Flower Duet Designs Floral & Fruit Lamb for the LA Food & Wine Festival

By Kit Wertz

Flower Duet designed the lamb using CAGrown Dried Plums for the face and legs and CAGrown flow­ers for the body. The top­i­ary frame was made in River­side and we put it togeth­er in our stu­dio in Torrance…so it was a true native Cal­i­for­nia cre­ation for the LA Food & Wine Fes­ti­val. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

We were asked to cre­ate some­thing that would be an eye-catch­er for the Cal­i­for­nia Grown booth at last mon­th’s Los Ange­les Food & Wine Fes­ti­val held August 25–28 on Grand Avenue in front of Dis­ney Con­cert Hall.

The main spon­sors for the booth were Cal­i­for­nia Grown Flow­ers, Dried Plums, Pears and Lamb. So after think­ing for a bit, we pitched the idea of a lamb top­i­ary made with CAGrown Flow­ers and Dried Plums for the face and legs. CAGrown loved the idea and so we cre­at­ed our flo­ral “Lam­bie.”

Our lamb struc­ture was cus­tom made start­ing with a wire top­i­ary frame which we stuffed with moss and then cov­ered the face and legs in dried plums. For the flow­ers to stay fresh for 4 days and nights, we used a flo­ral gar­land and lots of fresh Cal­i­for­nia Grown flow­ers and green­ery like Pro­tea, Rus­cus, Var­ie­gat­ed Pit­tospo­rum and Gom­phre­na Glo­bosa. Flo­ral lamb sculp­ture by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Here is how it all turned out on the red car­pet over three hot nights out­side in hip and hop­ping down­town LA!

We made four flo­ral, fruit and veg­etable cen­ter­pieces in addi­tion to the flo­ral “lam­bie.” We could only use Cal­i­for­nia grown flow­ers and pro­duce and were more than pleased to find our favorite ven­dors down­town at the SoCal Flower Mar­ket with lots to choose from in addi­tion to our local Mayesh Whole­sale Florist at LAX.

By using long last­ing flow­ers such as Pro­tea, Sta­t­ice, Celosia, Ama­ranth, Asters and Del­phini­um, we did­n’t need to wor­ry about the arrange­ments last­ing for the 3‑night fes­ti­val despite the warm tem­per­a­tures. When we did check on all the designs before the third night, all looked great! There were a few miss­ing plums (from some hun­gry guests!) and some miss­ing flow­ers (due to trans­port to a safe place each night) but all the flow­ers looked as fresh as they did the day we set it up!

Here are some more pho­tos of the booth and our creations.

Our Lam­bie’s eyes were enhanced with local­ly grown suc­cu­lent leaves for the eye­lids, white Gom­phre­na Glo­bosa for the whites and pin­cush­ion Pro­tea pis­tils act as whimisi­cal eye­lash­es! Flo­ral lamb sculp­ture by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Our cen­ter­pieces fea­tured lots of the same flow­ers we used on the lamb body as well as fruit like CA Grown Pears, Plums, Plu­ots, Beets, Zuc­chi­ni and Rose­mary. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

The CA Grown Booth at the LA Food and Wine Fes­ti­val fea­tured Wine, Lamb Slid­ers, and Dried Plum sam­ples! Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Accent flo­rals heavy with Pro­tea for the CA Grown booth at the 2016 LA Food & Wine Fes­ti­val. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Casey pos­es in front of our work in front of Dis­ney Con­cert Hall and the CA Grown Booth for the 2016 LA Food & Wine Fes­ti­val. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

News crew cov­ers our flo­ral Lam­bie at the CA Grown booth at the 2016 LA Food & Wine Fest. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Adri­enne Young.

CA Grown wine, pears and flow­ers! Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Adri­enne Young.

Kit pos­es with her Lam­bie cre­ation for the CA Grown booth at the 2016 LA Food & Wine fes­ti­val. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Adri­enne Young.

Kit adds a few more touch­es to fin­ish Lam­bie for her debut at the LA Food & Wine Fes­ti­val. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Adri­enne Young.

Learn About Flowers at “A Day in the Garden” at The Banning Museum

Flower Duet will make 3rd Annual Appearance for a Floral Demonstration and Lecture

Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 17, 2016-  10:00 am – 3:00 pm 

Come and join us for “A Day in the Gar­den – Cel­e­bra­tion of Autumn” at The Ban­ning Muse­um. FREE activ­i­ties include lect

For more infor­ma­tion on how to par­tic­i­pate or to RSVP please call (310) 548‑2005.

