"flower magazine"

Do you have your subscription yet? Slightly more than two years old, I only discovered "flower magazine" last fall. It's a very pretty consumer magazine (as opposed to trade publication for the professional florist) out of Birmingham AL, which features weddings and galas, especially those south of the Mason-Dixon line. Some super pretty eye candy!

Some of the regular features include book reviews, step by step arranging lessons, artists with floral inclinations, container inspirations, flower shop profiles, and more. A little bit of everything, flower-wise.

My favorite thing about "flower magazine" - is that it's quarterly! I don't know about you, but I'd have more magazine subscriptions if more magazines were quarterly. I find I just don't have the time to read and enjoy a magazine the way I used to, especially with a new issue arriving every month. More importantly, I find the content of most magazines repetitive and redundant when they go to a monthly format. Leave me wanting more! Let me look forward to my next issue! Anticipation, baby!

Prom Flowers 2009, One More Time

If you haven't ordered your flowers for this week's prom - you're late!

Now, I could have tried to say that nicer, sprinkled in a little "Sweetie, darling, you're a tad behind", but frankly I don't think I would have gotten your attention.

Unless you want the woman in your life (could be your date, could just as easily be mom - we've seen them all this year) to go all Promzilla, you need to hurry up and get that order in! If I need to order you anything special, I need to know by Tuesday afternoon because I go to the Boston Flower Market to get my flowers V-E-R-Y early Wednesday morning. After that, you get what you get.

And if your flowers MUST match a very super specific color, at the very least, come into the shop and look at our 50 ribbon swatches. Even better- bring in the dress for a perfect match.

One more tip, with a print dress, and there have been some wild and crazy ones this season, less is more. Don't try to get every color into the tiny wrist corsage. Pick one color, maybe two and keep it simple.

To review:

1. Order NOW!
   
2. For the best color match - come to the shop, bring the dress, pick out the ribbon
3. Less is more when the dress is more - simple colors schemes look best on busy printed dresses
4. Order NOW!
   

A Tree Grows in Worcester

A tree grows in Worcester...about four floors up...

...out of a factory wall! Saw this while making one of my deliveries. You have to wonder how the seed got up there - wind, bird guano?

Lily of the Valley

My mother-in-law's yard is covered with lily of the valley. Why, oh why, do I not have any weddings this week when I have access to such gorgeous stuff?! Far taller than the flowers I posted about last week, and fresher seeing as how it is from only a few miles away, instead of New Jersey.

Lily of the valley is one of those gorgeous, dainty, girlie flowers, that is truly best enjoyed in season. Now that we can have so many kinds of flowers shipped to us from around the world at all times of the year (if we're willing to pay for them), I think we forget how wonderful it is to just enjoy and appreciate the wonderful seasonality of plants and flowers.

OK, it's New England, we don't have much of a growing season here, but lilacs, lily of the valley, and of course peonies still feel special because we just don't try to have them all year round.

There are still some flowers that just don't feel right to me out of season. Sunflowers. I can get them all year round, which is nice, and they're pretty popular all year round, but from after Thanksgiving through Valentine's Day, they just feel out of place to me and I try to only carry them by request. I want to enjoy them more when we do have them. Heck, I even want to miss them a little!

A steady diet of even something you love, will tend to dull your palette a little over time.

Savor the seasonal!

Blinded Me With Science!

A couple quick pictures from a recent corporate event we did. This is an annual event which we've been doing for 7 years now and every year there is a different speaker for the group on a science or exploration theme. One year they had someone who had climbed Everest, another was from NASA, another found sunken treasure from the Reconstruction of the South.

This year's speaker was a science writer for the New York Times. It's always a challenge to think of something decor-wise to tie into the speaker, and this year was especially difficult. A science writer. For the New York Times. Hmmm....

We eventually settled on this "black and white and - ahem - red all over" theme. You know, the classic newspaper joke! We tried to exploit the graphic look of some science formulas, elements from the Periodic Table, and the New York Times nameplate.

