Team Flower — Education and community for flower professionals

In this episode of the Team Flower podcast, the team is back to share more flower discoveries! Amanda is chatting about our recent blog, How to Celebrate Your Work-In-Progress Garden, spoke to and inspired her in her own gardening endeavors. Jacelyn shares one of her favorite musical artists, Sleeping at Last, and gets us all talking about the Enneagram! Listen in to hear the Team Flower team’s Enneagram numbers!

Jan 22

Jan 22 Best Tips for Operating a Roadside Flower Stand

Paula Olivares

Operating a roadside flower stand can be a simple yet rewarding endeavor to add to your floral repertoire. If you're a beginner farmer or designer, this could be a welcome way to dip into the industry while serving your community. Or perhaps you're an experienced member of the floral industry looking to diversify your revenue stream. Starting a roadside flower stand could also be for you!

Jan 21

Jan 21 How to Create a Memorable Client Experience

Heather Higgins

Being a talented florist, streamlining your production, and having a great team are all wonderful things for your business, but they leave out one crucial element—the customer. How does a client feel after working with you? Was the experience memorable enough to share with a friend?

Jan 20

Jan 20 Video: Arranging with Fresh Farm Flowers

Kathleen Murphy

It’s Kelly and today I’m sharing an arrangement tutorial for a style that was quite popular at last month’s workshop — horizontal, reaching and packed with locally grown flowers!

Jan 16

Jan 16 Championing Others with Botanical Brouhaha

In this episode of the Team Flower podcast, we’ve gathered as a team to share a few of our recent flower discoveries! You’ll also hear from Amy McGhee at Botanical Brouhaha. She’s talking about the importance of being a champion for others in the floral industry and how you can do so as well. Lastly, Team Flower Member Jalisca Thomason is sharing about how to practice sustainable floral designs for destination weddings.

Jan 15

Jan 15 What You Can Do for Pollinator Health in Your Floral Work

Christina Malinoski

By embracing alternative pest management practices, flower growers can make a difference in pollinator survival. The most common methods are alternative pest removal practices, slug and snail management, adding beneficial insects, and reducing weeds.

Jan 14

Jan 14 5 Totally Free Things You Can Do to Improve Your Client Experience

Shania Cummings

If your clients aren’t giving you glowing reviews and referrals after their special day, there are probably kinks in your client experience strategy. The client experience is the journey that the customer takes starting from outside the doors to then browsing the products inside, purchasing, and telling everyone about the store after they leave. It’s your game plan for taking your clients from inquiry to after the wedding day. (Yes, I said after!)

Jan 13

Jan 13 Video: Amending Soil and Growing Snapdragons

Lee Carlton

Lee of Goldenrod Gardens has been working with me for several years, providing amazing plants for my wedding work. In this video she shares in-depth about amending soil, nutrients and how she plants snapdragons!

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Transcription:

We're back and we're talking about what this field used to be and the goal for soil amendments and texture of the soil that we're working with and all those kinds of things. So tell us a little bit about your field.

We're south facing here, which is an important thing, if you're growing at a high altitude.

OK. Now, why is that?

Season extension.

OK.

You need to be where the sun is going to hit you and it's going to be consistently warm temperature. And if it's frigid-- for example, we're going to try and overwinter these snapdragons.

OK.

You want to be south facing, because that's where the light is. Throughout the winter it drops. And this whole area, this whole field was-- they were Christmas trees. So they were Fraser firs. They were farmed here and they have a short crop season, fir tree. So I would say maybe max for this area was 10 years.

The soil's wonderful. It is a loamy, sandy mix. It's very well-drained in most part.

Yeah, there's no-- like, it's not that tight compact clay that you can get sometimes.

And low on the rocks too, which is a dream up here. A lot of times you're in rocks, which I use to my advantage. I say they're good for drainage and they have a lot of minerals in them. You just have to release them.

Yeah.

