 – Defining Local
Session 10-Challenging Local
Session 11 – Conclusion

Class 3 - Building Relationships With Local Growers

Session 1 – Introduction
Session 2 – Sources of Local Flowers
Session 3 -Pursuing a Relationship
Session 4- Strategic Relationships
Session 5 – Starting the Relationship
Session 6- Dealing with Problems
Session 7 – Conclusion

Class 4 - Logistics of Local Flowers

Session 1 – Introduction
Session 2 – Seasonal Based Local Logistics
Session 3- Local Flower Pricing
Session 4- Preparing to Order Local Flowers
Session 5- Availability Lists
Session 6 – When to Make the Order
Session 7- Ordering Local From a Wholesaler or Co-op
Session 8- Receiving Your Order
Session 9- Conclusion

Class 5 - Differentiating, Marketing and Selling Local Flowers

Session 1 Introduction
Session 2 Value Proposition
Session 3 Your Flower People
Session 4 Smallest Viable Market
Session 5 Marketing With Your Story
Session 6 Selling Your Local Flower Services
Session 7 Conclusion

Class 6 - Making Your Business An Indispensable Community Asset

Session 1 Introduction
Session 2 Customer Engagement
Session 3 Community Activism
Session 4 Leadership
Session 5 Building Business Relationships
Session 6 Conclusion

Risk Free!

Our 100% Money Back Guarantee

Full refunds with no questions asked are given upon email request within 7 days of purchase. Once a refund has been issued you lose all access to the course.

100% Money Back Guarantee

PLUS, get these bonuses

BONUS 1: Exclusive 150+ Member Facebook Community

Connect with like-minded individuals & receive feedback and support from your peers. Become part of a community of students who share the same interest in sourcing local flowers.
Exclusive 150+ Member Facebook Community

BONUS 2: Webinar Replay:
Dried Wreath Making Tips

Spark your creativity with Ellen Frost’s insider secrets, from material sourcing to wreath preservation. Gain valuable insights for unforgettable dried wreath designs!

Dried Wreath Making Tips

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this school include floral design training?

No, this school does not provide training on floral design, as this school’s primary goal is to train current or aspiring florists how to source local flowers for their floristry business.

Why would I buy an online course when there is so much free information on the internet?

It’s true there is a TON of free information floating around out there. But is it reliably correct information? Does it fit your situation, your goals, your experience level? How much time do you have to sort through info from various sources and decide what fits your needs? Purchasing an online course from someone with decades of experience gives you instant access to an organized, detailed, reliably accurate set of lessons to save you time and energy, so you can focus on learning rather than researching.

What is the difference between School courses and Mini-Workshops?

Mini-Workshops vary from sixty minutes to over four hours of instruction, see individual courses for details. Each of these courses offers lots of valuable information on a specific topic that you can digest in a short amount of time and put into action right away.

School course content is much more comprehensive and covers broad topics. School courses are meant to serve as a long-term reference tool that you will use all throughout the course of your flower farming journey. Each course includes 6 modules, which each contain multiple video training sessions, instructor worksheets, and handouts, and an FAQ archive. All of the course sessions (including the FAQs) are searchable by keyword, so you can always find and go directly to the information that you need at any given time.

Do I have unlimited access?

Yes, you have lifetime unlimited access to your purchased courses. 

Do I have to watch at a certain time?

You can watch the courses anytime at your convenience. Purchased On-Demand Courses will appear in your library immediately and will always be there for viewing. Purchased School Courses will appear in your library as the course progresses. Normally one class a week until all classes loaded and will always be there for viewing.

Do you offer course discounts?

Yes, once you are part of our course family (owning any online school or workshop) you will be eligible for $50 off additional school courses.

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

Yes, our online courses are available internationally.

This sounds great, but can it be done in MY region/growing conditions?

YES! We strive to make the lessons in these courses universally applicable across all regions and growing conditions (as proven by our students who range from Alaska to the Tropics!). Rather than just telling you what to do, our courses will teach you how to assess your environment and make decisions based on your specific conditions.  

Tulips

Free Sneak Peek

Signup to watch the session ‘Why Local Flowers: Local Sourcing Goals ‘ from Ellen’s online course.
Learn more about the motivations, definitions, and goals.

What Past Students Are Saying

9 reviews for Florist School Online: Growing Your Business with Local Flower Sourcing

  1. Tracy Case

    🌻🥳🥰

  2. Jenn Campbell

    Ellen’s course emphasizes local flower sourcing for florists but it’s so much more. It’s a roadmap for how to relate to others in your industry, from the grower, through the florist, and to the customer. As a new studio florist and grower, determined to build my business on local product, Ellen has given me great ideas to help me reach out to both ends of the flower chain. From the course, I began my first year selling flowers with a good grasp of what to expect in the relationships I’ve made; the challenges we might come across and ways to constructively resolve them. Now with the main season here finished, I have already sat down and laid out my plan for next year and ideas for 2023 because Ellen has really helped me think critically and strategically about how I want to make my own business bloom.

    I want to emphasize that this course is a great resource for florists, but also for farmer-florists and farmers selling to local florists and more directly in their community.

  3. Zoe Dellinger

    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!

  4. 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.

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