What better way to celebrate United States’ independence than to support the most Americana of businesses, a local farm?

In the week leading up to the Fourth of July, flower seed and bulb producers, growers, floral designers and lovers of fragrant blooms are cheering on the American Flowers Week campaign, June 28-July 4, which promotes buying locally grown, fresh-cut flowers to boost farms and regional economies.

It’s easy to buy local, seasonal blooms. In June and July, every state in the U.S. is producing flowers, from anemones to zinnias, and some, the quintessentially American Shasta Daisy.

The idea of buying flowers that grow nearby is an offshoot of the larger buy local campaign that supports neighborhood food, beer and wine producers. Flower advocates think the centerpiece on your table should be as fresh as the food on your plate.

Seattle-based author Debra Prinzing , a longtime supporter of domestic growers, started the online resource Slow Flowers to help customers find U.S. cut-flower farms.

In 2015, Prinzing dreamed up American Flowers Week to throw the social media spotlight on locally grown flowers, foliage and other botanicals. The #AmericanFlowersWeek effort has since generated more than 14.5 million impressions on Twitter and Instagram , she says.

Each year for the community-focused floral holiday, Prinzing invites flower farmers and florists to create “botanical couture,” outfits made of field-fresh flowers like Alaska peonies and Washington state dahlias .

“Through these floral creations, I want to inspire people to embrace a new model of floral sourcing and designing sustainably — and of course, bringing flowers into their everyday lives,” Prinzing says. "Slow Flowers Journal-Volume One" was written by Debra Prinzing, a Seattle-based writer, speaker and leading advocate for American-grown flowers. This year, she released “Slow Flowers Journal-Volume One,” a photo-filled book profiling inspiring experts such as Isabella Thorndike Church of Jacklily Seasonal Floral Design , a second-generation flower grower. Her mother is Joan Thorndike of Le Mera Gardens in Medford.

Thorndike Church used southern Oregon-grown flowers and foliage to create arrangements, bouquets and an arch for a Portland couple’s riverfront wedding.

The bride carried white lace-cap hydrangeas, mini carnations, ranunculus and peonies. The couple exchanged their vows under a ground arch formation made with different-colored grasses and dried bracken fern with white larkspur harvested from Le Mera Gardens.

A gallery in the book shows bridal bouquets from each season, from fall and winter’s garden rose, oak foliage and dahlia bouquet to spring’s Icelandic poppy, dusty Miller and phlox bouquet and summer’s apple blossom, hydrangea and statice.

The “Flowers, Wine and Friends” section of the book profiles Beth Syphers, who offers Sip and Clip events at her Crowley House Flower Farms & Studio in Rickreall.

“The new book shines a light on the leaders, best practices, inventive floral artistry and creative experiences that are changing the floral marketplace, while also connecting gardeners and flower lovers with the origin of local and sustainably grown blooms,” says Prinzing. “In Oregon, a top cut-flower producing state, there is so much talent among both growers and floral designers — and I’m […]