The type of arrangement you choose will most likely be dictated by where the arrangement will be. For the holidays, arrangements generally fall into four categories: low profile, garlands, tall focal, and short focal.

Types of Arrangements

Low profile are perfect for centerpieces and are low to allow guests to talk to each other across the table. Depending on the table shape and length, they can be round or long. Candles and/or lanterns can also be incorporated into these types of arrangements.

Garlands are a great option if you have a very long table or are working within a budget. If you need most of your table space for dishes, you might want to choose a thinner garland that just adds a line of texture down the middle of your table. Garlands can be all or mostly greenery such as ruscus, eucalyptus, pine, or cedar. From there, you can add woodier herbs such as rosemary and thyme, pine cones, or flowers to pick up the colors in your room or add seasonal festivity.

A tall focal arrangement is perfect on a table in a large foyer to welcome guests or in the corner of the buffet table. You could go with appropriate holiday colors or choose a palette that compliments the home or room that the arrangement is in. These type of arrangements can be three-sided so the flat side backs up against a wall or all-the-way-around. The all-the-way-around variety, when tall enough, can be used as a centerpiece as it allows people to see under the arrangement while talking to other guests.

A small focal arrangement is a good choice for smaller entryways, a guest room, a powder room, or anywhere that you would like to add a pop of color and a festive spirit. These can also be used as centerpieces for smaller/round tables, or several can be used for longer tables.

Thanksgiving Flowers

I love Thanksgiving arrangements because of all the fun textural items that can be added. Mango calla lilies, red roses, orange gerbera daisies, bronze mums, and burgundy dahlias, bring gorgeous fall tones. Add a combination of cat tails, chocolate queen ann’s lace, wheat, dried lotus pods, hypericum berries, salidago, or bupleurum, and you have a unique arrangement from fall’s bounty.

Christmas Flowers

Of course red and green reign supreme in Christmas Arrangements, and mother nature has no shortage of offerings. Almost every flower comes in red such as roses, gerbera daisies, lilies, mums, and carnations. The winter season adds another layer of dark greenery that look and smell like Christmas–pine, cedar, spruce, fir, and juniper. Put these together in unique and whimsical ways. Maybe add beautiful white calla lilies for a more romantic contrast or sparkly ornaments and “ting ting” for playful festivity, and you’ve got a special arrangement to grace your home for the holiday!

Hanukkah Flowers

Mother nature doesn’t have a lot of flowers that are naturally blue, but what she does have are beautiful! Blue delphinium bring a bright royal blue that lends height and dimension to arrangements. Hydrangea come in dark and light blue hues, offer a lot of bang for the buck, and lend an elegant garden-style touch. Blue thistle is long lasting and adds fun texture, or you could try white anemones with their gorgeous blue centers. Whether you’re looking for a tall focal arrangement or a shorter centerpiece, there are plenty of holiday flowers to choose from!

Of course we are here to help! Just give us a call, and we’ll help you come up with the perfect holiday flowers!

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Ranunculus

When people ask me for a budget-friendly flower that is similar to peonies, I always suggest ranunculus. It’s a smaller flower but has the same delicate look that peonies have. Ranunculus comes in lots of fun colors, and each bloom within the bunch will be slightly different. Some blooms will be darker, some lighter, and some will have picotee edging.

Blooming Viburnum

The smell of viburnum flowers is the smell of spring in Virginia for me. When you walk through the woods in early spring, I think viburnum is the predominant scent. They are a lovely, lacey flower that look like a cross between hydrangea and Queen Anne’s lace.

Mini Calla Lilies

I’ve planted these around my yard. They come back each spring and change in color as they mature. In arrangements, they had great texture and provide fun focal points.

Tulips

Tulips are probably the quintessential spring flower. They are one of the first flowers to emerge after winter and come in all different colors and textures. They are also one of the few flowers that continue to grow after they are cut so you have to use them strategically in arrangements. I joke that tulips are like kids–they keep growing and have a mind of their own.

Stock

I’ve never understood why this wonderful flower has such a blah name. Stock comes in beautiful spring colors and adds height and dimension to arrangements. I often see our designers composing a beautiful arrangement. One of the last elements they’ll add is stock, and the arrangement comes to life!

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The extra $2 has not deterred anyone from placing same day orders! We used to get a few same day orders each week. Recently we received five same day orders in addition to the existing orders. It was the equivalent of receiving 4 inches of rain in an hour like we did last night! The calm stream quickly turned into a raging river that overflowed its banks.