But this area has also not been overfarmed. So it doesn't have a lot of weeds, see. The weeds that are here--

So overfarm, that term means there's just been-- every year, there's been a lot of different--

Crop after crop.

OK.

And in some places people do a crop after crop. And they'll start and then they'll let it go to seed. And so the soil ends up being, sometimes--

Full of all of these other seeds.

Weed seeds, yes. And it's also been leached of its nutrients. You know, if you're gardening in a certain area or if you're farm in a new field that's never been farmed, you will have the most amazing stuff the first year.

Yeah.

But after that year, that's when you really have to deal with what's going on in the soil. So what's going on here is we're on the bottom slope of my field. There is a natural-- and I think I've noticed this with a lot of areas, when you get to a lower area, is acidity.

OK.

Acidity is pretty much how the whole like eastern coast is, acidic soil.

OK.

You know, if there's been a woodland or a swamp, there's acidity. It is what happens when plants break down and decompose. So that's, you know, peat, peat bogs. And they are what they are, because they're so acidic.

OK.

There is a little bit of an issue here of acidity in this low area. And it's like it seeps down. And you can amend that with lime. And that's what's already been doing to this soil.

OK.

Before we add the good stuff, the other extras, I've already limed this area, because I noticed the acidity.

Yeah. And you didn't really need to do any amendments to the texture of the soil, because it was that nice kind of ideal condition.

Well-drained.

Perfect. So we dealt with texture. And then, we know that we're a little bit acid. So we're dealing with the pH. And now, we're going to look at the actual nutrients that are in the soil.

Yes, which you have N, P, and K, are our main nutrients. Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. When you're growing flowers you need them all. But you don't need as much nitrogen as you would need as if you're growing a bunch of lettuce.

OK.

You absolutely need a good bit of phosphorus.

OK. So how does the nitrogen hinder the flower production and how does the phosphorus aid?

Nitrogen causes leafy growth.

OK, but no blooms.

No blooms.

OK.

They all work together. You need the nitrogen, but if you have an overabundance of nitrogen, you're going to have leggy, weaker stems.

Well, that's what's happening with my cosmos right now. Like, I have lots of leaf, leaf, leaf, but I'm not having the growth.

Buds.

Yeah, buds. Yeah.

And it happens.

Yeah.

You overfeed them with that.

Yes.

This area is known for being low in phosphorus.

OK.

And so I'd like to touch on that. It can be noticeable, to the point where there is a purple tinge on leaves if they are deficient of it. They're not only like stunted and not as flowery, but their leaves are purple. It's not supposed to be that way. Another tricky thing about phosphorus is it is immobile in the soil.

OK.

So you can't just sprinkle it around and think that you're going to correct it.

You really have to like work it in.

And bring it in. Even my professor at school said, just, you got to dig a hole and stick it in.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's an important thing to remember.

To remember.

Calcium, magnesium, and potassium. They're all very important roles, but phosphorous seems to be one of the things that's a little bit harder.

Sure.

Another one I'll touch on while we're here and there's sunflowers, I can grow sunflowers here right now this season, but next year, if I grow sunflowers here, I'll have to boron.

OK.

Sunflowers don't form if there is a boron--

Deficiency.

--deficiency.

And they kind of like eat it all. Like this crop will eat it all up. And so will the kale, collards, all of that. And if you're in the desert, you're good on boron. It happens where you are getting a lot of water. It just runs through. And even if you over boron, it'll work itself out very quickly, with even a hose.

It's kind of like vitamin B in your body. You get rid of what you don't need.

It goes away.

OK, perfect.

So we're going to add the basics today.

Great.

We're going to start with pal-- and this is all organic.

OK.

So it makes it a little bit more difficult, but it makes it a lot easier to work with maybe a little bit stinky sometimes.

Yeah.

We're going to do pelletized chicken manure.

OK.

Which is a good balance N, P, K and calcium.

OK.

They don't list their micronutrients on there, except for the calcium. But I consider calcium very important. And I buy it in a pellet.

OK.

