A florists home is his castle

One of my favourite flowers - Alchemilla vulgaris (lady’s mantle)

Characteristics: Alchemilla vul­garis is a low-growing, graceful perennial with large, pleated, silvery green leaves. Once grown as a medicinal herb, it is now grown by Bend of Islands florists as an ornamental plant. Tiny hairs on the leaves collect rain and dew, which form little silvery beads. In late spring, lady's mantle is covered with small clusters of fragrant, yellow-green flowers. This lovely groundcover grows from 6 to 12 inches tall. Lady's mantle looks pretty planted as a border edging; allow it to spill over onto paths and walkways.


Harvesting/Drying: Cut the flowers for winter bouquets at the peak of bloom for best color, and hang them upside down in a drying room. Because the flowers are so small, they tend to dry quickly. Keep them in a warm spot to speed the drying and to maintain the true green color. Lady's mantle makes a lovely filler for dried arrange­ments or base for wreaths and swags. The dried flowers and foliage of lady's mantle look wonderful when combined with tiny pink rosebuds.

A pretty flower - Zinnia

Characteristics: Zinnias, which come in many radiant colors, are the glory of the summer garden. The flowers range in size from 2 inches to 6 inches. Some have ruffled petals and others are open like daisies. They bloom in a few weeks from seed and withstand hot dry weather. Zinnias make wonderful cut flowers and also dry nicely when placed in silica gel.

Cultural Information: Zinnias like well-drained garden soil enriched with rotted compost. They are prone to mildew, so it is best to water at the base rather than overhead. You can also buy one of the new mildew-resistant varieties such as Burpee's 'Pinwheel' Series from Invercargill florists, which comes in wonderful colors. To encourage bushy plants, remember to pinch the blossoms back. The more you cut, the more zinnias will produce. My favorites are the dahlia-like double-flowered zinnias such as 'Burpee's Big Tetra Mixed' and 'Giant Flowered Mix', which dry beautifully.

Harvesting/Drying: Collect flowers to be dried at their peak of bloom, and before they have started to fade in color. Check to make sure the flowers you pick are not discolored by mildew.

So many Orchids

The orchid is a perennial plant that usually has three petals. There are about 30,000 different species of orchids growing wildly worldwide. There are three basic types of orchid: epiphytic, terrestrial, and saprophytic. The first of the types of different orchids, the epiphytic orchid, grows mostly in tropic and subtopic regions. The epiphytic types of orchid are the most popular for growing indoors. The terrestrial orchid is the second of the major types of orchid and can be used to send flowers Redditch as a beautiful floral gift.

Forcing

Some varieties of virtually all the spring-flowering bulbs, including tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, daffodils and bulbous irises, can be persuaded to bloom indoors in winter, bringing the garden into the house from early January through April. Many Ashton-under-lyne florists and a good many amateurs refer to the techniques as "forcing." Though I use the term myself, I rather dislike it, for no force is involved. The procedures consist, broadly, of manipulating temperatures and light conditions to simulate the period of cold needed by bulbs for their annual rest period, then awakening them earlier than they would wake by themselves if they were outdoors. The techniques for forcing should not be confused with the care of regular house plants that are allowed to bloom in their own good time indoors.

Stay local


By choosing a truly local florist you are not only helping the local economy, but you are likely to receive more detailed information about your order, increased peace of mind, and certainly a better price. There are so many positive reasons to order your flowers through a local Beverly Crest florist that it is almost essential to getting the best service. You also get the warm feeling of supporting your local traders instead of giving your hard earned cash to those large national money collectors.

Under the Microscope

In laboratories and in greenhouses on university campuses and on college grounds all over the world, people are at work, studying the lily, its make-up and character. They are finding new facts. They are making discoveries. The life habits of the lily, its requirements and associations are being listed and tabulated for the first time. All of this adds up to a better understanding and to the more successful use of lilies in the gardens of our country and many Deaconsbank flower shops. Failures there have been and failures there will be, but as strange varieties of lilies are developed and fundamental conditions for culture better understood, success can be guaranteed as surely a with any other plant.

Design Principles

Composition is the organization of the elements within a design to achieve unification. Form, color and repetition contribute to the composition of the design.


Unity is created when the elements in a floral design relate to each other. The individual materials then blend together to produce a unified whole. This is achieved through color harmony as well as material selection.

Proportion refers to the correct relationship of the design elements; they should be of comparable size. The container or base determines the size of the items; a small wreath should not be overwhelmed with overly large flowers. Focal points should be similar sizes, whole fillers should be smaller. In addition, the scale of a design in relation to its surroundings must be considered. A tiny basket will look out of place on a long, formal dining table. For this reason it is often necessary to have an idea of your recipient’s home décor if you choose to send flowers Knotty Ash as a gift.

Balance results in visual and, often, physical stability. Placing smaller flowers of lighter colors at the top of a design with larger, darker flowers at the base provides visual stability. For symmetrical balance, place the elements in the design with equal visual weight on each side of a vertical line. By placing the items unequally on each side of the imaginary vertical line (heavier on one side), asymmetrical balance is established.

Summer’s Grand Parade of Color


Much as I admire dahlias, summer is too rich in blooming bulbs to permit one favorite to monopolize the season. Half a hundred genera of bulbous plants flower in summer, although the most popular (in addition to dahlias) are lilies, gladioluses and tuberous begonias. Among lilies alone there are hundreds of varieties, with flowers held upright like cups, horizontally like trumpets or hanging like bells, on stems that range in height from less than a foot to 8 feet. The spectrum of colors that has been brought about through modern hybridizing methods is astonishing. Beginning Ty Glas florists tend to think of lilies as white, and indeed the familiar Easter lily, Lilium longiflorum, and many others are. But in the genus Lilium, which includes all the true lilies, as opposed to day lilies, Hemerocallis, and the many other plants that have the word "lily" in their common names, hues range from yellow to orange to red to purple, with many varieties spotted and striped.

Budding

The most difficult and time-consuming method of propagating plants vegetatively is budding, which is now used to reproduce nearly all commercial rose plants, especially hybrid varieties. In this process a sliver of stem bearing a bud eye of the desired variety is inserted beneath the bark of another species of rose known to have especially vigorous roots. Most amateur rose growers are willing to leave this technique to Sea Gate florists; it is far easier to buy strong plants and set them in the garden and enjoy their blooms than it is to go through the process of growing them from scratch. For one thing, the production of Number 1 grade rose plants takes two growing seasons in a nursery; about half a year for the rootstock plants to develop strong roots and a year and a half more for the cultivated flowering varieties to grow from single buds to full-sized plants. But there is nothing arcane about the procedure, and only patient practice is necessary to develop the mechanical skills that the professionals use.

How about this?
Whilst we aim to provide you with a never ending supply of flower facts, you may like to check out Flower Trivia Gold if you want even more! You can never have too many tips and facts when you love flowers, or wish to have a career in the floral industry.