All the arrangements were beautiful, and all were delivered that day. Some were delivered long after our shop officially closed. In an effort to maintain balance, we are increasing our same day delivery fee to $5. This is not an attempt to make more money. Rather, we hope it allows customers to pause and consider whether the arrangement can be delivered the next day.

By having at least a day’s notice, we’ll have the right flowers and enough designers and drivers to fulfill the orders. We have very high expectations of ourselves–for the quality of our arrangements and our customer service! We are always here to help if you forgot your best friend’s birthday. By moving orders that are not time sensitive to another day, we can continue to provide amazing arrangements and stellar customer service!

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Turn the TV Off

It’s not that I really need to know when stimulus checks will be deposited, it’s just that it’s all over the news! That has been my biggest take-away from this lockdown. It is time to turn the TV off. We are glued to the news, and that is not a healthy thing. 24 hour cable news has to find something to fill its airwaves with. We get bombarded with a lot of opinions because there are not enough actual news stories to fill a 24 hour period.

Plant a Garden

That brings me to my garden. Since I won’t be watching much TV, I will actually have time to plant and take care of my garden! I’m excited about that. I had a great time browsing an online seed catalog last week. My go-to seed source has been the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, but it seems everyone else must have had the same idea I did. They are so swamped with orders, they aren’t accepting any new ones until they get caught up, but that’s a good thing! It means there will be lots of gardens this year using sustainable heritage seeds. It also means Southern Exposure is thriving during the lockdown. For me, it meant I got to meet another cool sustainable seed company called Truelove Seeds. My seeds arrived on Saturday with a handwritten note from Owen. “Thank you Margie! Seeds and Solidarity, Owen.”

If you have never bought seeds from a seed exchange, you should! One of the seeds I bought are for Pippin’s Golden Honey Pepper. Why Pippin’s? “Horace Pippin, the now-famed painter, shared this variety (and many others) with H. Ralph Weaver in the early 1940s in exchange for bee-sting therapy. Weaver’s grandson (William Woys Weaver) found the seeds in a baby food jar in his grandmother’s deep freezer a couple decades later, many years after his grandfather’s death, and was able to reintroduce via Seed Savers Exchange.” With a backstory like that, I can’t wait to plant them and be part of this history. Yup! I’m in love with Truelove!

Write a Novel

I recently watched a TED Talk about trying something new for 30 days–The 30 Day Challenge. It was inspiring! The author, Matt Cutts, “went from desk-dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guy who bikes to work…for fun!” When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a novelist who lived in Australia on a big ranch with lots of animals. I got the animal part! Cutts mentions that one of his 30 day challenges was to write a novel. I’ve never written a novel, but the extra free time that this lockdown is providing is the perfect time to become the novelist I’ve always wanted to be. Who cares if it’s a good novel or even a published novel? I can accomplish one of my dreams.

Save the World…or at least a pangolin

A good college friend of mine, Maria Diekmann, started an animal sanctuary in Namibia many years ago called Rare and Endangered Species Trust (REST). Someone brought her a mama and baby pangolin that were rescued from poachers. Mama was too traumatized from the abuse of traffickers and fled, but she had protected her baby so well that Honey Bun survived and thrived under Maria’s care. That was when I first learned about pangolins, how highly trafficked they are, and thus how endangered they are. They are often described as the most trafficked animal you’ve never heard of. That has all changed thanks to the coronavirus. Pangolins and bats have been linked to this coronavirus’ origin.

Many are hoping this will lead to crackdowns on the sale of pangolins at wet markets and hopefully bring them back from the edge of extinction. When will stimulus checks be deposited? I’m not sure. If you are looking for something to do with it though, there are lots of organizations like Maria’s that would grateful for the help!

What’s Next?

I know I’m not the only one that has been forced to reassess life and priorities. We all want to get to the other side of this as soon as possible. In the meantime, we have learned to slow down. Spend time with our children. Zoom and Facetime with our parents and grandparents. We have time to plant gardens and go for walks and write novels. My hope is that we take the lessons we are learning with us to that other side.

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Dried Flower Projects

Drying the Flowers

There are three ways you can dry your flowers, depending on how you want to use them. The easiest way is to hang them upside-down in a well ventilated area. You can hang a single stem or several stems held together by twine or rubber bands.

A second way to dry flowers is to press them between absorbent paper using old books or an actual flower press. There are lots of instructional videos online showing how to do this, including this one from the University of Illinois. The best flowers for this kind of drying method are ones that don’t have a lot of bulk to them and will flatten easily. Daisies, snap dragons, black-eyed Susans, gladiolas, will all press nicely. Flowers like roses or carnations that have a bulky base do not press well.