It's a lot easier to do than nonpelletized chicken manure

Ugh.

I've done both. I recommend this. And what we're going to do-- you're going to help me in your white shirt-- is one of these buckets-- this bucket full this will fill and amend a good 50-foot row.

Oh, wow. OK. 50 feet by how deep? Four?

Two.

Two?

Yep. It depends. You don't want to over beef, but since this, for me-- this did have Christmas trees in it, I do want to kind of enrich it, because there will always be flowers and vegetables here. And I think if you start-- this is the first year on this field for me. And you want the sweetest soil you can have. And this is a good way to start it.

OK.

So voila. We have our pelletized chicken manure. And then, we have our ever expensive, and I must tell you, bone meal.

OK.

This is the organic source, one of them, the main one, for phosphorous.

OK.

It's slow release, but it is organic. This little baby costs, you know, $16 to $20.

Yeah.

Whereas two and a half buckets of these, like, maybe total $11.

Yeah.

But it's worth it. You have to have it for flowers.

Yeah. But the ratio of what you really need of bone meal to chicken manure, is the same? Different?

I burn through this.

You burn through it?

Yeah.

If it's deficient, you kind of have to really add to it.

Yeah.

But it's not mobile, like boron, so it's not going to wash out. Once you get it in there, it's going to stabilize it. And there are actually cover crops that will help fix it.

OK.

Buckwheat fixes phosphorous.

OK, so the bone mean functions as-- you said it stabilizes--

Well, it stabilizes in the soil, but what it does is it creates strong stems.

OK.

Strong stems, big flowers, and just a healthier plant. It also affects the root growth.

OK.

And I can get into potassium, but these are the picky ones for flower growing. If you have a burn pile and this is potash is what it's called, that's where you grow the best stuff. Grow it in the burn pile, because it's phosphorous, calcium, everything.

Everything.

Favorite other little amendments. And one Epsoma. It's a company called Epsoma.

I think I just bought something from them.

They grow the tones. So you get flower-tone, bold-tone, holly-tone, citrus-tone.

Yeah.

You can get phosphorous. But this is flower-tone.

OK.

It has the major nutrients in it. It's not just N, P, K. It's the list of all the elements.

Little ones, uh huh.

It also has beneficial mycorrhizae geared towards what you're growing which is the fungus that is good in the soil for flowers or citrus.

So it's like probiotics for plants.

Yes, exactly.

OK.

So I have flower-tone. And then, I have-- well, we're going to call this azomite. It's a rare earth mineral.

OK.

It is like the periodic table of elements, but just in just tiny, tiny doses. And so it's just a full amendment for the whole of the soil.

OK. They've decided that there are certain things that the plants have to have to live. Doesn't mean that they're not going to benefit from other things in the periodic table.

Sure.

And this is one of the things that includes everything.

Yeah.

There's even gold in it.

Yeah. She's a big fan of this, the azomite.

And I've actually done tests, like just field test of like kale side by side, poblano peppers side by side, zinnias side by side, and it is so amazing. Oh, and dahlias. They're so much stronger and so much happier of they have a good dose of the azomite in them.

OK.

I recommend it.

OK. Great.

It's soil building. You donate a lot.

Perfect.

So that's what we're going to do. We're going to add stuff.

Perfect.

It's likes baking a cake.

So if we're trying to figure out, like maybe I have a space that's not as big as this space, like maybe I can write it down, but like the ratios of like how many scoops of this we need per square foot and those kinds of things, what you would recommend?

I would say, if you had a nice plot, a four by four plot, I would add-- if you really want to make it really happy, I would add about maybe five pounds of the chicken manure.

OK. So you're like top dressing. And then, you're going to like and bake the cake.

Till it in. Turn it in. So you'll do, if it's new soil and you have just a little test plot, I would do five pounds of the chicken manure, a good cup of the bone meal, a half a cup of azomite. And with the flower-tone, you can do, maybe a cup dressing, two cups dressing. It depends on your soil, if it needs more building. Or you can just put a little sprinkle in each hole and mix it as you plant.