Learn more about the day at the Ban­ning Museum.

Where to Buy Wholesale Flowers in Los Angeles on a Sunday

By Casey Cole­man Schwartz

We offer month­ly tours of the LA Flo­ral Dis­trict and show off the Orig­i­nal Los Ange­les Flower Mar­ket as well as the SoCal Flower Mar­ket and the sur­round­ing sup­pli­ers of down­town LA’s Wall Street. There are more ven­dors to be found down­town who sell flow­ers and live plants and today we are high­light­ing a few of them. They are open lat­er in the day than ven­dors on Wall Street and they are open on Sun­days, too!

The entire LA Flower Dis­trict is locat­ed from Maple Ave. to S. San Pedro Street to the north and south, and between 7th and 9th streets to the east and west. It is the largest flower dis­trict in the entire Unit­ed States and one of a few that is open to the public.

One street behind Wall Street’s Orig­i­nal Los Ange­les Flower Mar­ket are a num­ber of whole­sale flower ven­dors includ­ing a col­lec­tion at the LA Flower Mall at 718–720 San Julian Street and more ven­dors all along the 700 block of San Julian includ­ing Lee’s Orchids at 766 San Julian Street in down­town Los Ange­les. At 825 South San Pedro St., you can find a col­lec­tion of ven­dors at the Cal­i­for­nia Flower Mall. Hours of the Cal­i­for­nia Flower Mall are Mon­day-Sat­ur­day 4:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sun­days from 5:00 a.m. to Noon.

Floral Crowns for Flamingos

Casey made a love­ly col­lec­tion of cen­ter­pieces and fresh flo­ral crowns for some spark­ly flamin­gos on the deck of the new Shade Hotel Redon­do Beach last month. They received rave reviews from our ven­dor col­league, Christi­na of The Events Bou­tique who planned the lun­cheon for the hotel.

Sunset Magazine Features Fabulous Florals with New Chrysanthemums

Fall Chrysan­the­mums at my local Arm­strong Gar­den Cen­ter. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

I picked up this mon­th’s issue of Sun­set Mag­a­zine and was so pleased to see a fea­ture arti­cle on flo­ral designs that focus on the ver­sa­tile Chrysan­the­mum. Pick up a copy to have some awe­some inspi­ra­tion in the sto­ry “The Secret Life of Mums, Sep­tem­ber 2016.” (Pho­to by Thomas J. Sto­ry). Here is one of the stun­ning pho­tos of designs in the issue:

Floral Design Book: Meaningful Bouquets: Create Special Messages with Flowers — 25 Beautiful Arrangements

While we were in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on vaca­tion with fam­i­ly in August, Kit toured around the Nation­al Gallery with her kids and stopped by the won­der­ful gift shop and found this book. Pub­lished in 2015, it’s hard to believe we missed this love­ly col­lec­tion of ideas on how to cre­ate bou­quets with mean­ing like the Vic­to­ri­ans enjoyed doing.

Cit­ing the lan­guage of flow­ers is a peren­ni­al favorite and we often teach class­es on the sub­ject which is why this type of book will not go out of style any time soon!

With beau­ti­ful pho­tographs by Annabelle Breakey, authors Leigh Okies & Lisa McGuin­ness present a selec­tion of arrange­ments that can be recre­at­ed and built upon by the flo­ral design­er enthu­si­ast. Mean­ing­ful Bou­quets: Cre­ate Spe­cial Mes­sages with Flow­ers — 25 Beau­ti­ful Arrangements

From Amazon.com: “From Cel­e­bra­tion and Luck, to Hap­pi­ness and For­give­ness, each bespoke bunch of flow­ers suits an impor­tant occa­sion or recip­i­ent. Bloom­ing with inspir­ing lifestyle pho­tog­ra­phy and water­col­or botan­i­cal illus­tra­tions through­out, Mean­ing­ful Bou­quets brings a tru­ly per­son­al touch to flower arranging.”

Flower Tool: Feather Flowers

Chal­ice-shaped feath­er blos­soms from Save-On-Crafts.

Peony feath­er flower ball by Save-On-Crafts.

When we are cre­at­ing a bou­quet or bou­ton­niere and want to add a whim­si­cal touch, we will go search­ing for a pod or some­thing unique to pop into the design.  We were delight­ed to find this fun col­lec­tion of feath­er flow­ers on Save-On-Crafts. This are soft and fluffy and are so much fun to add to any design for a irre­sistible addi­tion to fresh flower and green­ery designs.