Gift Guide: 100 Holiday Gifts for Flower Lovers

By Flower Duet

Gild­ed Fig Vas­es from Vivaterra.com. One of 100 hol­i­day gift ideas from Flower Duet for flower lovers!

From gild­ed vas­es, to pil­lows, rugs and jew­el­ry, Flower Duet has curat­ed a list of 100 Hol­i­day Gift ideas for peo­ple who love flow­ers as much as we do. Whether your gift recip­i­ents likes to wear flow­ers on their feet or be inspired by flow­ers in all aspects of their lives from flo­ral tea tow­els to iPhone cov­ers, we have their present covered!

Spring flower tea tow­el from Mingon.com.

Suc­cu­lent wall shape planter in a peace sym­bol by Potted.

Crys­tal block vas­es by Williams Sonoma.

Wall plant hang­ers by VivaTerra.com.

Here is our Pinterest Board we created to make it easy to shop for your favorite flower lover!

NOTE: On Pinterest.…you will have to cre­ate a pro­file to view all of our ideas. Pin­ter­est is a use­ful plat­form to col­lect ideas that inspire you around the Web and share with friends — in pub­lic or private.

100 Hol­i­day Gifts for Flower Lovers

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Floral Styling Class: Create a Winter Wonderland with Flowers

Snow­ball poman­der — Flower Duet will show you how to make these and hang them or turn them into snowmen!

Attend a hands-on work­shop with Flower Duet on loca­tion at The South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den to learn how to make hol­i­day bows, snow­ball poman­ders, gar­lands and an over­sized organ­ic penguin!

Learn to com­bine white and sil­ver flow­ers to cre­ate a win­ter won­der­land for your hol­i­day parties!

In this exclu­sive behind-the-scenes look into event styling, stu­dents will be hands-on to set up a win­ter-themed hol­i­day dis­play with accom­pa­ny­ing decor on the Koi Pond Patio. Dur­ing this mul­ti-faceted class, stu­dents will learn about tech­niques for mak­ing gar­lands and large bows to accom­pa­ny all types of home and com­mer­cial hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tion needs. Stu­dents will also receive tips and tricks on cur­rent hol­i­day dec­o­rat­ing trends. Flower Duet pro­vides all the mate­ri­als for the class.

Where: South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den, Palos Verdes on the Koi Pond Patio

When: Decem­ber 2, 2015 — 10 a.m. — Noon

Cost: $25 members/$35 non-members

Reserve: Online or call Guest Ser­vices at 310–544-1948.

Auto Show Flowers — A Look Back and the Present

Casey’s fam­i­ly went to the Los Ange­les Auto Show over the Thanks­giv­ing Break and as she admired the mod­ern and sleek flo­ral designs that were through­out each auto mak­er’s snazzy dis­plays, she came across some archival pho­tos of auto shows from the ear­ly and mid 20th century.

Here are a few pho­tos to help you see how much flo­ral design has changed as well as auto­mo­bile styling! (Thank goodness!)

Flow­ers at an auto show in the 1950s.

Auto Show flow­ers — 1930s.

Auto Show flow­ers at the Los Ange­les Auto Show 2015 for the Vol­vo dis­play. Pho­to by Casey Schwartz.

A florist in Fen­ten, Michi­gan called Gerych’s, has designed flow­ers for the Detroit Auto Show. They have a small gallery of more mod­ern flo­ral design exam­ples on their site.

Flower Duet’s Press

Flower Duet has been fea­tured in a num­ber of print and online pub­li­ca­tions for the wed­ding and flo­ral indus­try. Here is the col­lec­tion that was pub­lished last month from the nation­al Bridal Guide mag­a­zine to our local flo­ral trade pub­li­ca­tion — The Bloomin’ News.

Bridal Guide Magazine — 2016 Wedding Floral Trends

Flower Duet was inter­viewed by Bridal Guide mag­a­zine to pro­vide flo­ral trends for the 2016 wed­ding sea­son. We were delight­ed to have our work fea­tured as well as our ideas on what’s going to be “hot” for brides and grooms in the com­ing year.

Our flow­ers were even fea­tured on the cov­er of their 2016 Wed­ding Trends insert in the magazine!

Pick up the mag­a­zine to read why and check out all of our ideas as well as tips from our top wed­ding ven­dor friends. 

