Early Summer Flowers In Season From California

by Casey Schwartz

In a glob­al world of flower grow­ers, we florists are lucky to have many flow­ers avail­able year round. So, we are now inclined to be able to buy any type of flower when­ev­er we need it. It’s pret­ty rare to hear from our ven­dors that a flower is not avail­able. For exam­ple, our favorite filler Waxflower is now out of sea­son, but it’s still easy to get spring Tulips at the flower mart. To help you know what is REALLY avail­able as we head into each sea­son, we’ll be adding a reg­u­lar fea­ture to our newsletter.

Some flow­ers you just know are in sea­son as you dri­ve around neigh­bor­hoods and see cer­tain flow­ers pop­ping up or explod­ing every­where. Hydrangeas have been leaf­ing up their bush­es for the past few months and to see them now with huge col­or­ful blooms is so reward­ing. These are a great cut flower but remem­ber don’t cut the bloom for your vase as soon as it appears on the bush, as it will droop with­in 2–3 days. Let it strength­en on the bush longer and get its nutri­ents from the plant for a week or so. It will last so much longer in the vase.

Accord­ing to The Cal­i­for­nia Cut Flower Com­mis­sion, almost 80% of all flow­ers grown in the Unit­ed States are grown in Cal­i­for­nia. Here are a few flow­ers that are in full avail­abil­i­ty this June for the cut flo­ral industry:

Aga­pan­thus – also known as Lily of the Nile. Round balls of lit­tle flow­ers burst like fire­works in pur­ples, blues, and whites atop a long clean stem. The vase life can last 6–10 days and the indi­vid­ual flow­ers can be used for wiring into cor­sages or bouts. The green­ery at the base of the flow­ers can be used for lin­ing vas­es as well. A very giv­ing flower.

Bil­ly Balls — known famil­iar­ly as the “bil­ly but­ton” or “drum­stick,” Cras­pe­dia is a mem­ber of the daisy fam­i­ly and is a native wild­flower of New Zealand, Aus­tralia, and Tas­ma­nia. This flower has actu­al­ly been in the gar­dens of the US for over 20 years, but we have only start­ed see­ing it recent­ly for the cut flower indus­try. They only come in bright yel­low and are per­fect accents to green and sil­very arrange­ments. The vase life of these dar­ling balls of yel­low is 10–12 days and do won­der­ful­ly out of water. Ide­al for bou­ton­nieres and cor­sages and bridal bouquets.

Celosia – There are two ver­sions of this vari­ety. They are referred to as Cockscomb and Plumosa. The Cockscomb resem­bles brain coral and the Plumosa reminds me of danc­ing flames. The col­ors that these flow­ers come in are so vibrant and have a nice range. Deep reds, oranges, yel­lows, and pur­ples, as well as neon green and pink. 

The stems and leaves look like cel­ery and they grow to heights of 2–3.5 feet. The vase life of these vel­vet beau­ties is 7–10 days. They are very hardy in heat so ide­al for an out­door event’s cen­ter­piece. These are cur­rent­ly avail­able at nurs­eries to plant in your own garden.
A design com­bo that would be fun would be the Bil­ly But­tons and the Celosia. Vibrant for sum­mer, long-last­ing in the vase and gives us a wide range of texture.

Dahlias are mak­ing an ear­ly appear­ance in a full range of bril­liant col­ors, how­ev­er, the whites are not quite in full pro­duc­tion yet. The Café Au Lait Dahlia is one of the most in demand and they are sched­uled to make them­selves avail­able some­time this month.

Cal­i­for­nia Grown Ros­es, which in the past tend­ed to be a bit more on the small­er size head vari­ety, have both small and large head vari­eties in a wide range of colors.

Tecate Ranun­cu­lus which are grown by a few Cal­i­for­nia Flower Farms is com­ing into bloom just in time to pick up where the Tecolote Ranun­cu­lus left off. They are in a full range of col­ors and full of petals…did you know they share the same genus of Peonies?

Peonies Wed­ding Sea­son is upon us so Gar­den Ros­es and Peonies abound. I popped into Trad­er Joes over the Memo­r­i­al Week­end and there the Peonies were in all their mas­sive glo­ry at a real­ly great price. I saw them one month ago sell­ing for $5.00 per stem whole­sale and now they are sell­ing at Trad­er Joe’s $6.99 retail for five stems! That is a for sure sign of a flower being “in-sea­son.”

