Happy Spring!

Spring Frit­il­lar­ia stems and Ranun­cu­lus make an impact in a small bud vase. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

This month we wel­come spring flow­ers, bloom­ing branch­es and more into our world of flo­ral design. Hap­py Spring! and Enjoy!

DIY Wedding & Event Flowers: Ten Tips for a Successful Event

If you want to cre­ate your own wed­ding flow­ers, there is a num­ber of plan­ning steps to take. Here is Flower Duet’s list of tips to help insure a suc­cess­ful expe­ri­ence when cre­at­ing your own wed­ding blooms. Bou­quet by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Tip 1: Rent Space to Work

Rental Space at the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Flower Mar­ket. Pho­to cred­it: socalflowermarket.com

The South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Flower Mar­ket in the Los Ange­les Flower Dis­trict rents space inside its vast ware­house build­ing. Their space is over 1,500 sq. ft. and includes refrig­er­a­tion, a sink with run­ning water, con­fer­ence room and great access to the flower mar­ket. They will rent on a dai­ly basis, week­ly or what­ev­er time length you need to accom­plish your job. The work space is air con­di­tioned, includes a close restroom, offers stem cut­ters in the space and has shelv­ing for cen­ter­pieces as well. Reserve the space ear­ly by call­ing 213–627-2482.

Tip 2: Practice Arranging

Prac­tice the flo­ral design you want to make for your own wed­ding or spe­cial event a few times and see how the flow­ers last.

Once you’ve decid­ed what you want to cre­ate for your cen­ter­pieces or bou­quets, make sure to have a few prac­tice ses­sions with the exact flow­ers and foliage you want to use before the big day. This will help you gauge how many flow­ers you’ll need to pur­chase and how well the arrange­ments do out of water or over the course of a few days. This will also help you know how many days before the big cel­e­bra­tion you can make the arrange­ments. Gen­er­al­ly 2–3 days before the big day for cen­ter­pieces are fine and the day before is a good idea for bou­quets as long as all the stems are in a vase of water.

Tip 3: Order Flowers Ahead

There are many ways to order flow­ers from whole­sale flower ven­dors and farm­ers ahead of your event to insure you get the flow­ers you want. Allow one month to two weeks before the event to place your order.

Many ven­dors at the Los Ange­les Flower Dis­trict will take orders from the pub­lic! So, it’s worth find­ing out what ven­dors you can order from in your local area ahead of the big day. If your heart is set on baby blue hydrangeas and you need 100 stems, it’s worth it to order ahead! Gen­er­al­ly, plan on order­ing 1 month to two weeks ahead of time depend­ing on the type of flow­ers you are seeking.

Tip 4: Enlist Volunteers

Enlist a group of vol­un­teers to help you with the mak­ing and trans­port­ing of flow­ers for your event. Per­haps your mom’s local gar­den club can lend a hand? They have years of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise to offer!

Mak­ing a lot of cen­ter­pieces or bou­quets takes time but can go faster if you have a large group of ready and will­ing friends and fam­i­ly to help you make your own flow­ers. Make sure to include these peo­ple in your prac­tice arrang­ing ses­sions so they are ready to arrange quick­ly and con­fi­dent­ly for your big day.

Tip 5: Take a Flower Arranging Class or Two

Take a cou­ple of flower arrang­ing class­es to get a feel for flow­ers and design.

We teach a lot of DIY brides or DIY Moth­ers of Brides and Grooms and even a few DIY Grooms! About half of them decide to forge ahead and do all of their flow­ers for their wed­ding day and the oth­er half end up ask­ing for a bit of help with the big day…whether it’s for order­ing flow­ers, cre­at­ing tricky cor­sages or the per­fect bridal bou­quet. Tak­ing a class or pri­vate les­son will give you con­fi­dence, teach you about how to select the best flow­ers for your event and how to get them to the chapel safe­ly! Check out our full list of flower arrang­ing class­es for 2016.

Tip 6: Take a Tour of the Flower Mart

Take a flower mart tour with Flower Duet or at your own local mart to learn how to choose the fresh­est flow­ers for your event!

Flower Duet also offers tours of the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict. This will help you learn which ven­dors take orders from the pub­lic, where to rent space if you need it, how to choose fresh flow­ers and where to buy all the extras you’ll need from vas­es to trans­port box­es to flo­ral tape.

