2008 Minneapolis Home & Garden Show

Take a break from winter and attend the Minneapolis Home & Garden show going on now (Feb 27 – March 2) at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Learn what’s new in Gardening, Remodeling and Home Décor. Over 1,000 experts will be at the show along with thousands of products and services. Over the weekend at the show, you can attend seminars on in-home fitness, design, green living, curb appeal, and more.

Need Blue Flowers? Try Delphiniums

Need to match a blue party theme with blue flowers? A good choice is Delphinium. It comes in two shades of blue - light blue and dark blue. There are two kinds available in the commercial market. Belladonna stems feature a generally smaller, delicate flower. Hybrid Delphiniums feature robust blooms and are longer stemmed than the Belladonna variety. When buying wholesale, Hybrids usually come in bunches of 5 - where Belladonna come in bunches of 10. Both offer the same color differences, so the choice is yours depending on your budget and your design. See more blue flower choices in our Summer Floral Gallery.

Photos above were taken at a wedding we did last summer. The photographer is Suzi Q. Varin of Q weddings.

Featured Botanical Garden: Butchart Gardens, Victoria, B.C.

If you want to see a garden that is out of this world and not too far away if you live on the West coast, the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia are well worth the trip. Start planning now for a trip in the early summer to see the ever-changing plantings on this privately owned 55-acre property. The pictures I took above were taken in the first week of June in 2005 when the garden was celebrating its 100 year anniversary. My husband and I were on a trip through the Pacific Northwest and made sure we didn't miss this garden when we took the ferry over to Vancouver Island.

Make a day of it to tour all corners of the gardens, have afternoon tea in its tea room and in the summer months, stay for evening fireworks. Currently it's "Spring Prelude" season at the garden. They are open to the public every day of the year. Be sure to put this garden on your list.

Mixing Daffodils with other cut-flowers

It’s February and we are starting to see tons of Daffodils at the market and blooming in our gardens at home. If you are going to work with Daffodils in your cut flower arrangements, be sure read this blog for Best Results!

Problem: All bulb flowers in the narcissus family (e.g. Daffodils, jonquils) exude a sap that can clog stems of other flowers if they are not conditioned properly.

Solution: If you do the following steps, you can arrange Daffodils with other flowers:

• As will all bulb flowers, the temperature of the conditioning water should be cool and not warm (unless you want the flowers to open quickly)


• Use professional floral food for best results and cut the stems at least ½ inch before placing them in a clean container with the cool water and proper amount of floral food (follow manufacturer’s instructions)


• Condition the Daffodils for at least SIX hours before arranging them


• Do NOT re-cut the stems after conditioning before you put them in the final arrangement or the sap will leak out again and hurt the other flowers


• Bulb flowers prefer shallow water; if they are placed in deep water, the stems can get water logged and shrivel up and the petals will get papery


• For best results – only mix narcissus flowers with other types of flowers in floral foam arrangements and not in vase arrangements to lesson the chance of the sap getting into the vase water
  

2008 Orchid Show - New York Botanical Garden

Starting Saturday, Feb 23 at the New York Botanical Garden, you can view a huge collection of orchids - a true feast for the eyes and a great way to chase the winter blues away. The Orchid Show features displays, a shop, how to care for orchids and more.

The show is open to the public, but you must get tickets to attend as entrance to the show is timed so it doesn't get too crowded. Show ends April 6, 2008.

Orchids aren't so mysterious or too hard to take care of. The one pictured here sits on my deck outside all year (I live in Los Angeles near the coast). It's a cymbidium and I water it once a week with the other plants on my deck. It sends out spikes once a year and this one is blooming now - in mid-February. Keep an orchid plant year-round inside your house and for heaven's sake, don't throw away your orchids when the blooms fade - just cut the stem of faded blooms, continue to water once a week and wait patienly until it blooms again. While you are waiting for more flowers, a good trick I learned from my mother-in-law (she is an interior decorator) is to have a silk orchid bloom to insert in the plant when it is not in bloom. The glossy green leaves of the real plant make it hard to tell the difference.

2008 Northwest Flower & Garden Show - Seattle

The Northwest Flower & Garden show kicked off today in Seattle, Washington and continues through Feb. 24th at the Washington State Convention Center. See Floral competitions, garden workshops and tons of garden and home suppliers. Casey and I have been to one of these huge garden shows. They are very inspiring, but tiring. Wear comfortable shoes, get to a pavilion early for a seminar you really want to attend (seats go fast) and bring your camera as well as a notebook and a sturdy tote bag to carry around the paper you'll collect (and maybe a few fun purchases, too). Have fun!

Photo caption above: Exhibition garden from the 2007 show. Download garden wallpapers.

Chinese New Year & Botanical Gardens

Pasadena, CA - Over 10 years in the making, The Garden of Flowing Fragrance, or Liu Fang Yuan will to open to the public Feb. 23, 2008, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. The garden features a 1.5-acre lake, a complex of pavilions, a tea house and tea shop, and five stone bridges, set against a wooded backdrop of mature oaks and pines. This initial phase of the garden covers about 3.5 acres of a planned 12-acre site. The Huntington will also hold a Chinese New Year Family Festival is on Feb 23rd from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.- See Huntington Library Chinese Schedule of Events here.

Photo Caption above left: The tile roof of the Terrace of the Jade Mirror sweeps upward in the foreground, beyond which can be seen Jade Ribbon Bridge across the lake. © The Huntington


Flower Duet teaches flower design classes at the Huntington Library as well. Our next class is March 15th to help celebrate 100 years of the rose at the gardens. Sign up for our class and see the Chinese garden, too!


Las Vegas, NV - The Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Garden is currently celebrating the Chinese New Year - "Year of the Rat." Casey and I were in Vegas a few years ago for our Mom's birthday and we saw that year's exhibit which was fabulous (I took this photo in 2004). The floral exhibit is amazing and to keep it looking fresh, the staff replaces plants and flowers weekly throughout the entire exhibition.

Hours: Open 7 days a week, 24 hours.
Current exhibit:"Chinese New Year – Year of the Rat" on display now through March 9, 2008

Open to General Public & Free admission