Peonies have a long his­to­ry dat­ing back cen­turies in Asia and Europe and were main­ly grown for their med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties. Here in the US, they were most­ly grown for their orna­men­tal val­ue. Their mean­ing is “Hap­py Life and Hap­py Mar­riage” and we feel Peonies are very appro­pri­ate for the June bride.

The vase life is a short 5–7 days, but the joy of the blooms in unsur­passed. They come in white, pink, red, bur­gundy, yel­low and coral.
Do not remove the hard green out­er leaves hold­ing the ball of petals togeth­er, as this is the archi­tec­ture which will hold the bloom. Keep the petals dry, as they will get moldy eas­i­ly and keep those stems in water. They do not do well out of the water. Buy them closed, or just about to open, a term called cracking.

To check more flow­ers which are in sea­son, go to the 
Cal­i­for­nia Cut Flower Com­mis­sion and click on this month, hun­dreds of flow­ers will fill your screen and fill your life with joy.

Where to See California Flower Growers in Action

Know­ing that 80% of our fine nation’s flow­ers are grown in Cal­i­for­nia, wouldn’t it be nice to meet the farm­ers who grow your flowers?

I remem­ber when I first moved to Los Ange­les and went to my local Farm­ers’ Mar­ket. I bought some white and pur­ple Stock that was being sold by the grow­ers. The Stock was fra­grant and the roots were still on the stems and so was the dirt. These were some seri­ous­ly fresh flow­ers. I recall the grow­er wrap­ping up my pur­chase and stuff­ing 3–4 pack­ets of flower food into my hand with my change. (Use flower food, it will help your flow­ers last longer.) They want the flower to last so I would buy from them again. I thought to myself, “What a joy to buy from the pas­sion­ate grower!”

Just up the coast from Los Ange­les this past April, some of the Cal­i­for­nia Flower Nurs­eries based in Car­pen­te­ria had tours. Ever-Bloom, who just sup­plied me with 100 per­fect pink Ger­bers for the Mother’s Day brunch at the Portofi­no Hotel in Redon­do, had a tour of their oper­a­tion. They shared the entire grow­ing process from start to fin­ish and sold Ger­bers and Anthir­i­um to atten­dees. It was such a suc­cess that they already have the 2013 Car­pen­te­ria Flower Grow­er Tour on the books.

This month on Sat­ur­day, June 16, 2012, a bit fur­ther up the coast (but a great des­ti­na­tion to con­sid­er), the Mon­terey Bay Green­house Grow­ers are host­ing an Open House.

If you are not in Cal­i­for­nia or can’t make an open house, there are ways to meet Cal­i­for­nia flower farm­ers. The Cal­i­for­nia Cut Flower Com­mis­sion has a reg­u­lar fea­ture on their web­site where you can meet a farmer online. This site is full of inspir­ing sto­ries that will make you want to go right out and look for the Cal­i­for­nia Grown label on your flowers.

One of the largest grow­ers in Cal­i­for­nia is The Sun Val­ley Group and they hold an open house every year. They haven’t set the date yet – so check their web­site, sunvalleyfloral.com.

How-To Create Succulent Wall Art with Flower Duet’s Pop Boxes

by Kit Wertz

We men­tioned these Pop Box­es back in April and now they are avail­able for pur­chase. Here is a how-to on how easy it is to make a won­der­ful piece of wall art for your out­door room or patio.

You can make this suc­cu­lent wall art using our own Pop Box­es which are avail­able to pur­chase from our online store.

Supplies Needed

• Pop Box — Buy from our store
• Cac­tus Mix Soil
• Approx­i­mate­ly 60 small suc­cu­lent cuttings
• Pok­er of some kind

Make Your Own Pop Box Steps:

Step 1: Add soil through the top of the box.

Step 2: Shake soil so it’s distributed.

Step 3: Pat down soil and make sure the grid is show­ing. Make the soil even with the grid. Make sure the soil is moist at this point before adding the suc­cu­lent cuttings.

Step 4: Make sure each suc­cu­lent stem cut­ting is only about one inch long. It’s best to cut the suc­cu­lent stems a few days before assem­bling the Pop Box. The stem needs to cal­lous before it’s placed in wet soil. This will help pre­vent the stem from rotting.