We’re lov­ing all of the tips from Anto­nia Chris­tian­son Events, Flower Duet, Gourmet Invi­ta­tions, Twin­kle & Toast, Great Dane Bak­ing Com­pa­ny, Nine­teen Stu­dios, Miki & Son­ja Pho­tog­ra­phy!

Flower Duet’s clean and ele­gant flow­ers in a metal­lic vase atop a metal­lic linen is the fea­tured pho­to for Jan­u­ary’s Bridal Guide Mag­a­zine! Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Place Card Hold­er by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

The Bloomin’ News — Holiday & Wedding Place Card Holders

In the most cur­rent issue of The Bloomin’ News, the trade pub­li­ca­tion for the Orig­i­nal Los Ange­les Flower Mar­ket, Kit wrote an arti­cle enti­tled, “Flower-Themed Place Card Hold­ers Dou­ble as Guest Favors.”

SouthernWeddings.com — Mix & Match Bridesmaid Dresses by Joanna August

We are receiv­ing more press from our fash­ion pho­to shoot with Joan­na August designs. Last month, we were fea­tured on SouthernWeddings.com.

Dress­es: Joan­na August / Pho­tog­ra­phy: Krista Mason / Flo­rals: Flower Duet / Hair and Make­up: Kacee Geof­froy / Venue: The Colony House

PopSugar.com — 30 Breathtaking Ways to Turn Your Wedding Into a Winter Wonderland

Flower Duet was fea­tured in a slideshow on PopSugar.com for a win­ter-themed wed­ding we did with the love­ly plan­ner Helen Cho of Now&Forever Love and Love Sprung Photography.

Flower Duet Flow­ers. Pho­to by Love Sprung Photography.

Brit + CO — Gray Wedding Ideas that are Anything but Drab

Kit shot a few love­ly white and sil­ver bou­quets we cre­at­ed for a wed­ding and one made it into a nice arti­cle on wed­dings that fea­ture “gray” as a main shade! We saw it on the web­site brit.co along with a pletho­ra of ideas on how to use gray for a classy cel­e­bra­tion in flow­ers and decorations.

Sil­very gray wed­ding flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

What to do with leftover Mums? Make a Flace! (Flower Face)

We pro­vide flow­ers for a local restau­rant each week and many times the flow­ers still look awe­some when we swap them out with new blooms. It seems a shame to com­post the old flow­ers, so if we have time between gigs, it’s fun to be cre­ative. Last week, Casey took some rust-col­ored Chi­na Mums — which are also called “Foot­ball Mums” — and cre­at­ed a Foot­ball hel­mut-themed flower face — or “Flace.”

Foot­ball mums made into a foot­ball hel­met for a flower face — or Flace by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Casey Schwartz.

Flower Face or “Flace” by Casey Schwartz of Flower Duet. Pho­to by Casey Schwartz

Poinsettias for Christmas: Colors and Varieties

By Kit Wertz

Every­where I look from Home Depot to Trad­er Joe’s to the Flower Mart, I am bom­bard­ed with amaz­ing-look­ing Poinsettias.

Chances are, they were grown very close by in Car­son or down in Encini­tas by Col­or Spot Nurs­eries who pro­vides the plants to large retail­ers but is a local grow­er (for SoCal at least).

I love these plants and looked for­ward to see­ing them every year next to our fire­place back in Vir­ginia at my par­en­t’s house. They still buy a bunch every year to light up the house with love­ly color.

The poin­set­tia  is native to Mex­i­co and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and most well-known for its red and green foliage which makes them pop­u­lar for Christ­mas dis­plays every­where. Its com­mon Eng­lish name was derived from Joel Roberts Poin­sett, the first Unit­ed States Min­is­ter to Mex­i­co, who intro­duced the plant into the Unit­ed States in 1825.

Now you can find the plants in all types of col­ors includ­ing white and pink and in a curly flo­ret style called the Christ­mas Rose. Here is a col­or sheet from a nurs­ery in Illi­nois, Vern Goers, that I found to be a nice reference.

Pho­to Cred­it: Vern Goers Greenhouse

When dri­ving around my neigh­bor­hood, I see many tall and mature poin­set­tia plants grow­ing and bloom­ing in peo­ple’s yards. Here is a great ref­er­ence on how to prop­a­gate the plants after the holidays.

From: Moth­er Earth News.

