October 2013 Newsletter

Fall Color and Floral Trends for 2013

by Kit Wertz

Red, orange and yel­low ros­es con­tin­ue to be pop­u­lar fall wed­ding bou­quets. This bou­quet was for a wed­ding in mid-Sep­tem­ber and Casey used Hocus Pocus Ros­es, Orange Mam­bo Spray Ros­es, Yel­low Rum­ba Spray Ros­es, Orange Freesia and Cro­cos­mia as well as Red spray and stan­dard ros­es. Here are some more exam­ples of trends we are see­ing in fall wed­dings, event flo­rals and inte­ri­or design. Flo­ral design by: Flower Duet. Pho­to by: Kit Wertz

Purple Flowers

Pur­ple in all shades con­tin­ues to be a pop­u­lar col­or this fall for fash­ion and inte­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing. We’ve used dark pur­ples for wed­dings and have fea­tured the lighter pur­ples in our recent class­es. We love the com­bi­na­tion of light pur­ple and sage green.

Deep Pur­ple orchids accent these cream and white cen­ter­pieces for a wed­ding last week at Trump Nation­al Golf Club.


Pur­ple Amne­sia Ros­es with White Spray Ros­es and fresh Mint.

Antique Hydrangea with a laven­der tinge is accent­ed by pur­ple Clover, laven­der Spray Ros­es and green Hyper­icum berries.

Owls for Fall, Halloween and the Holidays

This fluffy flower owl was cre­at­ed by a 10-year-old boy dur­ing our kids flower class this past week­end. We love how it turned out!

It seems that many stores includ­ing Pot­tery Barn, Home Goods and World Mar­ket are fea­tur­ing owls for fall dec­o­rat­ing accents. We thought it would be fun to have our kids class at The Hunt­ing­ton Library make lit­tle baby owls using fresh flow­ers and green­ery. They turned out real­ly amaz­ing and the kids had a blast cre­at­ing them. Our next class for kids will be on Decem­ber 14, 2013, and every­one will get to make a mini Tour­na­ment of Ros­es Parade Float to take home for the holidays!

To see more owl ideas, check out our Hal­loween Pin­ter­est board we put togeth­er which fea­tures a few owls or make your own.

Here is what we used for this design:

• 2/3 brick Oasis Flo­ral Foam
• Plas­tic dessert plate (to put the foam on)
• 1–2 stems Pam­pas Grass bloom for the downy feath­ers; reserve long stem for your owl’s perch
• 6 Mag­no­lia leaves to cov­er most of body
• 2 Sun­flow­ers for eyes
• 1 brown che­nille stem for ears
• 1 small stem of Antique Hydrangea
• Var­i­ous flow­ers for accent at base (Mums, Clover and Hyper­icum berries)

Using Metallic Vases and Gilding Seedpods, Gourds and Pumpkins for Fall Decorating

Metallics are still quite pop­u­lar for wed­dings, enter­tain­ing, inte­ri­or design and cloth­ing this fall.

We con­tin­ue to see a love for all things metal­lic from vas­es to bling accents on flow­ers and bou­quets to gild­ing seed­pods and gourds. We’ll be teach­ing a class that fea­tures gild­ing tech­niques in Novem­ber — just in time for the hol­i­days. While last year we used most­ly sil­ver accents, this fall we are fea­tur­ing more gold, cop­per and bronze metal­lic accents.

Rustic Floral Design: Loosely Designed Flowers with Wood Accents

Sun­flow­ers in burlap dec­o­rat­ed mason jars were the pri­ma­ry focus of this gar­den wed­ding in Sep­tem­ber at The South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den in Palos Verdes.

When we hear the word “vase,” it can mean more than just a glass or ceram­ic con­tain­er for flow­ers. These days, a “vase” can real­ly be any type of ves­sel that holds flow­ers or just frames a flo­ral design.

Some­times a sim­ple can­ning jar is all we need to show­case a flower.

Or we use a vase cov­ered in birch bark. When we walk through the flower mar­ket each week, we see carts full of Man­zani­ta branch­es, grape wood, wood slabs, and nat­ur­al wood bowls. Here is what is around right now in down­town Los Ange­les at the mart.

Get inspired by nature and work with reclaimed wood in your designs.

Wedding Gallery — Fuchsia Wedding Flowers

by Flower Duet

Here’s a love­ly wed­ding from this past sum­mer. Chris­tine and Ali were mar­ried in Palos Verdes. The recep­tion was held at Trump Nation­al Golf Club. Enjoy the pho­tog­ra­phy by Blue 22 Pho­tog­ra­phy.

2014 Flower Arranging Class Schedule

We are pleased to announce the first set of flower arrang­ing class­es for 2014. Stay tuned to sign up!

Pho­to by Blue 22 Photography

Jan­u­ary 25 — Wed­ding Work­shop Class­es — 2 in one day, book both or just one class

• Morn­ing class is bou­quets and centerpieces
• After­noon class is cor­sages, bou­ton­nieres and how to add bling!

Feb­ru­ary 2 — Suc­cu­lents and Fresh Flow­ers at South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den in Palos Verdes

Feb­ru­ary 22 — Suc­cu­lents and Fresh Flow­ers at our stu­dio in Torrance

March 29 — Orchids: How to design with all types from Den­dro­bi­ums to Cymbidiums

April 19 — Day before East­er: Cre­ate a love­ly cen­ter­piece with Hyacinth, Tulips and Ranunculus

May 31 — Mini Calla Lilies

June 21 — Peonies for the first day of Summer

July 19 — Sum­mer rus­tic using jars, burlap, wild­flow­ers and wood slabs
Please join us for one or more class­es! See our flower arrang­ing class­es page on this site or call us at 310–792-4968!

Book Recommendation

Beau­ti­ful Winter

This book was pub­lished last fall, but with the author’s use of rus­tic ele­ments like birch bark, twigs and berries Beau­ti­ful Win­ter is a book that is very on trend with hol­i­day design this year. We love this and have added it to our library col­lec­tion this fall.

From Ama­zon: “Author and florist Edle Catha­ri­na Nor­man shows how to use sea­son­al mate­ri­als and flow­ers to put togeth­er 53 entranc­ing and easy to assem­ble home projects. From fes­tive gar­lands to fun table dec­o­ra­tions (includ­ing can­dle­sticks made of apples), you’ll find an array of unique ideas to inspire you. Illus­trat­ed with more than 55 full-col­or pho­tographs, this book presents glo­ri­ous dec­o­ra­tions that will warm your heart on even the cold­est win­ter day.”

Floral Design Tool: Sierra Flower Finder

Web­site: sierraflowerfinder.com

In 2000 staff from Sier­ra Flower Trad­ing began col­lect­ing pic­tures in a data­base in order to orga­nize all the incred­i­ble new vari­eties of flow­ers that were being intro­duced by their growers.

In 2010, the mis­sion of the new Sier­ra Flower Find­er is to help the flo­ral indus­try by sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of informed pro­fes­sion­al florists and whole­salers. They believe that the more knowl­edge they share about their flow­ers, the bet­ter we will all be equipped to serve our clients and the more our indus­try will grow.

Click to browse the library or sign up.