Step 5: Fig­ure out where you want to place your cut­ting and pre-poke a hole. This will allow you to insert the stem eas­i­ly into the soil.

Step 6: Place cut­tings into the pre-poked holed gently.

Step 7: Start pattern.

Step 8: Con­tin­ue pat­tern until you fill it all in.

Step 9: Give the box a good water­ing and keep the fin­ished and plant­ed Pop Box on a flat sur­face for 1–2 months to allow all the cut­tings to take root. After that, use the built-in hang­er hole on the back of the box to hang on a wall.

Car­ing for your Suc­cu­lent Pop Box Water the plant­ed Pop Box on a flat sur­face and make sure the stems are thor­ough­ly soaked and the box is drained before putting back up onto the wall. Suc­cu­lents in a small plant­ed con­tain­er like this should be fer­til­ized month­ly. Use a fer­til­iz­er like Cac­tus Juice and fol­low pack­age instruc­tions for application.

FREE Video: How to Design a Long Centerpiece in Floral Foam

Check out the latest video on our YouTube channel

We con­tin­ue to add more free videos to our YouTube chan­nel. Casey appeared on behalf of Flower Duet for the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 sea­sons of Cre­ative Liv­ing, which air on PBS sta­tions across the coun­try. We are able to air these seg­ments with the per­mis­sion of Cre­ative Liv­ing via our chan­nel on YouTube!

This month, Casey shows Sheryl Bor­den from Cre­ative Liv­ing how to cre­ate a long cen­ter­piece in flo­ral foam. This is a great design for a din­ing table for your next din­ner party!

Sub­scribe to our YouTube chan­nel: fash­ion­ingflow­ers so you’ll know when we’ve uploaded a new show!

Book Review: Petal and Twig

Petal & Twig: Sea­son­al Bou­quets with Blos­soms, Branch­es, and Grass­es from Your Gar­den by Valerie Easton

This is an inspir­ing flo­ral design book for those of you who have a gar­den filled with branch­es and just a few flow­ers and want to design with some­thing right out of your gar­den. It has lots of pho­tos to help you cre­ate your own vision.

From The New York Times

“Almost any flower, leaf or branch can look good in the right vase. The com­bi­na­tion is a study in tex­ture, col­or, shape, the reflec­tion of light. Valerie Eas­t­on, a Seat­tle-based gar­den writer, dis­cuss­es the art of grow­ing and arrang­ing cut flow­ers in “Petal and Twig: Sea­son­al Bou­quets With Blos­soms, Branch­es and Grass­es From Your Gar­den” (Sasquatch Books; $16.95). Writ­ten as an infor­mal diary, with pho­tographs of arrange­ments from her own con­tain­er gar­den, and tips on cut­ting and keep­ing flow­ers fresh, the book inspires ideas not only on what to grow but on how to com­bine (or not) those beau­ties inside.”

The author Valerie Eas­t­on is a long-time gar­den colum­nist for The Seat­tle Times and author of four books.

Floral Design Tool: Living Art Pop Box

Make Your Own Living Art

In April, we talked about our new prod­uct, “Pop Box­es” and we are excit­ed to make them avail­able for pur­chase now from our online store. In this mon­th’s newslet­ter, we show you how to cre­ate one of these liv­ing art beau­ties step-by-step.

Our exclu­sive Pop Box­es are hand-made in the U.S.A. by our crafty father whom we all call “Pop.” So, the box­es are named after him as well as the fact that you just “pop” in the soil, “pop” in your plants and then “pop” it up on the wall after the plants have tak­en root!

Liv­ing Art Pop Box Specifications:

• Out­side Box Dimen­sions: 8‑inches wide square by 2.5‑inches depth.
• Box Open­ing Dimen­sions: 6‑inches wide square.
• Wood frame is made from Cedar. Cedar is durable in weath­er, will turn nat­u­ral­ly gray.
• Wire mesh grid fea­tures 1/2 inch open­ings to allow for dif­fer­ent size stems to fit.
• Wire mesh is gal­va­nized to pro­tect against rust­ing (although some rust may appear in time).
• Back­ing is waterproof.
• Back includes built-in hang­er hole for easy hanging.
• Can hold up to 60 small suc­cu­lent cut­tings or 12 medi­um to large cuttings.

Order online:

$30.00 (plus shipping)

usu­al­ly ships with­in 1–2 days