A third way to dry flowers is using silica gel. This is a great method if you want the dried flowers to essentially look the same as the fresh flower version. You can get silica gel at any local craft store or through Amazon. Again, there are a lot of instructional videos online, including this one from MonkeySee.

Projects Using Dried Flowers

Epoxy Resin

A.K. Art & Creations

One of my good friends is a jewelry maker and just started experimenting with resin. Epoxy resin can be purchased at any local craft store or through Amazon. She has come up with gorgeous pieces from pendants to earrings. She has also created some beautiful serving trays and bowls. The resin allows her to embed different objects such as metallics, shells, and flowers.

A.K. Art & Creations

What to do when stuck at home with your children? Take a walk around the neighborhood and collect wildflowers. There are a lot of apps you can download to your phone that will identify the flower for you. Wildflowers are intrinsic to our pollinators so it’s a great opportunity to help children understand the roll pollinators play. Some wildflowers are a source of energy for hummingbirds, some food for caterpillars, and some, like milkweed, are the sole provider of shelter and a place to lay eggs for the monarch butterfly. It’s amazing what flowers you will see once you start looking for them to collect.

Preserving Bride’s Bouquets and Corsages

A lot of brides want to preserve their wedding bouquets. The two best methods for this are the hang and dry method for a vintage look or the silica gel method if you want the bouquet to look similar to the way it did on your wedding day. The stems of a bouquet are wrapped very tightly. While air and silica gel will be able to circulate between the greens and flowers on the outer-most edges of the bouquet. Air and silica gel will not be able to get between the wrapped stems. Over time, moisture at the base of the bouquet and between the stems will cause mold and deterioration.

With both methods, you will need to take the bouquet apart, dry the individual stems, and reconstruct the bouquet. While there are several local companies that preserve bouquets, it’s a fun project to do, especially when stuck at home. Just make sure to take a photo of the bouquet before you take it apart and at various points during deconstruction. These photos will help you put the bouquet back together again once the stems have dried.

You can do the same thing with your corsages from Prom or Homecoming or Daddy-Daughter Dances. If you have purchased your corsage from us, the stems are already individually wrapped with floral tape and should dry well without deconstruction. I still have my corsage from my high school Prom. I hung it upside down from my mirror the night I got home. It’s a bit brittle now so I have it in the original clam shell, but I love the vintage pink color…and of course the memories!

Memories

Another project you do with your children is more long-term. I have several copies of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I loved exploring nature and “adventuring” as a little girl so this was a well-loved book. One of my copies is a big heavy large print book that became my flower press when I was a little girl. I chose it because it was the heaviest book I had that wasn’t a Bible. Now the choice seems so poetic–wildflowers from my adventuring pressed into a book about adventuring. I included little notes with the flowers indicating where and when I collected them. Now I can flip through the pages of Huck Finn and relive my own adventures.

One of the first arrangements I made at Fantasy Floral included peonies. I wanted to save the peonies as a memory and because they were so full and gorgeous. I just wrapped kitchen twine around the end of the stems and hung them from the curtain rod at our sliding glass door. As the peonies dried, they did lose some color, but that’s what I like about them–the vintage color look. It gives the room a cottage feeling.

Once you have dried your flowers, the projects are endless! You are only limited by your imagination in what to do when stuck at home!

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DIY Bouquets

Price

If you are local, Fantasy Floral sells DIY bouquets starting at $20. These bouquets are being offered at wholesale prices much like you’d get at a grocery store but of higher quality and longevity. Let us know if there are certain colors or flowers you’d like included. We’ll put together a wrap of flowers in a wonderful array of colors, textures, and height, along with greens. Vases are an additional $5 if you need one.

What You’ll Learn

If you have children and are wondering what to do when stuck at home, get a different bouquet for each of them! It’s a great way to learn about flowers. You can look up where they come from and how they are grown. Many flowers are significant in indigenous cultures for herbal remedies and spiritual properties. You get art, agriculture, history, geography, and anthropology lessons all in one!

Tips and Tricks

Believe it or not, making a gorgeous arrangement that will last isn’t quite as easy as just throwing stems in a vase. You’ll have a blast learning though… and a greater appreciation for the talent of floral designers! We are working on a video that will walk you through the basic steps of flower arranging. Here are some tips in the meantime.

