The 2019 Valentine’s Day collection is live, the designers have created a bespoke collection that will surely impress the recipient. Each day until Valentine’s Day we will be showcasing each arrangement in the blog! Stay updated by checking in daily!
Bring Some Color To Your Home This Winter
CommentThis week we are offering numerous specials online and in-store.
Online we are offering Tulip Special and Hyacinth Hedge.
A selection of spring toned tulips are gathered in a white ceramic vase. Our designers will choose the freshest of tulips to create a spring mix in varying colors. Shades of pinks, creams, yellows, oranges, whites and more will be available throughout the season. Originally $65 now only $55
Sweet smelling hyacinth are collected in a white ceramic container to delight the senses. Was $60 now $50
Rose Color Meanings
Comment
Besides the good old red Roses, which represent love and passion, there are other color Roses which can be offered correctly for this loving holiday. So be THAT supplier who not only provides lovers their floral designs-to-be, but also friends, parents, children, and so on!
Pink-Colored Roses: Perfect for BFF’s
Need flowers for a super special friend? Mix it with pink Roses! Pink Roses symbolize sweetness, admiration, and innocence. When you combine these color Rose varieties with Eucalyptus Cinerea, white Stock and white Lisianthus, you will design a heartwarming friendship-for-life bouquet!
Some of the beautiful varieties of pink-colored Roses that we offer in our webshop are:
Rose All 4 Love – As the names says, this rose is just perfect for Valentines.
Rose Aqua – This rose almost looks like it is eatable! Such a sweet even color.
Rose Lazise – This white/pink rose has a beautiful color that fades from white to a purple center.
Rose Candy Girl – The center is just breathtaking! It looks like a swirl painting.
Rose Pink Mondial – A real beauty with soft pink-hued heart and an outer ring of creamy-colored cascading petals.
Rose Pink Floyd – Named after the famous English rock band, this Rose - with its vibrant hot pink-colored big head - honors its name.
Rose Nena – With this Rose variety you will not get 99 luftballons, but 99 gorgeous shell pink-colored Rose petals!
Rose Topaz – The gemstone topaz can have several colors, but this Rose variety has only one: beautiful hot pink
Rose Gotcha – Gotcha has a big head and a deep hot pink color. Smashing!
Rose Pink O’Hara – a gorgeous light pink colored Garden Rose, which has a lovely fragrance.
Yellow-Colored Roses: for Hard-Working Friends
For those of you that are looking for a way to show their appreciation to a dear one, you can suggest yellow Roses. Yellow symbolizes happiness, activeness, and energy. Mix them with blue Delphiniums, Eryngium Thistle and Asparagus Falcatus to get a striking, contrasting bouquet!
Rose Good Times – A large, wide head with a bright yellow color.
Rose Solero – Just like the pink Candy Girl, this rose has a beautiful swirl in the center.
Rose Moonwalk – A very dark yellow colored variety with lovely petals.
Rose Stardust – This beautiful variety of pastel yellow, is very desired by the termination of its petals in tips.
Rose Bikini – The most traditional yellow Rose in the USA for the bright yellow color, and also is known for its small head with excellent aperture head.
Rose Cubana – This gorgeous Rose has a great fragrance and is very beloved by its appearance to the garden Rose.
Orange-Colored Roses: A Mixture of Friendship and Love
The color orange is a mixture of yellow and red. So you could say that orange is the intermediate between friendship and love. Orange color Roses also symbolize good energy and enthusiasm. Thus, the perfect flower to opt when a customer wants to show his/her appreciation! Combine orange Roses with yellow Stock
Rose Confedential – Probably the most popular orange rose. This rose has a very good vase life too.
Rose Juliet – One of the most beautiful roses on this list. This garden rose has a very nice smell as well.
Rose Crush – The unique orange/coral Rose color makes this variety very exclusive, as well for the great aperture head and the stems length.
Rose Nina – This exotic dark orange Rose has a great head opening, and this makes it that is used for extraordinary events like a Valentine’s Day!
Purple-Colored Roses: for Love at First Sight
Mix purple-colored Roses with pink Lisianthus and white Gypsophila for a charming look, or mix them with various Moon series Carnations, and Eucalyptus Cinerea to create an elegant, though a bit of a mysterious look. Success guaranteed!
Purple comes in many shades, and our Holland and Miami Rose ranges contain exotic varieties. Visit our webshop to see the current offerings, like:
Rose Martim – If you're looking for something that is purple but also has a light shade of pink than this is the rose you want!
Rose Nightingale – A small rose that is available in lengths 40, 50, 60 and 70 centimeters.
Rose Cool Water – This beautiful lavender color Rose always looks gorgeous in all floral arrangements for its large opening head.
Rose Moody Blues – Elegant, and delicate lavender color Rose, unique to express unconditional love.
Rose Deep Purple – The great combination of this bicolor Rose hot-pink and purple, makes this Rose very versatile to use in different styles of arrangements and events.