Sure.

And that's where I like it too, is when I'm planting like plants that are a little bit bigger and I'm having to dig a bigger hole and not just like a finger. I can kind of throw a little handful in there too, mix it around, and then get my plant in there. You just don't want it to-- if you're using something like that, you just don't want to nuke it on top. You need to mix it in.

Yeah. Yeah.

Otherwise it could burn. It could get really happy and suck it all up at once and just go--

Yeah. That happened to me this year, whenever I transplanted everything. All my stuff, I think I just like overfed it and burned.

Yeah. You have to be careful.

Yeah.

And temperature has definitely. But mixing it in. I know it's easy to kind of get over eager. I would go with like the amounts that they recommend first.

Yeah.

And then, if you need to add a little side dressing, you can go back later.

Sure. Now, are there any of these things that if you overdid it, it would be like, bad news?

Well, I think I killed a hydrangea this spring, because of the chicken manure.

OK.

It was thirsty and I gave it lime and it said. Yay, I needed lime.

I really needed that and then it was like I'll take way too many things.

And then, I put some chicken manure around it and it said uh. And it was one out of six. So maybe it just was on its way out. But nitrogen will burn faster than anything, because if it's a good source of nitrogen, or even a mediocre source, it will suck it up so quickly it will cook it. I think that nitrogen is probably going to be your biggest killer.

Yeah and nitrogen plus lime, because lime helps you absorb all of your nutrients, little deadly combo.

So you got to be careful.

OK. Perfect. Let's do it. Yeah.

Very good.

Very good. OK.

It's a good even coating. That's like my magic booster. It's like baking soda.

Oh, yeah. It is. I could see that.

Whereas this is like the eggs, because it's the chicken.

We're going to go all in on the baking analogy.

So this was the flower-tone. We just did one little cup of this.

Light.

Little light dusting about every, what, like eight feet per cup?

Little zigzag.

Is what we're doing.

Yeah. And this is one of those things that you can always go back midseason, and a little bit more.

And top dress. It's great for that.

Because it'll rain and go down in. So top dressing works for this.

And heavy feeders, I would say, like sunflowers, well, if they're fast sunflowers you don't need it. You just have to feed the stew out of them to begin with, because you're not going to have time. But dahlias, any type of perennial, and I would say zinnias as well. It's a good thing to go ahead and add some midseason, just to give it a little extra boost to get you through the first frost or until you're tired of cutting them.

Yeah.

Which who knows which comes first?

Whichever comes first.

And this is bone meal. And I'm going to go ahead and say that, just observing like this winter, this lower part of the field was-- I saw purple, weeds. So we don't have a ton of bone meal right now, but I'm going to focus my dosage down here, because this is where I think it needs it more.

The part where we're going to plant.

However, you know, the chicken manure did have phosphorus in it. But this is a good strong extra source.

Energy boost.

And it's really dusty so keep it close, close to the soil, so you don't lose any, because it's expensive too.

Yeah. That's what I didn't do right with the plant-tone at first. I was holding it too high.

Which just, I don't know which one of those nutrients tends to go through the air fastest, but it's probably the one that I really need.

Yeah, right.

If you're not having to certify organically, you can use triple phosphate.

OK.

But it is strong. And so you have to do it in really low doses. But if you're in a situation--

Instead of bone meal?

Instead of bone meal.

Because it's cheaper?

It is cheaper.

Or what are the pros?

It is a lot cheaper and it happens a lot faster.

OK.

It's strong. Another organic source though is greensand.

Oh, OK.

It would take pallets of greensand for me to do what I needed to do here, because of the way our phosphorus is. All regions are different.

OK. What is greensand?

Greensand is a mined sand. It's a mined earth.

As opposed to playbox sand.

Yes.

OK. Got it.

It's literally has a green tinge. And like this comes from, basically, the same place that the chicken manure comes from. And it comes from processing.

