Where to Find Wholesale Flower Vendors

by Casey Schwartz

Flower Duet is based in Los Ange­les, Cal­i­for­nia and we are for­tu­nate to have access to one of the largest whole­sale flower marts in the coun­try. For over 90 years the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict has been sup­ply­ing flow­ers to the trade and also to the public.

Over the past 12 years, we’ve trav­eled out of state to cre­ate wed­ding flow­ers, teach work­shops and make tele­vi­sion appear­ances. For all of these events, we need­ed to locate a whole­sale florist who could pro­vide qual­i­ty flow­ers. Here are a few rec­om­men­da­tions of whole­sale flo­ral sup­pli­ers which are avail­able through­out the coun­try. Not all whole­sale oper­a­tions offer flow­ers to non-trade, but it is worth ask­ing. Some­times if you are doing a des­ti­na­tion wed­ding, and it is a one-time deal, they may make allowances.

From inside the Mel­lano cool­er at the LA Flower Mart.

 

When I was home in Vir­ginia vis­it­ing my par­ents, my Mom hired me to do a flower par­ty for her gar­den club. The mem­bers of her club gath­ered under the shade of a per­fect­ly broad Japan­ese Maple, upon a love­ly deck to lis­ten to me chat about a great tech­nique, “Gath­er, Drop and Fill.” Some of the par­tic­i­pants had nev­er learned to do any­thing with flow­ers and were amazed and delight­ed with how easy it is once some­one shows them.

Casey with our mom’s gar­den club mem­bers. Our mom is on the far left.

Mom and I had popped up to Potomac Flo­ral Whole­sale to buy most of the flow­ers for the event. How­ev­er, we did sup­ple­ment with some home­grown Hydrangeas which were the most amaz­ing pur­ple color.

Potomac Floral Wholesale — flowerwholesale.com

A great sup­pli­er, they are open to the trade and pub­lic and have a wide vari­ety of flow­ers and green­ery avail­able. Locat­ed just out­side our nation’s cap­i­tal in Sil­ver Spring, Mary­land, this whole­saler offers local deliv­ery ser­vice through­out the Mid-Atlantic region which includes Vir­ginia, Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Mary­land, Penn­syl­va­nia, Delaware and New Jer­sey. If your loca­tion is out­side those areas, they ship FedEx and UPS on next day pri­or­i­ty deliv­ery ser­vice through­out the 48 states and Canada.

DWF (Denver Wholesale Florists) — dwfwholesale.com

This group start­ed in 1909 with main­ly car­na­tions in Den­ver and now oper­ates in 14 cities. I first found them when I was head­ing to New Mex­i­co last fall to film seg­ments on flower arrang­ing and decid­ed not to dri­ve my hand-picked flow­ers from Los Ange­les thru most­ly desert.

Here is a pho­to of me with Sheryl Bor­den, the host of Cre­ative Liv­ing. This was tak­en just a few days ago on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2011 while I taped five more seg­ments for her show. Watch for them this sea­son on your local PBS sta­tion. When I need­ed to choose flow­ers for my first appear­ance on Sheryl’s show, I researched and went with this oper­a­tion which has a branch in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co. DWF’s qual­i­ty was top notch, and so I have returned for more film­ing and had not a sec­ond thought to where I would pur­chase my flow­ers. My order was ready and I was able to pull a few more items which were lush, fresh and plentiful.

Mayesh Wholesale Florist — mayesh.com

Based in Los Ange­les, Calif., Mayesh is our main go to ven­dor. The com­pa­ny oper­ates 15 brick and mor­tar loca­tions nation­wide. These loca­tions car­ry an open inven­to­ry, main­tain reg­u­lar busi­ness hours and are staffed by expe­ri­enced flo­ral per­son­nel. Design­ers can place whole­sale flower orders in per­son, over the phone, via fax or email. They also ship nationwide.

Loca­tions are as follows:

• Bak­ers­field, CA
• Carls­bad, CA (San Diego Area)
• Chan­dler, AZ
• LA Flower Mar­ket, CA
• Las Vegas, NV
• LAX Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, CA
• Orange Coun­ty, CA
• Phoenix, AZ
• River­side, CA (Palm Springs Area)
• San Fer­nan­do Val­ley, CA
• Tor­rance, CA
• Char­lotte, NC
• Cleve­land, OH
• Mia­mi, FL
• Romu­lus, MI (Detroit Area)

 

If you have a favorite flower mar­ket in your home­town, tell us about it on Facebook.com/FlowerDuet.

Halloween Flower Ideas

by Kit Wertz

Here are some fun flow­ers to use for your Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tions. Pic­tured above is Pump­kin-On-A-Stick which is real­ly a type of orna­men­tal egg­plant. Some­times it’s referred to as “false toma­to.” It’s lit­tle pricey, but one stem can make an impact in a design.