Rose Ocean Song – The delicate appearance of the lavender color and the antique edges makes this rose as a very romantic flower particular for weddings.
Rose Tiara – A new variety with an excellent lavender color with brown edges that makes it a very romantic Rose.
Crushing on Anemone week of 1/21
Comment
We are loving the Anemones this week, they come in an array of colors and brighten up any arrangement.
Anemones are a great cut flower and will give you around nine days of vase life when when properly cared for.
Recut the stems at an angle, removing one to two inches with a sharp knife to allow for better water intake.
Always remember to use a clean vase and fresh water whenever you are considering presenting and displaying anemones.
Keep Anemones in medium light and in a cool spot to prolong vase life. This flower prefer the cold water and the cold spaces. Anemones will open in light and heat so be sure to keep plan appropriately for blooming purposes.
Refresh the water that the stems are standing in on a daily basis. Anemones are heavy drinkers so check their water level frequently when hydrating and arranging.
Position the anemone arrangements in a cool area of your home, or place of business, in order to keep them looking fresh.
Whenever possible, place the arrangements in the refrigerator at night or when not being displayed.
Anemones continue to grow after arranging. Leave enough room in bouquets and wedding centerpieces for flowers to open.
Anemones are seasonal flowers available from November thru May. It is possible that Anemone flowers may not be available during some weeks in November and December due to cold weather. Limited availability in quantities and colors of Anemones in July, August, and October.
Freezing Temperatures
Comment
Due to below freezing temperature, floral must be wrapped for outside travel. We do not recommend traveling outside with fresh cut flowers or plants for extended amount of time.
Flowers can hear buzzing bees—and it makes their nectar sweeter
CommentWe found this article to be fascinating!
EVEN ON THE quietest days, the world is full of sounds: birds chirping, wind rustling through trees, and insects humming about their business. The ears of both predator and prey are attuned to one another’s presence.
Sound is so elemental to life and survival that it prompted Tel Aviv University researcher Lilach Hadany to ask: What if it wasn’t just animals that could sense sound—what if plants could, too? The first experiments to test this hypothesis, published recently on the pre-print server bioRxiv, suggest that in at least one case, plants can hear, and it confers a real evolutionary advantage.
Hadany’s team looked at evening primroses (Oenothera drummondii) and found that within minutes of sensing vibrations from pollinators’ wings, the plants temporarily increased the concentration of sugar in their flowers’ nectar. In effect, the flowers themselves served as ears, picking up the specific frequencies of bees’ wings while tuning out irrelevant sounds like wind.
The sweetest sound
As an evolutionary theoretician, Hadany says her question was prompted by the realization that sounds are a ubiquitous natural resource—one that plants would be wasting if they didn’t take advantage of it as animals do. If plants had a way of hearing and responding to sound, she figured, it could help them survive and pass on their genetic legacy.
Since pollination is key to plant reproduction, her team started by investigating flowers. Evening primrose, which grows wild on the beaches and in parks around Tel Aviv, emerged as a good candidate, since it has a long bloom time and produces measurable quantities of nectar.
To test the primroses in the lab, Hadany’s team exposed plants to five sound treatments: silence, recordings of a honeybee from four inches away, and computer-generated sounds in low, intermediate, and high frequencies. Plants given the silent treatment—placed under vibration-blocking glass jars—had no significant increase in nectar sugar concentration. The same went for plants exposed to high-frequency (158 to 160 kilohertz) and intermediate-frequency (34 to 35 kilohertz) sounds.
But for plants exposed to playbacks of bee sounds (0.2 to 0.5 kilohertz) and similarly low-frequency sounds (0.05 to 1 kilohertz), the final analysis revealed an unmistakable response. Within three minutes of exposure to these recordings, sugar concentration in the plants increased from between 12 and 17 percent to 20 percent.
A sweeter treat for pollinators, their theory goes, may draw in more insects, potentially increasing the chances of successful cross-pollination. Indeed, in field observations, researchers found that pollinators were more than nine times more common around plants another pollinator had visited within the previous six minutes.
“We were quite surprised when we found out that it actually worked,” Hadany says. “But after repeating it in other situations, in different seasons, and with plants grown both indoors and outdoors, we feel very confident in the result.”
Flowers for ears
As the team thought about how sound works, via the transmission and interpretation of vibrations, the role of the flowers became even more intriguing. Though blossoms vary widely in shape and size, a good many are concave or bowl-shaped. This makes them perfect for receiving and amplifying sound waves, much like a satellite dish.
To test the vibrational effects of each sound frequency test group, Hadany and her co-author Marine Veits, then a graduate student in Hadany’s lab, put the evening primrose flowers under a machine called a laser vibrometer, which measures minute movements. The team then compared the flowers’ vibrations with those from each of the sound treatments.
“This specific flower is bowl- shaped, so acoustically speaking, it makes sense that this kind of structure would vibrate and increase the vibration within itself,” Veits says.