Greening

Start with “greening” your vase. We usually use bakers fern, also known as leather leaf fern, and then add the fancier greenery such as eucalyptus or salal at the end for texture. The foundation of greens is not intended to be a focal point. It provides the framework that hold the flowers in place. This is accomplished by placing the bakers fern in the vase at all different angles. The planes of the face of the leaves provide the grids that hold the flower stems.

Cutting

As you insert each flower stem, you’ll want to cut the end of the stem. Cut the bottom of the stem at a sharp angle. This does two things. It provides more surface area for the stem to absorb water It also keeps the stem from sitting flat on the bottom of the vase which prevents it from absorbing water. As you are beginning, we recommend cutting the stem a bit longer than you think you’ll need. It’s easier to make the stem shorter, but you can’t make it longer!

Arranging

Start with focal flowers, then filler flowers, then specialty greens. Use long thin flowers such as snapdragons to create height and visual interest. Many designers like to work in groups of odd numbers. Perhaps do a triangle of three tall flowers towards the top of the arrangement and a pentagon of five flowers towards the base of the arrangement.

Making the Flowers Last

Bacteria growing in the vase water is a flower’s greatest enemy so make sure to start with fresh cold water. Once you’ve finished your arrangement, there will probably be debris in the water so you’ll want to replace the water. There are two ways to do this. Grab the arrangement tightly in one hand to keep the design intact, empty the vase, refill it with fresh water, and replace the arrangement back in the vase. Or you can place the arrangement under a faucet and let water run into it until the old water is replaced with the fresh water. Do this at least every other day, and your flowers will last much longer!

Have fun!

Stayed tuned for tomorrow’s What to Do When Stuck at Home (part 2)!

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In Your Easter Bonnet

In Your Easter Bonnet

My great grandmother lived with us for the last half of my childhood. She was born in 1893 and saw transportation go from horse and buggy, to Model T, to airplanes, to launching into space, and landing on the moon. She was also quite the rebel–eloping on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle wearing leather pants! *gasp* But that’s a story for another time. Grammy Doy was from that generation of women who had matching hats and gloves and shoes for each outfit. Easter was the day to wear one’s finest. It was also a day for fresh flower corsages and even Easter flowers in one’s hat!

With All the Frills Upon It

Easter. Flowers. The two just go together for me! When I was growing up, the green apple tree in our front yard and the huge forsythia bush out back were always wearing their finest blooms on Easter. My brother and I hunted for eggs amongst the many clusters of yellow daffodils and purple grape hydrangea in our yard. And there was always a beautiful centerpiece on the Easter dinner table with flowers that matched the colorful hues we used to dye our Easter eggs.

You’ll be the Grandest Lady

As we celebrate spiritual rebirth and renewal on Easter, Mother Nature is doing her own version of rebirth and renewal. Grass goes from dull brown to emerald green, providing a perfect canvas for Easter Flowers. What are Easter Flowers you ask? For me, they are those flowers that bloom first, even through blankets of snow–tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, crocus, and pansies. They are the sentinels that brave the cold to let us know that winter is behind us, and long sunshiney days are coming.

In the Easter parade

Easter is Sunday, April 12, this year. As you’re dying eggs and putting together Easter baskets, don’t forget your centerpiece! A gorgeous Easter centerpiece is also a perfect hostess gift. We even have a customer that still gets an Easter corsage for his wife each year. There’s something wonderful about Easter memories and traditions!

As I write this post, Fantasy Floral is still open for deliveries and pick-up, but the coronavirus has definitely had an impact. We are using a skeleton staff of just family and doing no-contact deliveries  that we coordinate with the recipients–ringing the doorbell and leaving the arrangement outside the front door to be picked up after we leave. Our drivers are wearing masks and nitrile powder-free gloves and all vases are sterilized before delivery. Curbside pick-up is also available. Just call us to coordinate a time!

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A customer called this morning asking if we were open and delivering flowers today. We are, and we are! We intend to stay open unless/until it is no longer safe for us or for our customers. I did want to give you an update on the impact coronavirus has on flower shops, and Fantasy Floral in particular.

Flower Supplies

Did you know that 80% of the cut flowers distributed in the United States come from another country? Because of this, we might not have the exact flowers you are looking for as flights, and therefore cargo space, are starting to be restricted. Right now, the effect on supply and price is minimal, but this will change the longer the travel restrictions are in place.

We order flowers from wholesalers all over the Mid-Atlantic, but most of them are located in Maryland. Maryland Governor, Larry Hogan, has ordered all non-essential businesses to close by 5pm, Monday, March 23, 2020. This means our greatest source, but not the only source, of flowers has been curtailed.

