Green Roses and Flowers for St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day or Any Day

by Casey Schwartz

Not too long ago it was­n’t easy being green if you were a flower. Dyed green car­na­tions were the only options for many years. Now, there are oth­er, more beau­ti­ful and nat­ur­al ways to go “green” with flow­ers. As we head into March to cel­e­brate St. Patrick­’s Day or Earth Day in April, here are some green flo­ral options to consider.

There is a new green flower on the block and they are pom pom­my, fun, and whim­si­cal and look like they may have come from a Dr. Seuss book. They are called Green Trick® Dianthus or Green Ball Dianthus (see pho­to at left). Not actu­al­ly a true car­na­tion, they are relat­ed to Sweet William. We love these fluffy flow­ers that look like balls of moss and our clients can’t seem to take their fin­gers or eyes off of them. They do share some­thing in com­mon with car­na­tions … they last a very long time in a vase design! Here are a cou­ple of recent designs we’ve done that inte­grate them.

Green Trick® Dianthus with mul­ti-col­ored car­na­tions, wax flower and creamy ros­es make up this cute low vase design.

Green Ker­mit mums are paired with the Green Ball Dianthus here in a fun and whim­si­cal flo­ral design.

Green Roses

As far as green ros­es go … the only one we could use in flo­ral design 10 years ago was called “Jade,” a rather pale green with just a touch of red on each petal’s tips. Then along came “Lim­bo,” which, in my book is in lim­bo between green and yel­low — a great lemon/lime rose. “Green Tea” has shown itself late­ly and is sim­i­lar to “Jade,” a very del­i­cate green open­ing even paler than “Jade.” My favorite green rose is called “Super Green.” It is frilly, has ruf­fled petals and looks like light green sal­ad. Its flower head is very dense and full of petals and does not open like a tra­di­tion­al rose, but is more “squat­ty” for lack of a bet­ter descrip­tion. The stems are usu­al­ly full of thorns … so they are super thorny, too!

More Green Flowers and “Greenery”

Pic­tured above is a bou­quet for which we cre­at­ed a “how-to” guide on our blog based on the Olympic flow­ers from the 2010 Van­cou­ver Win­ter Games. It fea­tured green hyper­icum berries and green spi­der mums and some leather fern. These two green flow­ers rep­re­sent just a few of the options of flow­ers you can use to design for St. Patrick­’s Day.

So pass up the dyed flow­ers and take a good look at all the great green flow­ers that have arrived on the scene. Book an LA Flower mart tour with us in March to see all the green flow­ers that are at the Los Ange­les Flo­ral District.

Hot Floral Supplies: Manzanita Branches at Wasabi Green

by Kit Wertz

We spend a lot of time at the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict and are con­stant­ly amazed by all the won­der­ful things to buy for our flo­ral designs. This month, we are teach­ing how to make a Liv­ing Suc­cu­lent Art Piece and think the ven­dor, Wasabi Green, has some great items that would be per­fect accents to our designs. If you come to our month­ly tours of the LA Flower Mart, we can show you this ven­dor and more and let you in on all the secrets of whole­sale flo­ral sup­plies. Here are some items we think are real­ly unique and fun at Wasabi Green!

Glass and Stones

Col­ored Glass and pol­ished stones make won­der­ful accents to the tops of plant­ed con­tain­ers and for ter­rar­i­um dis­plays. Wasabi Green offers these in bulk. You can see there is a huge vari­ety to choose from.

From the Sea

You can also find a vari­ety of coral and seashells sold by the piece or in bulk. Some of these are actu­al­ly barnacles!

Manzanita Branches and Grapewood

Grape­wood and Man­zani­ta branch­es make inter­est­ing archi­tec­tur­al accents in larg­er scale designs. Man­zani­ta branch­es have been a trend in flo­ral design for the past few years and we are still using them as large and small accents for wed­dings and all sort of spe­cial events. The branch­es come in all sizes with their orig­i­nal dark bark intact, but also come with­out bark, in a treat­ment called sandblasting.

Man­zani­ta branch­es are espe­cial­ly used for “wish­ing trees” at wed­dings. Guests can write a sweet note to the bride and groom and wish­ing them good thoughts for their life togeth­er. Note cards are pre­pared ahead of time with rib­bon already attached and so all you have to do is write and hang.

We hon­ored the Cal­i­for­nia native Sam Mal­oof last year at The Hunt­ing­ton Library, Art Col­lec­tions and Botan­i­cal Gar­dens where there was an exhi­bi­tion of his wood fur­ni­ture. We taught a flo­ral design in a wood con­tain­er with a Man­zani­ta branch as its focal point as a nod to his art­ful wood­work. Here is a pho­to of what we taught.

FREE Video: Easy Flower Design Anyone Can Do!

Flower Duet Adds More Videos to its 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 airs 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 beau­ti­ful flo­ral design in less than ten min­utes using her “bun­dle and place” nev­er-fail flo­ral design tech­nique. Any­one can learn to make a won­der­ful and cre­ative arrange­ment like this one!

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

Book Review

flower flip: a guide to 50 favorite flow­ers by Florists’ Review

When you need infor­ma­tion about a flower vari­ety quick­ly, this book is a per­fect choice. The flower flip book by Florists’ Review is a small flip chart with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on 50 of the most pop­u­lar flower vari­eties avail­able to most florists. For each flower, there is a beau­ti­ful pho­to, a pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide, a descrip­tion, avail­able col­ors, vase life and spe­cial care infor­ma­tion. There is also a gen­er­al care guide for all types of cut flow­ers. It’s designed to fit on your coun­ter­top for easy access. You’ll find it an indis­pens­able tool in your flo­ral department!

Floral Design Tool: Mercury Glass Vases

Mer­cury glass has been around a long time but it dis­ap­peared from the design scene for many years. It’s back in the inte­ri­or design mag­a­zines and in our flo­ral dec­o­rat­ing choic­es and we think it’s a great trend to fol­low. Even though it’s called “Mer­cury” glass, there is actu­al­ly no mer­cury used in the process of mak­ing these shiny objects. When the first ver­sions of these types of glass con­tain­ers were made over 300 years ago, the glass was blown with “dou­ble walls.” Then a sil­ver nitrate liq­uid solu­tion was poured into the walls before it was sealed between the two layers.

Metal­lic glass became pop­u­lar in the 19th cen­tu­ry as an alter­na­tive to the brown bot­tles and clear glass that was nor­mal­ly made but was only pro­duced for about 80 years. Now, we see a return of this type of glass, but the items we get today are not dou­ble-walled ves­sels. Most vas­es or votive hold­ers that are avail­able now are sim­ply glass with a sil­very coat­ing on the inside of the vase giv­ing it that “Mer­cury Glass” look.

HOT TIP: On some types of vas­es treat­ed this way, we’ve found the inside sil­ver flakes off when water touch­es it. For this rea­son, we rec­om­mend using a lin­er of plas­tic or using anoth­er water­tight vase before adding flowers.

Where to Purchase

A few months ago it was tough to find a vari­ety of these mer­cury glass vas­es, but we are see­ing more styles of vas­es as the demand has grown. Shown above are col­ored mer­cury glass vas­es we scout­ed while doing an event in New York City. These are avail­able from Jamali Gar­den Flo­ral Sup­ply. We have found metal­lic glass vas­es and con­tain­ers at main­stream stores like Amazon.com, Pot­tery Barn or ZGal­lerie, but you can also buy them from whole­sale flo­ral sup­ply places like Moska­tels down­town in the Los Ange­les Flo­ral District.