Ep. 99: Sustainable Floristry and Foam Free Design with T.J. McGrath

T.J. McGrath spent years in advertising, marketing, and retail before he ever touched a flower professionally. He was one of nine kids and never had a garden growing up. Then his partner told him he was miserable, pointed him toward a little shop with a flower cooler two towns over, and everything changed. Today T.J. runs an entirely foam free studio in New Jersey, grows his own flowers at a cutting garden called Jardin de Buis, and teaches designers around the world how to work without single use plastic. In this conversation he is honest about all of it, including the part where he was the one who brought floral foam into the shop in the first place. In this episode: * Why T.J. walked away from a job offer with medical benefits in the middle of a pandemic, and what his partner said that made the decision for him * The real reason floral foam is only a small piece of the sustainability picture, and what the industry keeps missing * What he tells students who freeze at the design bench because they are afraid of doing it wrong * The single most powerful thing a flower lover can do to change the floral industry, and it takes about thirty seconds If this conversation moves something in you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it. And if you have not yet, follow The Backyard Bouquet Podcast wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. About T.J. McGrath T.J. McGrath is the founder of T.J. McGrath Design, a sustainable floral studio in Long Valley, New Jersey. One of nine children and raised without a garden, T.J. came to flowers by an unlikely route: a literature and philosophy degree from Rutgers, followed by years in advertising, marketing, and retail. In 2015 he quit a job that was making him miserable and took a part time position at a flower shop to learn the trade from the inside. He helped grow that shop into a sought after event studio. In 2020, with $700 in savings and a pandemic underway, he opened his own business. Today T.J.'s studio is entirely foam free and built on locally and American grown flowers. He grows his own at Jardin de Buis, a micro flower farm on a friend's property in New Jersey. Teaching is now the largest part of his business, and he leads workshops across the country and internationally, from Colorado to Brazil to Costa Rica. Connect with T.J.: tjmcgrathdesign.com [http://tjmcgrathdesign.com/] | Instagram @t.j._mcgrath_design  [https://www.instagram.com/t.j._mcgrath_design/] T.J. heads to Costa Rica the first week of September to teach at Iberiata 2026, held at Hotel Los Lagos in the La Fortuna region. It is a celebration of forty years of a Latin American floral school, and his session is on designing a dinner table. ***Grab Your Dahlia Design Summit Ticket. Join us September 13 through 18. Six days of dahlia design taught by fourteen farmer florists and floral designers. Whether you're growing your first row or you're already selling to florists, every session is about doing more with the dahlias you already have in the ground. Live Pass is $147. All Access is $247 and you keep every session for life. Come join us: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/summit  ***