In doing some research on the font for the NYTimes, we discovered that of course, it is copyrighted, and also, interestingly does not have a full alphabet, just the letters they need. Who knew?! If you're a bit of a font-geek, head here for more about it.

Fan Mail!

I get the best fan mail sometimes! This is what lay outside my shop door on the sidewalk today. :-)

For all I complain about the destructive people in the neighborhood, I am also blessed with some wonderful kids as well!

Floral Fashion

I'm sure you've heard of Fashion Week in New York City. Well, last week was Pollen Week! OK, not really, but there was an evening which brought flowers and fashion together for a fundraiser for Village Care New York.

"The headdresses, each with their own themes, styles and inspirations, were floral masterpieces in height and length, some towering over four feet high and others spanning the same in width. Creativity was in full bloom with designs that included a fantasy bird's nest with eggs, a Greco-Roman Cleopatra hair style, a floppy "over the top" brim hat made of roses, and a Napoleon hat."

Check these headdresses out!

My favorite, by far! I might need to do something like this for Worcester's Cirque du Noir! Is there a Cirque 2009 in the works Michelle? ;-)

A beachy look!

Dress? What dress?!

A tip of the hat to all!

I Do Not Have a Green Thumb

The phalaenopsis orchids that grow lots of lovely new leaves for me - but not more flowers...

...the French tarragon plant I gave Husband for Easter (yes, so he would grill me up some swordfish with fresh tarragon, completely selfish of me, I know)...

I have a degree in horticulture, but honestly, it's not my passion at home. Taking care of plants feels too much like work, and frankly, not what I want to do at home. Sure, I'd love an apartment filled with luscious foliage, but I need low maintenance, poor light loving, non-shedding, flexible about watering plants. The plants that fulfill those requirements for me are few - a sansevieria, a rhaphis palm, and a lemon lime dracena. Not my favorites by any stretch, but they just won't die!

I am tough - die on me once, you might get a second chance, but not a third. When customers are looking for houseplants, we try to assess whether they are lazy plant people or overly lovey-dovey plant people and what kind of light they have. Not going to sell the lazy person with South facing windows the corkscrew juncus. Now a succulent, that would be a better selection.

If a plant fails the two strikes and you're out test, it's either not the right plant for the way you garden or the conditions of your home or yard. Don't torture yourself trying to grow the same plant over and over, move along, find a plant that's a better fit. It's not going to change, you're not going to change. You'd have better luck trying to get a man to change! At least they can be motivated; a plant can't. ;-)

I Need New Flower Pots!

Especially if they can be these crayon bright ones! Husband and I picked up a couple of these yummy plastic pots at the mega-home center for some of our deck plants. They don't have drainage holes, so we'll be drilling them in before we plant.

We chose lime, cobalt, and aqua to play off the colors in the room that has a view of the deck through a slider so the deck would feel like an extension of the room. We only grow a few vegetables and lots of herbs, so the assortment of colored pots shouldn't overwhelm our tiny space. Good thing our deck is small though, or I might have gotten a whole rainbow going. I'm very easily carried away by vibrant color!

Resisting Temptation or Flowers I Didn't Buy

There are many temptations in the Boston flower market, many, many temptations. Sometimes I succumb, and sometimes I am able to resist. Yesterday I resisted.

One of the things I was able to tear myself away from was this gorgeous, tiny edelweiss above. You know, like the song in "The Sound of Music"?! This petite (the stems were maybe 5" long, tops) alpine flower is regarded as the national flower of Austria. They must have gotten some goatherd to pick it in the Alps, because it was a small fortune. So I resisted, with no orders for edelweiss, I couldn't justify getting it.

I was tempted to just carry it around for a while in the market and pet the fuzzy leaves.

I didn't though.

The other pretty little thing this week that I had to turn my back on, was lily of the valley. It's May so it's in season, which means it's at the most reasonable price it will be all year, about $40 a bunch. These bunches came from New Jersey and are not much taller than the edelweiss, about 5" - 6" tall. You probably can't tell, but there are 4 bunches in that little 3" jam jar, so that little clump of lily of the valley would retail for $150-160. Turn those bunches into a bridal bouquet, and you're well over $200. In season.

