Flower Love!

 
I have been working in flower shops since I was 13 and then I went to trade school and then college for floral design. In that time I have designed in many of different containers and vases. Golden urns and Simon Pierce glass bowls worth thousands of dollars and yet nothing makes my heart sing quite like a mason jar full of posies! 
 
I have been harvesting all day and getting ready to sell all my beauties at various farmers markets and I figured I would keep some for myself. I usually wind up selling all of my bouquet jars and then I have nothing for my own little house. That might be a good problem to have though, since it means my flowers have fans! 
 
Look at that Dahlia! Very Sexy! ♥ 
   
I threw it together in about two minutes but I love how it turned out. I am very famous on this farm for my fast bouquet assembly skills. My girls who are helping me for the summer keep saying they are going to record me one of these days. Maybe it should be an olympic sport...Hey it could happen! If Speed Walk Racing is a sport then extreme bouquet production can be one too. : ) 

  This Bouquet Features: 
♥ White + Purple Lisianthus 
♥ Blue Ageratum 
♥ White Zinnias 
♥ English Lavender 
♥ White Dahlias 

I didn't put any greens into this one. I put mint in my small bouquets this time of year but I just didn't think this little bundle needed any. I am very happy with those Lisianthus. Thanks to my new spiffy high tunnel I have been able to produce a great crop of them all July and August!

Got any flowers in your house this week? If you don't you should stop by your local farmers market and grab some! 

Have a Lovely day! ♥ 

Lav. A

Olympic Victory Bouquets

Greetings and Happy Monday! I am sitting in my air conditioned living room today listing my new soaps on my etsy shop while watching the Olympic Women's Soccer Semi Round. Cheering on the U.S. team! 

I realized I haven't done any flower related posts lately so I decided to highlight the Olympic medal bouquets that are given out to the champions.

♥

The bouquets for the 2012 Olympic games include four varieties of Roses divided by English Lavender, Rosemary and Mint. I also feel like I have spotted some of the bouquets being presented through out the games to also have a little bit of Ornamental Wheat in them but I'm not sure. Anyways, this design is def very English indeed! 

Over the course of the 2012 Olympics over 4,000 victory bouquets will be presented!! Holy cow, that's alotta posies! 

These bouquets were designed by the one and only UK Florist, Jane Packer. I'm sure the legend of a florist who passed away last year is very proud to represent British Floral Design for all the world to see during these games. It's on my bucket list to attend one of her design schools someday. 

A simple yet classic design and since they had to create so many of them a grouping bouquet is a good choice since it helps in replicating so many of them quickly. I love that they included Jane Packer's signature printed ribbon. Very pretty! 

Okay, back to yelling the the big screen in my living room during soccer! 

Have a lovey day everyone! 

Lav. A. 

30 days of Lists #2

 
30 days of Lists number two is all about my favorite things about the spring. ♥ 

Favorite things about this time of year
  ♥ The awesome smell of everyone in the neighborhood cutting their grass. I love how it just drifts in through the window on a Saturday morning. 
  ♥ Finally getting the motorcycles out after a long winter with an itching feeling to ride them. 
  ♥ All the purple flip flops I can buy! 
  ♥ The Peonies in my flower field bloom and its makes my market customers very happy. : ) 
  ♥ Spring Farmers Market goes outside and it makes me feel like a real street vendor. 
  ♥ Martha's Ice Cream in Lake George opens once again. I live for their pumpkin ice cream with marshmallow fluff topping! 
  ♥ Lake George gets busy again. In the winter tourism dies off and the place is like a ghost town. So even though the traffic sucks in the summer. I would rather see all the business flourishing and people enjoying our great Adirondack town. 
  ♥ Car Shows! I will admit the classic car shows I get dragged to kind of put me to sleep but I am all about those awesome Subaru and street car meets we go to. I can hardly wait for Wicked Big Meet this June. Plus I get to spend lots of quality time with a certain sexy electrician guy. ♥    
 
Today I am figuring out my new Bamboo Tablet so I can sketch out some wedding flower photo shoots I have coming up this summer. Keeping me company is Mya the wonderpup! 
 



Have a lovely day! 

Lav. A 

Blue Diamond Orchid

 
  I hope everyone had a great mothers day! I sold soap all day at the farmers market and had about a million and one customers ask when my cut flower bouquets would be back in the stand. I am counting the days until things start blooming and there is life on the farm again. 
   
Speaking of flowers I came home to this blue beauty the other night. I knew right away it was a Blue Diamond Orchid. When I was in college getting my Floriculture degree our class went on a trip to the Plainview Growers Facility in New Jersey where these amazing orchids are produced. They have a team of Taiwan Orchid experts that grow them. All I remember is being blown away when I walked into a greenhouse that was probably acres long and seeing a sea of these sexy blue guys. 
 
I know posting this I might run the risk of having fellow florists and cut flower growers shun me for thinking these are cool but oh well. They need to understand that times are a changing and the fact is a lot of younger people are attracted to bright colors. If the floral industry wants to continue to get Gen Y business then brightly colored flowers such as Gerber Daisies, Neon Daisies and Blue Orchids will need to be available. 


Of course I adore traditional flowers obviously because I grow over five acres of them a year! All I'm saying is that there is a place for brightly produced flowers in the market. 


When my girlfriends were over last night, as soon as they spotted this blue diamond orchid on my dinning room table they freaked out and started taking cell phone pics and saying they wanted one also. Sooo there you go. Proof that Gen Y loves flowers. I also felt like the luckiest girl being able to say the electrician dude randomly surprised me with one. When I asked him why he got me this instead of the usual stems he gets for me on his way home from work he said "I don't know this just caught my eye. Something different." ♥ 

♥

Unfortunately the next time this blooms the flowers will be white not blue but I also happen to love white orchids so it's all good! : D 

It's supposed to be a rainy day so I will be a busy little bee in the soap studio all day. 

Have a lovely day!! 

Lav. A

Flower Love!

Floral Design of the Week

In this design I used Gerber Daisys from my favorite floral shop, a lot of little button zinnias from my flower field, some wheat, curly willow, seed heads and galix leaves.

This is a more modern design. Its in aqua foam in a circular black dish.

( excuse the sheet background... it was raining out so I had to take it inside. )

Hugs & Wonderful Thoughts,

Lavender A.

Flower Love!

Floral Design of the Week

This week to celebrate my favorite season I made a pumpkin design. Normally this type of design would be made by cutting the top of the pumpkin right off and just have the flowers come out of the top. I went another direction by cutting the pumpkin in half and designing out of the sides of the pumpkin all the way around.  

I used a few stems of fall colored mums, gold salidago, sea oats, many rose hips, green amaranth, a little purple limonium, yellow billy balls, pittosporum leaves & some curly willow.

This design is simple. Just cut the pumpkin in half. Hollow is out. Put a block of florist ( aqua foam that has been soaked ) in the bottom half of the pumpkin. Stake the top half od the pumpkin to the bottom a few inches above so there is room for the flowers. Then just work your way around the pumpkin with the flowers.

If you wanted a bit more sparkle to this design I would wrap a few pieces of gold boulion wire around the design. Not to much but just enough to make it shimmer.

This is def the perfect centerpiece for a harvest dinner party!

So stop by your local florist & pick up some fall flowers to make your design, or if you want a design like this but you dont wanna make one I'm sure your florist could make something similar they may even have them in the cooler already.

Hugs & Wonderful Thoughts,

Lavender A.