May 2010 Newsletter

National Public Gardens Day — May 7th

The Amer­i­can Pub­lic Gar­dens Asso­ci­a­tion (APGA) announced that it will once again team up with Rain Bird, the lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er and provider of irri­ga­tion prod­ucts and ser­vices, to con­tin­ue its suc­cess­ful cam­paign to raise pub­lic aware­ness of Amer­i­ca’s pub­lic gar­dens and their impor­tant role in pro­mot­ing envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and edu­ca­tion, plant and water con­ser­va­tion, and edu­ca­tion in com­mu­ni­ties nationwide.Want to find a pub­lic gar­den near you? It should­n’t be too hard since there are over 500 in the Unit­ed States alone! There are plen­ty in Los Ange­les to vis­it on the sec­ond annu­al Nation­al Pub­lic Gar­dens Day on May 7th. Check out The Hunt­ing­ton Library & Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in San Mari­no, Des­can­so Gar­dens in La Cana­da Flintridge or the South Coast Botan­i­cal Gar­den in Palos Verdes. Find a gar­den near you at http://www.nationalpublicgardensday.org/.

Flowers for Mother’s Day on May 9th

Here is a mom and daugh­ter who came to Kit’s Ban­ning Muse­um flo­ral lec­ture in Sep­tem­ber because she was try­ing to com­plete her flo­ral design Scout­ing badge. They went home with some free flow­ers so she could apply what she learned to help earn her badge! Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

In the Unit­ed States, Mother’s Day is always cel­e­brat­ed on the 2nd Sun­day in May. It is the most pop­u­lar day for greet­ing cards and mak­ing long-dis­tance tele­phone calls and the sec­ond most pop­u­lar day for giv­ing flow­ers (next to Valentine’s Day).

History of Mother’s Day

Moth­er’s Day was first sug­gest­ed in the U.S. in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Bat­tle Hymn of the Repub­lic) as a day ded­i­cat­ed to peace. In 1907, a woman named Anna Jarvis began her cel­e­bra­tion of moth­er­hood by hand­ing out 500 car­na­tions one Sun­day to all the moth­ers in atten­dance at the church in order to hon­or her own mother’s mem­o­ry. She con­tin­ued to cam­paign for the hol­i­day until it was rec­og­nized by Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son in 1914.
Tra­di­tion­al­ly, car­na­tions are a sign of admi­ra­tion, love, and respect; so it’s no won­der it’s rec­og­nized as the offi­cial Mother’s Day flower.
Feel free to send or make flower arrange­ments with more uncom­mon flow­ers than car­na­tions. Great scent­ed flow­ers in sea­son now are hyacinths, freesia and nar­cis­sus. Col­or­ful and cheer­ful flow­ers include ger­bera daisies and ranun­cu­lus. If your mom is more tra­di­tion­al, she’ll love ros­es and lilies.

Flower Pricing around Mother’s Day

While on Valentine’s Day, we florists see whole­sale prices sky­rock­et and sup­ply plunge for red, pink and pur­ple flow­ers, on Mother’s Day, we see all types of flow­ers go up in price and sup­ply reduced. If you are plan­ning an event around Mother’s Day – like a wed­ding or big par­ty where you will need spe­cif­ic types and col­ors of flow­ers, be sure to place your orders ear­ly from a reli­able ven­dor and expect to pay 2–3 times more that you would dur­ing a nor­mal week.
A bet­ter idea is to plan events two weeks before or after Mother’s Day to avoid any flower shortages.

Mother’s Day Flower Ideas

If you are buy­ing flow­ers for Mother’s Day, the best idea is to just get what your Mom loves! If she likes pur­ple calla lilies…get an arrange­ment for her that incor­po­rates them. Here are some love­ly spring flow­ers to help cel­e­brate all the great things moth­ers do for us.

Calla Lilies

Mean­ing: Mag­nif­i­cent Beauty

Buy­ing & Caring:

• Han­dle as lit­tle as pos­si­ble, tak­ing extra care to avoid touch­ing the flower heads themselves.
• If using for a bridal or brides­maid bou­quet, note that the flower stems can drip, leav­ing stains on dress­es. Let the flow­ers stay at least 30 min­utes out of water before hold­ing close to fab­ric or dip the ends of the stems in melt­ed wax and allow to dry. This process will seal the ends of the flowers.

Carnations

Bur­gundy and pur­ple car­na­tions blend well with gold accents in this hol­i­day cock­tail design. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Mean­ing: Pride & Beauty

Buy­ing & Caring:

• Buy car­na­tions with closed buds which will open over the next few days after conditioning.
• When con­di­tion­ing, be sure to cut above one of the nodes that runs up the flow­er’s stalk; this will allow the stem to more eas­i­ly draw the water it needs.
• Car­na­tions are espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to eth­yl­ene gas which caus­es flow­ers to dete­ri­o­rate rapid­ly. Keep the blooms away from sources of this gas, which include ripen­ing fruits like apples, pears and bananas.