So I passed on the lily of the valley.

But I did inhale. :-)

Plant Quest - Heirloom Tomatoes

Every spring, Husband and I make a small expedition to this nursery in Sterling MA that specializes in antique plants to get a couple heirloom tomato plants. We're not vegetable growing experts or tomato snobs, we just love finding something completely unexpected!

They have tomatoes of every color and stripe! (Yes, we went for stripes this year, what the heck.) Look at the names - 'Black Prince', 'Tigerella, 'Chocolate Stripes', 'Bloody Butcher', 'Mortgage Lifter' - now there's one I'm sure a lot of folks could use right now! Don't you just want to see how they all turn out?! I have this fantasy where I get to name flowers and plants (oh, OK, and maybe lipstick and nail polish too) as my next career. That has to be someone's job, right? How fun!

We went with a 'Hillbilly' and a 'Plum Lemon' and we're going to give Husband's Mother a couple others that sounded cool, but that we have no room to grow, since we are limited to an 8' x 8' deck for growing.

If you're interested in making the trip - from Worcester MA, take exit 5 on rt. 190, drive north on rt. 140 and look for the sign above on the right about 1 mile after you pass the intersection of rt. 62 in Sterling. Rt. 140 goes back and forth between Sterling and Princeton several times, so don't get confused. They also generally have a cool selection of coleus plants in addition to the funky vegetables.

Sprout Needs a New Sign!

We've needed a new shop sign for a while. I'm rea-l-l-y slow when it comes to making these kind of decisions, so in an effort to speed up this process a little, I thought I'd ask you all if you have a preference.

I have a message in to the guys at Serrato Signs about the colors - I think the background behind the word Sprout is supposed to be white like my logo, so keep that in mind. The sign will be 3' x 5'.

So what do you think? Any preferences/suggestions?

Happy Mother's Day...

...to all the mothers out there and to my fellow florists! I hope your holiday was good enough to take today off and rest. Ours was decent and I'm pooped and my feet are still sore this morning. (I need new work shoes and all DSW has right now is sandals and more sandals!)

There are 5 stems of daisies left in the shop and I think that's it. I'm pleased I bought this well. Could we have sold more? Probably some, but we would have needed more help to do it and that has its own problems.

It seems like this is the time of the year when everything collides - mother's day, proms, graduations, weddings, corporate events, recitals, showers. I remember one May where all I wanted was for someone to change the sheets on my bed, because I was just too exhausted! (Pre-Husband, who keeps me in clean sheets and Jr. Motrin!)

Now I put more limits on what I say yes to. I just can't work 6:00 am to midnight or later any more. We're a tiny shop with me, one not quite full time design assistant and one part time delivery/customer service assistant and that's it. If there's any OT, it's all me. I don't bring in any extra help except the occasional delivery person because I'm really fussy about the quality of what goes out of our shop. You can't just throw someone in the shop the week of a holiday and expect them to keep up with our standards.

So when we say no, we can't help you, it's with deep regret, but know that it's because you deserve quality and we won't compromise on that.

Rest up folks! The flower season is in mid-swing!

Composite Flower Corsage or a Turducken on Your Shoulder

So I made myself a spiffy corsage to wear to Worcester Magazine's Best of Worcester awards the other night. I always try to wear some kind of body flowers when I am at business events or functions - everything is a marketing opportunity!

Any how, I have been thinking about composite flowers off and on lately ever since Kuga Designs made a post about glamelias a couple weeks ago, and with all the prom work we've been doing I was inspired to play with adhesive for my corsage and do a composite flower.

This is what I came up with:

It's a few phalaenopsis orchids inside a gerbera daisy inside some feathers. Pretty cool, really bright, and makes quite a statement!

But, yes, it is a bit of a Franken-corsage, and all I can think of is the poultry dish called a Turducken - a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. What do you think? Feathgerbchid? Too weird for words?!

Flower photos courtesy my friend Claudia. Check out her Flickr place if you'd like to see more pix from the awards thing or if you'd just like to see Francoise ogling appliances!

