Take a Peep at these Easter Flowers

If you want to know how to get these Easter Bunny Peeps to appear in the vase "below the water line" and not have them get wet - just follow this simple tip. Find two cylinder vases - one that is a larger diameter than the other. Use some tacky floral adhesive and place in the bottom of the larger vase. Place the smaller vase inside the larger vase so it sticks to the adhesive and doesn't move around. Insert the Peeps in a long row between the walls of each vase. Fill the inside vase with water (and floral food) and flowers! Use Bamboo skewers to serve as "stems" for each pink Peep that is hopping around on your bouquet of flowers. We used two shades of pink Gerber daisies for this arrangement.

Fresher Flowers in Los Angeles

As per the LA Times yesterday, news that fresh cut flowers arriving from South America will be fresher than ever before. No more long haul trips from Miami via truck.  Mercury Air Cargo spent beaucoup for bouquets to be able to fly non-stop on 767's  to chill out before arriving to the flower mart or directly to your favorite flower shop.  

New Floral Trend: Succulents & Fresh Flowers

Succulents like Echeverias shown here are great in all types of flower arrangements. We've started to see them at the Academy Awards, in bridal bouquets and in chic modern designs.

We are teaching a couple of floral design workshops on how to combine fresh flowers with succulents at on February 7th at the Huntington Library and on February 17th at our floral design studio in Redondo Beach.

Join us and learn how to keep succulents lasting a long time in a floral foam, how to add succulent stems to bridal bouquets and how to integrate fresh flowers with planted succulents. We will also cover to how to propagate and care for your own succulent garden - one of the most carefree gardens to have in your home or yard!

Peony Bouquet

This bouquet was made this weekend, yes Virginia there are Peonies available in December. Beyond the Los Angeles Flower District Peonies were reportedly seen at Trader Joes both in So Cal and in Northern Virginia this past week.  Buy them closed and don't remove the outer greenery of the bud, this will weaken the head. Once the flowers open this part of the flowers is not seen, just the glory of the petals for all to enjoy.  In China it is said that this flower - which is referred to as being known as the "King of Flowers," symbolizes wealth, good fortune and high position.  So pick up some peonies and end this year and start the new year just right.

Christmas Flowers

I had some leftover flowers from another arrangement and had some fun with green colored floral wire. This is a great tool to help you keep stems in place underwater while adding more accent color to your vase! Flowers in this simple arrangement include red roses, green spider mum and white button mums.

Holiday centerpieces

Here is a photo of part of a holiday party delivery we did recently. This shows you that you don't need a delivery van to deliver your flowers. We made this delivery in our Toyota 4Runner. We used fresh evergreens for this arrangement with red hypericum berries, white wax flower, gold and silver balls, white cushion mums, white alstroemeria and white roses.

Holiday Evergreen Swag with Fresh Flowers

This weekend - we are teaching a class on adding fresh flowers to a holiday evergreen swag. We will go over how to keep them looking fresh for days and days. Students will also learn how to create two kinds of common florist bows you can adapt for any kind of flower arrangement. Bow tying skills are also handy for the holidays.

We are teaching two classes in the coming week -
Saturday - December 13 - 10 a.m. to Noon - The Huntington Library in Pasadena
Tuesday - December 16 - 7 to 9 p.m. - Our design studio in Redondo Beach