Gerber Daisies

Mean­ing: Beau­ty & Innocence

Buy­ing & Caring:

• When buy­ing Ger­ber daisies (aka Ger­beras), look for flow­ers with stems that are firm and not bent near the flower head. Make sure the petals are not falling off or bent. They will turn brown quick­ly if they’ve been creased.
• Some florists slide a Ger­bera straw up the stem to help sup­port the flower head.
• Keep the water in the vase of your ger­beras fresh, but at a low lev­el. Ger­beras love to drink water. If you put too much in the vase, the flower will drink it up and then become heavy and fall over. Replace the water every three days with cold water and watch the lev­el close­ly so it does not dry out.

Freesia

Mean­ing: Innocence

Buy­ing & Caring:

• Buy Freesias with at least one flower open on the stem.
• Give them plen­ty of water and don’t let the stems dry out.
• Remove the old flower heads when they fade to encour­age new ones to open.
• Freesias are espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to eth­yl­ene gas which caus­es flow­ers to dete­ri­o­rate rapid­ly. Keep the blooms away from sources of this gas, which include ripen­ing fruits like apples, pears and bananas.

Hyacinth

Mean­ing: Con­stan­cy of Love

Buy­ing & Caring:

• If Hyacinths are left on the bulb, it will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase their vase life.
• Imme­di­ate­ly place Hyacinths in a clean vase with 3/4″ of water. Water lev­el should be no high­er than the top of the bulb.
• If you do cut the bulb off, cut approx­i­mate­ly 1/2″ above the bulb at a slant.
• If water becomes cloudy, replace with clean water.

Ranunculus

Mean­ing: Radiance

Buy­ing & Caring:

• Pur­chase Ranun­cu­lus when the blooms look like lit­tle balls and are still most­ly closed.
• Rinse out stems near bot­tom – has a lot of sandy soil usually.
• Ranun­cu­lus flower stems have nat­ur­al curves. To min­i­mize the bend­ing, store them upright in a taller con­tain­er that will give the stems addi­tion­al upright support.

If you are close to Carls­bad, Cal­i­for­nia, check out the Flower Fields. — full of Ranun­cu­lus right now!

Taurus Florascope — 20 April — 20 May – Magnolia

About Florascopes

For years, astrologers have linked per­son­al­i­ty traits with the night sky. A fun book called Flo­ras­cope: The Secret Astrol­o­gy of Flowers

Magnolia Traits

If you are a mag­no­lia (or Tau­rus) you are a care­ful long-term thinker, are calm and lov­ing and a shrewd investor. Mag­no­lias get along well with tiger lilies, tulips, mums and oth­er magnolias.
Famous mag­no­lias include Cher, Queen Eliz­a­beth II, William Shake­speare, Bar­bra Streisand and Willie Nelson.

Buying and Caring for Magnolias

Buy the blooms or cut blooms from a tree when they are still closed. Mag­no­lia petals bruise quite eas­i­ly and it will be eas­i­er to trans­port if the blooms are closed.

• If you are buy­ing for an event where you want all the blooms wide open, buy the closed blooms 2–3 days ahead of time to allow
  enough time for them to open.
• Mag­no­lia leaves make won­der­ful wreaths with the glossy green leaves fac­ing out as well as the soft and fuzzy brown bot­toms show­ing, too. Check out our Face­book Page. for pho­tos of our Christ­mas wreath class we taught at the Hunt­ing­ton last win­ter where we fea­tured Mag­no­lia leaves.
• Always con­di­tion your cut flow­ers or hardy branch­es when you get home. This will encour­age the blooms to open. Remove any bro­ken leaves from the
  stems and re-cut the stems before putting them in a solu­tion of water and flo­ral food. NOTE: The hardy stems of Mag­no­lia branch­es should not be smashed to try to get water up to the blooms. Use sharp tree pruners to make a clean cut.

Floral Design Book Review

Writ­ten by one of the world’s lead­ing flo­ral design artists, Paula Pryke’s book is a great choice for begin­ners and more expe­ri­enced flo­ral design­ers alike. Full of step-by-step instruc­tions, full-col­or pho­tos and lots of inspired design ideas, you’ll love look­ing at this book over and over again. We feel it’s a good idea to have lots of flo­ral books in our library to get ideas for new designs. Ms. Pryke start­ed her career in floristry by study­ing at the Con­stance Spry School for florists. You can tell her influ­ence from Mrs. Spry’s great foun­da­tions who believed in break­ing the rules back in the 1930s! When you buy this book, you’ll see how Paula has influ­enced many of today’s flo­ral design­ers — includ­ing Flower Duet!