Flower Duet’s Greenhouse

By Casey Schwartz

Orchid bou­quet by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

We had a won­der­ful late sum­mer whirl­wind of wed­dings which required the fin­ish­ing touch­es of Pha­le­onop­sis orchids to the cen­ter­pieces. So instead of pur­chas­ing the cut stems and hav­ing to han­dle their del­i­cate trans­port, we pur­chased the plants whose blooms were full and at their peak of open­ing. Trans­port­ing the stems still attached to the plant and in a stur­dy tray keeps the bruis­ing minor. In addi­tion the stem is able to get lots of ener­gy until the last minute pro­vid­ing a super fresh stem, with­out the mys­tery of how long has this stem been cut. Some plants are dou­bles and pro­vide two stems for a low­er price than pur­chas­ing the cut stem.

The oth­er bonus would be the plant itself. Once the bloom is cut, the plant, if treat­ed well, will pro­vide years of blooms. Some vari­eties of orchids “spike” again with­in 3–6 months. Since we had made this invest­ment in plants and our stu­dio gets rather chilly in the win­ter, we decid­ed to make an invest­ment in a greenhouse.

I did quite a bit of research and found this com­pa­ny Ogrow. I need­ed some­thing I could actu­al­ly walk into. The weath­er has turned chilly here, so I took the week­end to put it together.

First steps of set­ting up the green­house frame from OGrow.

Frame set­up com­plete from Ogrow.

Sam test­ing out the cov­er of the greenhouse.

Final green­house set up with plants!

It took a pleas­ant two hours from start to fin­ish with a lit­tle help and a lunch break. My son, Sam, was great and com­pared it to a giant tin­ker toy with a cov­er. Once I filled it with the orchids and some young suc­cu­lents, I watered and Sam walked in and said,” It looks just like the Hunt­ing­ton Gardens.”

What more could I ask for!!!  I look for­ward to some spik­ing from the orchid plants and maybe on a cold day…just sit­ting in the greenhouse!

Book Review: Jane Packer’s Guide to Flower Arranging: Tips & techniques for beautiful flowers with more than 25 step-by-step projects

Jane Pack­er is an expert design­er and flo­ral instruc­tor based in the UK and we are find­ing more and more influ­ence in Amer­i­can flo­ral design from design­ers in Europe.

The chap­ters in the book includ­ing Flow­ers To Give, Flow­ers for the Home, Flow­ers for Cel­e­bra­tions and Choos­ing Wed­ding Flow­ers, offer love­ly and ele­gant design options as well as sol­id prac­ti­cal advice for the new flower arranger.

This book, Jane Pack­er’s Guide to Flower Arrang­ing, is a won­der­ful gift for some­one who is just start­ing to learn the art of flo­ral design.

Flower Tool: Chicken Wire

Chick­en wire or “Poul­try net­ting” is an essen­tial tool for the flo­ral design­er. It allows you to design with con­fi­dence tall flow­ers inside vas­es, helps secure lots of stems inside flo­ral foam and makes wire forms for top­i­aries or oth­er large scale flo­ral designs like the Tour­na­ment of Ros­es Parade floats!

Chick­en wire on top of foam adds secu­ri­ty for stems in a flo­ral design.

For Added Secu­ri­ty: When work­ing with flo­ral foam in a shal­low dish or con­tain­er, or  using tall stems, it’s a good idea to rein­force the foam with a lay­er of chick­en wire, then some tape. This helps the stems stay put dur­ing transport.

Chick­en wire as an inside vase archi­tec­ture helps when plac­ing stems in a wide-mouth con­tain­er like this 8‑inch met­al cube.

As Inside Archi­tec­ture: When using large open mouthed vas­es and con­tain­ers, it’s eas­i­er to have stems stay in place by adding a loose ball of chick­en wire inside the vase. This works well in opaque con­tain­ers. For clear glass con­tain­ers, try curly wil­low or alu­minum wire instead.

Kit cre­at­ed this top­i­ary frame for a win­ter pen­guin. We’ll be adding green­ery to cre­ate the “fur.”

As a Top­i­ary Frame: This week, we are teach­ing a class on win­ter styling at the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den and are work­ing in a Top­i­ary Frame for a pen­guin. We cov­ered a toma­to cage with chick­en wire and added chick­en wire feet, tail and wings. Stay tuned to see the final ver­sion we cre­ate at the garden.