Fresh From the Flower Market

We are so busy this week with Mothers' Day, proms, and graduation events, it took all day to cut the flowers, so no photos. You'll have to do some imagining!

This week have have:

boronia (who knows how much longer!)
campanula
dendrobium orchids - several colors
oncidium orchids
cymbidium orchids - lime green
ginger - red and pink
godetia - shades of pink
hypericum - green
iris
leucodendron
large hybrid pink lily
'Athos' poms
roses - orange, hot pink, yellow, white
sunflowers - mini and large
spray roses - lots of colors
stock
sweet william
'Jade' trachellium
waxflower - white and a red and white combo
rosemary
gerbera
blue hydrangea
light green spiders
lysimachia
'Ivanhoe' grevillea
dusty miller
tulips - yellow and 'Esperanto'
kangaroo paw
bird of paradise
saracena
alstoemeria
phlox
coontie fern
snapdragon
ranunculus
lavender
dianthus
pincushion protea
bearded iris
phalaenopsis (I must photograph these for you! They are amazing!)
psiticorum
umbrella fern
delphinium
ornithogalum dubium
bells of Ireland

Greeningthe Mean Streets of Worcester - The Seed Bombs are Sprouting!

I know this is not the most appetizing photo, but never the less, I had to share - the leftover seed bombs sitting in a bucket on the floor of my shop are starting to sprout! Yeah! I can only hope that this means good things for the seed bombs that were deployed in the "wild".

Rebecca Cole at Art in Bloom

Part of the Art in Bloom pilgrimage, at least for me, is getting to see some fabulous designers that I would never get to see otherwise. This year we got tickets to see Rebecca Cole, Manhattan landscape, floral, and event designer.

Rebecca set her demonstration up differently from most of the ones I've been to - in addition to her assistant (I've forgotten his name, sorry!) she pulled people from the audience to help make her designs. They were really in the spotlight, and I felt a little badly for them, as Rebecca stopped from time to time to critique their work. I'm sure they were doing the best they could without knowing where they were supposed to end up!

After getting the audience to vote on what container they'd like to see used...

Rebecca began a piece by using colorful orange peppers as the base of her mechanics instead of floral foam. This seems to be one of her signature looks.

Rebecca spent some time talking about roses while she prepped them for her arrangement. She explained how roses come in different quality grades from say, 1 to 10 (with 10 being the best), with florists buying 7 - 10, grocery stores getting 4 - 7, and those ones at the lower end not being sold by anyone concerned about reputation.

She also put a big emphasis on putting your flowers in cold water for longevity. I have to say that goes against everything I've read currently. Flower food dissolves better in warm water and warm water is less oxygenated so is more readily absorbed. To each his own there.

Rebecca, Zah (from the audience), and Rebecca's assistant (whose name I'm sure begins with the letter F!) all working on their own projects.

Here Rebecca gives Zah some guidance on how to finish the arrangement she started with the peppers.

Here is the finished arrangement.

Another very cool piece that took two volunteers and Rebecca's assistant to complete was this hanging wall of foliage and flowers.

It was created on mono filament hung between two poles. The leaves and flowers were inserted into water tubes, and then attached to the fishing line with hardware store zip ties. All the cool European designers use these for crazy constructions. This was the piece and technique that most impressed us.

Everyone wanted to see techniques for arranging in the ever popular glass cube. Rebecca used lots and lots of green kangaroo paws as her base by interlocking the stems.

Those kangaroo paws are almost invisible now after the addition of anemones, peonies, and ranunculus!

The completed hanging garden! Pothos and anthurium leaves with calendulas and ornothagalum dubium.

Ms. Cole puts together a large tablescape as her finale. She loves how a dinner table looks with tall arrangements on it, but thinks after the the big wow and cocktails are over, you should move them to a sideboard so no one's view is obstructed.

The finished result! Modern earth - dogwood, frittilaria, roses, green apples, and sunflowers that have been de-petaled.

Fingers flew to finish up one last thing!