Black Flora is the first book to feature profiles of contemporary Black experts innovating in the world of flowers. Author and long-time gardener, Teresa Speight, offers a beautiful intersection of flowers and community. This book is a homecoming, one that unearths the floral legacies of the past and present, while providing a source of inspiration for younger generations of plant-lovers seeking examples of successful Black floral artists and entrepreneurs.
With photos and insights from over 20 growers, florists, and designers from around the US, each with a deep reverence for nature, Black Flora showcases a range of floral expertise. And as visionary horticulturalist and garden historian, Abra Lee, reflects in her foreword, the community represented in Black Flora has an important significance both today, and in garden history. Lee describes how after the Civil War, many African Americans who were formerly enslaved went back into the ruined gardens which they had nurtured, and took cuttings and roots of the flowers to grow in their home gardens. It was these plants that formed the beginning of a crucial foundation in American horticulture, one that demands far greater recognition. Both a celebration of now and a vision for the future, Black Flora honours floriculture's creative vanguard.