And indeed it did, at least for the pollinators’ frequencies. Hadany says it was exciting to see the vibrations of the flower match up with the wavelengths of the bee recording.
“You immediately see that it works,” she says.
To confirm that the flower was the responsible structure, the team also ran tests on flowers that had one or more petals removed. Those flowers failed to resonate with either of the low-frequency sounds.
What else plants can hear
Hadany acknowledges that there are many, many questions remaining about this newfound ability of plants to respond to sound. Are some “ears” better for certain frequencies than others? And why does the evening primrose make its nectar so much sweeter when bees are known to be able to detect changes in sugar concentration as small as 1 to 3 percent?
Also, could this ability confer other advantages beyond nectar production and pollination? Hadany posits that perhaps plants alert one another to the sound of herbivores mowing down their neighbors. Or maybe they can generate sounds that attract the animals involved in dispersing that plant’s seeds.
“We have to take into account that flowers have evolved with pollinators for a very long time,” Hadany says. “They are living entities, and they, too, need to survive in the world. It’s important for them to be able to sense their environment—especially if they cannot go anywhere.”
This single study has cracked open an entirely new field of scientific research, which Hadany calls phytoacoustics.
Veits wants to know more about the underlying mechanisms behind the phenomenon the research team observed. For instance, what molecular or mechanical processes are driving the vibration and nectar response? She also hopes the work will affirm the idea that it doesn’t always take a traditional sense organ to perceive the world.
“Some people may think, How can [plants] hear or smell?” Veits says. “I’d like people to understand that hearing is not only for ears.”
Richard Karban, an expert in interactions between plants and their pests at the University of California Davis, has questions of his own, in particular, about the evolutionary advantages of plants’ responses to sound.
“It may be possible that plants are able to chemically sense their neighbors, and to evaluate whether or not other plants around them are fertilized,” he says. “There’s no evidence that things like that are going on, but [this study] has done the first step.”
Link to national Geographic Article:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/01/flowers-can-hear-bees-and-make-their-nectar-sweeter/
Dutch Tulip & Daffodil Special!
Comment
This week we are offering an in store special on Dutch Tulips and Daffodils!
3 Bunches of Tulips for $30
3 Bunched of Daffodils for $25
Tulips per bunch $12
Daffodils Per bunch $10
Stop in and grab some bunches to brighten up your home with some spring color during these winter months!
Crushing on Vanda Orchid week of 1/14
Comment
A modern twist, stylish elegance and stunning colors: Vanda orchids have it all.
Vanda orchid varieties are sophisticated, elegant, and pure. Ideal as a gift or in special bouquets or arrangements. And ... Did you know that the orchid is also symbol of pure friendship?
The Vanda is not influenced by trends. Whether you want to create a stylish statement, elegant wealth or a more earthy look: what color or type you choose, the orchid is never boring!
The colors and shape of the orchid lends itself to celebrate all life events. Vanda offers a wide selection of colors, which you can use creatively in all sorts of festive occasions.
Where are they from?
Vanda originates on the southern slopes of the Himalayas and in the area from India to southern China. These orchids do not grow naturally in soil, but clings to the trunks of trees.
Vanda is a real eye-catcher. Vanda flowers have the most beautiful colors and are very long lasting, so they are useful for weeks. Vanda also can be used very well as a corsage.
Our Designers Are Gearing Up For Valentines Day!
Comment
This week our designers and buyers are collaborating on this years Valentine’s Day Collection, here is a sneak peak on the process we take when designing a new collection.
Design Process
We look at whats trending in the industry and local market
What is or has been a popular seller with our clientele
We always like to have a theme for each collection *ie this holiday collection was a woodland theme
What flowers are readily available from out selected farms
The Flowers
We contact farms that we have relationships with to order an abundance of flowers
Each farm specializes in certain flowers therefore we uses various farms around the world that we have built up relationships with to ensure the highest quality
Once we take delivery of the flowers the designers begin to create the Valentine’s Collection for 2019
The Creation
The designers will collaborate with each other to go over the design process once again
Each designer then begins to create the vision that has been talked about and sketched into fruition
Numerous iterations of arrangements are made until the perfect collection is created
Each arrangement is then photographed and uploaded to our website, social media and design book
Stay tuned in the next week or so for the Valentine’s 2019 Collection!
Find Your New Plant Friend!
Comment
Now that the holiday decorations are coming down, are you feeling a green void?
Come find a new plant friend to keep you company (and keep you space feeling alive) all year long!
Visit the shop for an array of foliage, flowering and large scale plants for the home! If you can’t make it in give us a call or shop online to bring some fresh greenery into your home or office!
Here are a few varieties ready to find their forever home;
4: assorted succulents and echeveria
Multiple orchid varieties
Fig topiary and bush from 6” to 14”
Strelitzia 6” to 14”
Aglaonema 8” & 10”
Calathea 6”
Dracena multiple sizes
Sansevieria multiple varieties & sizes
& much, much more