Tip 7: Practice Transporting Flowers

Trans­port­ing vas­es can be tricky. Prac­tice makes per­fect! Flower Duet Flow­ers and Photo.

Mak­ing flow­ers is the easy part…but get­ting the fin­ished arrange­ments to the event can be chal­leng­ing. For large scale taller arrange­ments, you’ll have to ask some­one to arrange it on-site for you as these are dif­fi­cult to trans­port. For large cen­ter­pieces, you’ll need to enlist friends with large SUVs and have some low card­board box­es and vase trans­port box­es to help secure the flow­ers for trans­port. We cov­er how to trans­port flow­ers safe­ly in each class we teach.

Tip 8: Use Locally Sourced Flowers

Erin Ben­za­kein from Flo­ret Farms — a flower farmer and florist in Mount Ver­non, Wash­ing­ton is a pre­miere ven­dor who sup­plies local­ly grown flow­ers for wed­dings. Pho­to: floretflowers.com

Flow­ers that are grown close to your event are a great option to save some mon­ey and insure a fresh prod­uct. To find a local sup­pli­er near you, use the Flower Farm­ers direc­to­ry on the SlowFlowers.com web­site start­ed by Debra Prinzing.

Tip 9: Use Large Blooms & Lots of Foliage

Here is an exam­ple of how one large-head­ed flower (the white Hydrangea on the right) takes up the same amount of space as sev­er­al blooms on the left (pink ros­es and an Echev­e­ria flo­ret). Use large-head­ed flow­ers to save time and mon­ey in DIY flo­ral designs.

One way to save time and mon­ey is to use large head­ed blooms and lots of green­ery. It may seem like a large head­ed bloom costs more than a few ros­es, but when you break it down by stem, it can be more eco­nom­i­cal to use some­thing like a big hydrangea blos­som vs. ten ros­es to cov­er the same amount of space in a bouquet.

Tip 10: Hire a Pro to Help

Hir­ing a pro as a con­sul­tant for your own DIY flow­ers helps ensure suc­cess. Casey on site at the Palos Verdes Golf Club. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

I’ve touched on a few ideas in hir­ing a pro­fes­sion­al florist or design­er to help you in your quest to cre­ate your own wed­ding flow­ers. Many florists teach flower class­es now and offer to be hired as con­sul­tants to help you fig­ure out your design or even to make some of the more advanced flower items such as a bou­ton­niere (like I did for my own wed­ding back in 1997 before I became a pro­fes­sion­al florist). With a pro­fes­sion­al’s help­ful input and touch, you’ll know that it’s still your vision, but with a lit­tle extra assur­ance that your flo­ral dreams will come true. Con­tact Us for more information!

Easter Flower Ideas: Keep it Simple

Pick­ing flow­ers for your East­er cen­ter­piece does­n’t have to be com­pli­cat­ed. There are many love­ly spring bulb flow­ers that look great on their own in a sim­ple vase. Here are a few options to use for your Egg Hunt cel­e­bra­tions and note that many spring flow­ers are high­ly scent­ed such as Hyacinth, Lilac and Freesia. You many want to reserve those flow­ers for accent vas­es away from the din­ing cen­ter­piece so the aro­mas of your East­er brunch can be enjoyed thoroughly.

Mini Calla Lilies are a great option to use as a sin­gle type of bloom for any spring cel­e­bra­tion. Offered in a vari­ety of pas­tel col­ors, these blooms look great cut short or kept long.

Mini White Calla Lilies

Spring Ranun­cu­lus are show­ing up all over the flower mart now and these even look like lit­tle eggs before they ful­ly open. use them in one col­or or a vari­ety of col­ors for your designs.

Pink Ranun­cu­lus Blooms

Tulips are avail­able year-round from your whole­saler, but they are read­i­ly avail­able now.

Light Pink Tulips

Hyacinth makes a great sin­gle vase style of design. A lit­tle goes a long way, so just one stem in a bud vase is enough to make an impact.

White and Pur­ple Hyacinth

St. Patrick’s Day Flowers: Green Roses

When search­ing for green flow­ers to use in your St. Patrick­’s Day designs, we like to use three dif­fer­ent types of green ros­es. It’s only been recent­ly that  you can find a tru­ly green rose with­out too much yel­low. Here are the ones we like to use consistently.