Greenery Adds Texture to Floral Design

by Kit Wertz

This is the fourth in a series we are writ­ing on green­ery for flo­ral designs. This month, we are fea­tur­ing suc­cu­lent plants which real­ly aren’t green­ery per se, but they add a lot of inter­est­ing green ele­ments to a flo­ral design

Green­ery Type: Succulents

Expense Fac­tor: $1.50 — $5.50 per plant whole­sale depend­ing on pot size

Vase Life: Up to 6 months in flo­ral foam when watered

Suc­cu­lents are actu­al­ly cac­ti, but they don’t have any spikey parts. Over the last five years, we’ve seen a grow­ing trend toward these love­ly plants for use in many dif­fer­ent aspects of flo­ral designs. We’ve used them in bridal bou­quets, cen­ter­piece designs, arch dec­o­ra­tion and as the only ele­ment in a liv­ing wreath.

The best types of suc­cu­lents to use for flo­ral designs and liv­ing wreaths include all types of Cras­su­la, Aeo­ni­um, Echev­e­ria, and Sedums. Some Sem­per­vivums and Senecios (Kleinias) are good choic­es depend­ing on the appli­ca­tion. Suc­cu­lents can stay out of water for a week and still look pret­ty darn good, so they are great options to wire for a bridal bou­quet or use inside an organ­ic con­tain­er or plat­ter as shown in the top photo.

Want to learn more? — Post a ques­tion on Face­book.

See, Touch, and Smell the Flowers

Come to our design class this month as we fea­ture how to inte­grate wood into flo­ral designs at our Hunt­ing­ton work­shop. You make some­thing like the image at left!

Flower Duet Working with Wood in Floral Design Workshop — Huntington Library in San Marino, CA — October 15, 2011 — 10 a.m. to Noon, San Marino, California

Work­ing with Wood in Flo­ral Design

Rogers Gardens Halloween Nights — Costa Mesa, California — Nightly until October 31, 2011

Rogers Gar­dens Hal­loween Activities

National Bulb Market in Keukenhof, The Netherlands — October 14–16, 2011

This is where thou­sands of Dutch flower bulbs are grown and fea­tured each spring. If you can’t make it for the big show in April, per­haps you can go the annu­al bulb mar­ket in the fall.
Hol­land Bulb Market

Fall Flower Show at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota — Saturday, October 9, 2011

The show will fea­ture hun­dreds of chrysan­the­mums of many dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars with col­ors of yel­low, orange, red, gold, high­light­ed with Chilly Chili orna­men­tal pep­pers and orna­men­tal grasses.
Mar­jorie McNeely Con­ser­va­to­ry fall flower show 

Flower Duet Flower Mart Tour and Design Studio Workshop — October 29, 2011 — Tour 7 a.m. — Workshop 10 a.m.

Come on a cus­tom tour of the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict and then learn to cre­ate hand-tied bou­quets for wed­dings or cen­ter­pieces. Also, learn to wire a bou­ton­niere. You can get a dis­count if you choose to do the tour and the work­shop, or just go to either one separately.
Flower Duet Flower Arrang­ing Class at its Design Stu­dio in Torrance

Phipps Fall Flower Show — Pittsburgh, PA — October 13 to November 16, 2011

Pitts­burgh’s his­toric glasshouse con­ser­va­to­ry cel­e­brates the past while look­ing for­ward to the future.
Phipps Fall Flower Show 

Magazine Reviews

Martha Stew­art Living

Martha Stew­art Liv­ing Mag­a­zine does­n’t real­ly need a review, but since Hal­loween is Martha’s self-pro­claimed favorite hol­i­day, the Octo­ber issue is not to be missed. If you love Hal­loween, too and want a spooky fix each day, sign up for her free dai­ly Hal­loween crafty tip! Hal­loween Cen­tral Craft Ideas 

Floral Tool — Zip Ties

You are won­der­ing what the heck do you use zip ties for in flo­ral design? Well, we use them for a lot of things. We secure flo­ral cages to wed­ding arch­es for exam­ple. This arch (pic­tured below) was dec­o­rat­ed by using zip ties to attach the seed­ed euca­lyp­tus green­ery and sev­en flo­ral cages.

We also use them to drape fab­ric on chup­pahs, arch­es, pews or gazebos.

Zip ties can be used to attach a flo­ral spray to a large can­de­labra or to hang a wreath on a door.

They are strong, easy to remove with cut­ters and come in many col­ors includ­ing white and green which work well for weddings.
If one zip tie isn’t long enough, you can com­bine two togeth­er to make a real­ly long tie.
So, get some zip ties in dif­fer­ent lengths and have a zip­ping good time!