Buy Your Gourds and Pumpkins for Fall Decorations Now Before they Disappear!

Fall is in full swing and right now there is a pletho­ra of all types of fun gourds, squash and pump­kins in the super­mar­ket and pump­kin patch­es. Buy up all you can today or this week if you want to have these love­ly dec­o­ra­tions around for your Thanks­giv­ing feast. Come the end of Novem­ber, these won­der­ful items are few and far between!

If you decide to use a pump­kin as a hol­lowed-out vase, be sure to wait to carve out the pump­kin right before your planned event. Even with fruit preser­v­a­tive, the pump­kin will get moldy quickly.

Gourds can be refrig­er­at­ed to keep them fresh­er longer. Or if you live in a cold cli­mate, they would last well out­side in a shady spot until you are ready to bring them inside for your fan­cy table top feast flo­ral design.

Fall Table Top Flower Decorations

Check out these posts on our blog and newsletters:

Thanks­giv­ing Rose Pump­kin Centerpiece

Thanks­giv­ing Cen­ter­piece in Peach­es and Cream

How to Cre­ate a Suc­cu­lent Pump­kin Planter Centerpiece

Rock and Roses

New Roses Breeds Named After Rock n’ Roll Bands

We’ve been rock­ing out with Pink Floyd, Deep Pur­ple and Moody Blues this fall at our flo­ral design stu­dio. But we’re talk­ing about ros­es more than we are about amaz­ing rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s.

Carnations Take on New Colors in Classic Designs

We’ve been real­ly for­tu­nate late­ly to incor­po­rate a won­der­ful flower into our event and wed­ding designs. Car­na­tions are back in vogue and we are hap­py to embrace this won­der­ful trend.

The stan­dard col­ors for car­na­tions are red, white and pink. All oth­er col­ors includ­ing dif­fer­ent shades of yel­low, orange, peach, green, pur­ples, earth tones and bi-col­ors are con­sid­ered “Nov­el­ties”.

Look for new nov­el­ties in earth tones, peach tones, bur­gundy, greens, and bi-col­or pur­ples, pinks, oranges, and yellows.

Here are a few fun ideas on how to use one of the most long-last­ing and best-scent­ed flow­ers in the business.

Tips for Using Carnations in Flower Designs

1. Even though there is very lit­tle green­ery on the stems, it’s still best to remove any leaves that will be below the vase water line so they don’t break down.
2. Use flower food to extend the life of the flow­ers — these can last over two weeks in a vase!
3. Be care­ful when han­dling these stems, even though the flower seems very stur­dy, the stems are vul­ner­a­ble at each joint. If you hold on too tight to a stem, it’s very easy to break them at the joint.
4. Buy the car­na­tions when the flow­ers buds are still not quite open. These means they are fresh. In order to help open them, you gen­tly pet the petals open.
5. Mini-car­na­tions are a good filler flower, or for adding mass to an arrangement.

Blush Wedding Themes

We are still receiv­ing many requests for blush-toned wed­dings. These themes fea­ture white, creams, peach­es and shades of light pink. While white hydrangea is a great way to fill up mass­es in arrange­ments we like to some­times add what we call “Antique Car­na­tions” to offer a hint of col­or to the designs.

Here is an exam­ple of a new­er peachy col­ored nov­el­ty car­na­tion that works real­ly well in this blush wed­ding flo­ral theme.

Here are some more nov­el­ty car­na­tions in antique colors:

Fall Beach Wedding On the Sand

Last month, we cre­at­ed some gor­geous flo­ral designs for a wed­ding on the sand in Her­mosa Beach, Cal­i­for­nia just a few miles from our design stu­dio. The theme includ­ed peach and cream-col­ored ros­es, pro­tea, and lots of sea­son­al pam­pas grass blooms we har­vest­ed our­selves from friends and local busi­ness partners.

Book Review:

Hawai­in Lei Making

Back in mid-2000s, Kit took Casey to Kauai and we learned how to make leis in the Hawai­ian style by a love­ly local named Aun­tie Tia. We made a cou­ple of leis and a few bracelets using Den­dro­bi­um orchids.

We learned that they can last a few days in the fridge if you put them in a ziploc bag with a wet paper tow­el in the crisper section.

The next time Kit vis­it­ed Kauai, she picked up this book on Hawai­ian Lei Mak­ing. It’s a great resource for dif­fer­ent types of leis.

We rec­om­mend this book in case you can’t make it to Hawaii and learn from a gen­uine Auntie!

 

Flower Tool: Lei Needles

Oh my Garland, Oh My Garland

How does one string flow­ers for a gar­land or a lei?

We recent­ly were request­ed to cre­ate an arch with flow­ers by hang­ing them in a way to cre­ate and arch.

Lei nee­dles are super long so you can fit a few flow­ers on it before slid­ing on to your thread. For mak­ing leis, den­tal floss works well, as it is pret­ty stur­dy and will hold flow­ers around your neck pret­ty securely.

For longer gar­lands, using a heav­ier line would be best such as a fish­ing line that won’t stretch with the weight of the flowers.

To find these sup­plies online, go to ParadiseFarms.com for lei mak­ing kits.

Local­ly in Los Ange­les, we pur­chase lei nee­dles at Boule­vard Florist.