Limbo

Lim­bo — A stan­dard green rose. Pho­to: Sier­ra Flower Finder

Wimbeldon

Wim­ble­don Green Rose Pho­to: Sier­ra Flower Finder

Super Green

Super Green Rose Pho­to: Sier­ra Flower Finder

Flowering Branches: How to Process

White and pur­ple lilac branches.

Believe it or not, it’s not only the sea­son for flow­er­ing branch­es like For­syth­ia and Cher­ry Blos­soms, but we are also see­ing white and pur­ple lilac at the Flower Mart.

For­syth­ia Blooms

Ever won­der how to get branch­es of win­ter dor­mant flow­er­ing trees or shrubs to bloom indoors? If you have a tree that blooms in the spring like a cher­ry tree, almond tree, dog­wood, pussy wil­low or per­haps a for­syth­ia shrub, you can force the blooms to flower indoors in a vase of water.

A few tall branch­es look quite dra­mat­ic in a tall vase against a wall in a foy­er or on a table against a plain wall. Look for the tree or bush that has some buds that are get­ting large on the branch but have not “cracked open” yet. Cut the branch and bring it inside and place the entire length into a tub of warm water and leave it to sit overnight. This will help the buds to “crack” open. (If the branch already has some flow­ers open­ing, just place in the vase.)

In the morn­ing, give the bot­tom of the branch a clean cut and place in the vase where it will stay. In the old days, florists would be advised to “smash” the ends of woody stems. We don’t rec­om­mend that. To allow the best chance for water uptake in the stem, use very clean and sharp prun­ing shears. Splice the bot­tom of the stem up about 2 inch­es in a cross for­mat to allow more sur­face area for the water to enter the stem.

Cher­ry Blos­som Blooms

Book Recommendation: Paper Blossoms — A Book of Beautiful Bouquets

By Kit Wertz

My five-year-old twins love to look at pop-up books togeth­er and when we saw this one the oth­er day, we fell in love.

Flower deliv­ery! Fea­tur­ing five amaz­ing pop-up bou­quets, Paper Blos­soms brings flo­ral cheer to any room. Dis­play any of the bou­quets: a gar­land of ros­es, a trop­i­cal arrange­ment, a lotus water gar­den, a spring­time bou­quet, or a vase of lilies as a beau­ti­ful cen­ter­piece or room accent. A tri­umph of pop-up artistry and a sure con­ver­sa­tion-starter, these bou­quets burst forth with col­or, joy, and last­ing beau­ty. This book, Paper Blos­soms, A Book of Beau­ti­ful Bou­quets for the Table, is per­fect for flower lovers of any age. I saw it at a Palos Verdes Library Dis­trict Pop­Up Library sta­tion at the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den this week. It caught my eye and I am sure it will catch yours. This would be a love­ly gift for East­er in lieu of candy.

Paper Blos­soms come in love­ly Note­cards, too!

There is a com­pan­ion book called Paper Blos­soms, But­ter­flies & Birds: A Book of Beau­ti­ful Bou­quets for the Table by the same author that would be a won­der­ful fol­low up for a birth­day or next East­er! The cre­ator of the best­selling Paper Blos­soms deliv­ers more extra­or­di­nary flow­ers for the table. From a but­ter­fly gar­den to a hum­ming­bird’s arbor, a branch of orchids to a vase of tulips, these four new breath­tak­ing pop-up cen­ter­pieces bright­en any table and fill any room with col­or and last­ing beauty.

And…for the adults in your life, there are even Paper Blos­soms Note­cards! Love these, too!

Next month.…Flower Duet Appearances in New Mexico, San Francisco & Wedding & Event Venue Tours Recap

We are still putting togeth­er our recap sto­ry from Casey’s trip to New Mex­i­co to appear with her sons on the tele­vi­sion show Cre­ative Liv­ing with Sheryl Bor­den. Look for a sto­ry and lots of great pho­tos in next mon­th’s newsletter.

Also, Kit’s off to San Fran­cis­co lat­er this month to appear as a guest speak­er for two ses­sions at the San Fran­cis­co Flower & Gar­den Show. So if you live in the area, check it out on March 19th and 20th, 2016.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been work­ing with some of our favorite venues to high­light their offer­ings and we’ll share the flo­ral designs we cre­at­ed for those excit­ing events.

More to come next month from Kit & Casey of Flower Duet. Stay tuned…