Impact

Weddings and events are being cancelled as local governments ban large gatherings. This really affects florists, including us. While we love the everyday deliveries for birthdays, anniversaries, and just ‘cuz, large events are a huge source of income for florists. Events require specialty flowers that are ordered just for that event. Flower orders are placed long in advance, and our wholesalers usually need 7-10 days to cancel specialty orders. The immediate impact coronavirus has on flowers shops are abrupt event cancellations where flower orders can’t be cancelled. The long term impact will be the cancellation of events which affects the whole floral industry.

Coming Together

The floral community and our local community are coming together to try to minimize the impact of the coronavirus. Where we can use the specialty flowers we have ordered, we are trying to. Where wholesalers are able to sell the specialty flowers we have ordered to other florists, they are trying to. Our desire is that all parties–customers, florists, and wholesalers–are still financially viable when the danger of the coronavirus is over!

What We Are Doing

As a business, we are following CDC hygiene guidance including washing our hands and making sure all vases are sanitized before being delivered. In addition, we are wearing masks and nitrile powder-free gloves during our no-contact deliveries and offering curbside pick-up. As with other small businesses, we are finding the balance of meeting our customers’ needs, using wisdom to keep all safe, and financial survivability. Our shop hours are modified right now so check Facebook, Google, or Yelp for our most updated hours. We check email after hours so if you need a more immediate response, just email us!

For our family, humor is an important part of getting through tough times. In that spirit, we present a limited time arrangement* that we are calling, #LetsWipeThisOut (pictured at the top of this post). The arrangement comes in two sizes. The small has nine rolls, and the large has twelve rolls. If you know of someone who needs a laugh…or toilet paper…give us a call!

*No hoarding was done in the production of this arrangement. We are buying the toilet paper based on orders received.

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I must admit that I did not know about International Women’s Day until three years ago. It was my first winter at the flower shop, and a gentleman called us in early March looking for mimosa flowers. We were not able to get mimosas so he chose yellow daffodils instead. The card read, “Happy Women’s Day!” A quick web search, and I discovered what International Women’s Day was all about. The theme that year, 2018, was #PressForProgress–“a push for gender parity worldwide.”

2019

Of course I was all in! We advertised on social media and had advertisements up in the shop. I was ready for a lot of orders celebrating Women’s Day on March 8, but that was our sole order that year. Last year was a little better with three orders being delivered to women in celebration of Women’s Day. Last year’s theme, 2019, was #BalanceForBetter–“reducing the global pay gap between men and women and making sure all are equal – and balanced – in activist movements, boardrooms and beyond.”

2020

This year’s theme is #EachForEqual–“An equal world is an enabled world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions… We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world.” I would love to see our shop get flooded with orders celebrating International Women’s Day this year! I want to see this, not for the benefit of the shop, but for the benefit of women worldwide. Gender disparity continues to be the rule, not the exception. We need this day, this reminder, to be front and center!

Gender Parity

As I type this, Sabrina Ionescu, a senior guard for the Oregon Ducks, “became the first and only NCAA Division I basketball player to amass 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists in the span of a collegiate career.” As Forbes went on to point out, “Her tsunami-sized impact has changed college basketball forever.” I’ve read several articles about her amazing feat, but I love the Forbes article. In its opening sentence, they describe her simply as a basketball player. For me, this is what true gender parity looks like–when an individual is recognized for their accomplishments without a qualifier such as “woman.” We’re not there yet, but wow does this light the path in front of us, and isn’t that what International Women’s Day is all about?

Celebrate!

Let’s celebrate the amazing women in our lives! Each plays a vital role in family, community, work, and world.

Let’s celebrate the amazing women in our lives! They are our daughters’ and granddaughters’ role models.

Let’s celebrate the amazing women in our lives! The world does not always equally recognize their accomplishments, but we can.

Let’s celebrate the amazing young women in our lives! Send them an inspirational message that shows them a future where they can do anything they want without prejudice or boundaries or disparity.

We’re here to help!

While we don’t have mimosa flowers which is an Italian tradition, we do have the traditional colors of purple and green that have become symbolic for International Women’s day. Purple signifies justice and dignity, and green signifies hope. If you need inspiration, take a look at our website or our Facebook page. Better still, give us a call, let us know what your budget is, and our designers will put together something as beautiful and unique as the women in your life to go with your personal and inspirational message.

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