OK.

They're bones. It's bone meal. They're ground down. Greensand is a mined element. And it just depends on where you are and what you have access too. If you need greensand and you're in the southeast, you're going to pay five times--

A lot of money, because it's tons--

--on the shipping.

Heavy.

So you have to think about your local sources of what you can do to amend your soil too. And I think that's an important thing to consider.

Would the extension office, like the local extension office be a good resource for connecting you with those different places and sources to get them?

Absolutely. Yes. And like our local extension agency has a alternative farming adviser. And he helps with people that are certifying organically, or like to use organic, even if they're not interested in certifying.

Sure.

And then, there's the regular office. They're both wonderful, ours are. But they both have wonderful resources and classes to help you learn about your region. And even they--

Yeah, I think they're such a great resource.

And they usually know the people in your area who supply the things that you need.

Sure.

So go to them.

Yeah.

They even do the garden masters.

Yeah. Master Gardeners.

Master Gardeners, that's your local--

Great resource as well. Definitely. OK. We got it all?

Yeah. Well, we're going to add a little azomite, just add it. And then, David's going to come through and till it. And we're going to--

What do we do if we don't have a David?

You get a little tiller, or-- I did not bring my-- you do it by hand.

By hand. I have one of those little like, it looks like a lawnmower-- well, I have the little Mantis. And then, I also have this little thing that looks like one of those push lawnmowers. There's just like all the little like tines, which works for my little boxes that I have.

I'd recommend the Mantis.

I probably would break my boxes with the Mantis.

No.

No?

No. I use it in my little boxes.

OK

But the Mantis is awesome.

Yeah, very, versatile. And they're not too hard to, like, manage. Once you get like the real big ones, like I can't manage those. But I can manage a Mantis.

Yes. And it does a lot of work. I mean, I could go back and forth with my Mantis. It is, I think, more efficient than a rear tine tiller sometimes. The rear tine tillers somewhat leave gaps. They're slow. With the Mantis, I can actually like hoe with it--

Really get it in there.

--and pull the bed together, I can do all work with it. It's a little thing. And it's easy. But then, there's a tiller on a tractor.

This is a simple quick system to set your lines, if you are planting or laying horizontal netting. We're using hoops that have been-- they're conduit. They've been bent with a hoop bender.

This is rebar.

These, do you buy these bent?

No.

You have to buy this at Lowe's straight and then you bend it on a hoop bender.

Which you can purchase through Johnny's Seeds.

OK.

They actually have several sizes.

OK.

You can do a smaller one, which will bend up to, I think, an inch thick. But they also have some that will bend conduit for caterpillar tunnels.

Oh, wow.

These are made for low tunnels, or bent for low tunnels. Caterpillar tunnels are for the kind that you can walk through.

Sure.

And I just don't do that type of large scale. If I were to set up a cover over this area, I like low profile, because there are winter winds. I think the caterpillars are great for, possibly, that if you have a good anchor. But I'm going for hard core winter protection.

Sure.

But what we're doing today with the snapdragon planting is using this as multifunction, adjustable, holding for our horizontal netting for our snapdragons. Because our snapdragons, if they fall over, they don't fall back up.

No.

And if they fall over, they do this. And you just get no fun.

Yeah. I didn't stake mine. That's what happened, to all of them. So I just pulled them all out yesterday.

But they went a long time.

They did. Yeah, they did.

And those were like the rejects that you got too, which is awesome.

Yeah, they went.

I had four cuttings, four major cuttings out of the crop I put in.

Yeah.

So with Chantilly snaps, it's my first time to have the patience to go through that.

Yeah. Little seeds.

I was excited.

Yeah. OK. So we bent our rebar with our--

No.

No, no, no. Our conduit.

This is conduit.

Right.

It's roughly four feet wide now. This--

From Johnny's Seeds.

Johnny's Seeds. This is rebar. This kind of stake with the arrow in it is generally used for electric fencing, like, just pop-up quick electric fencing. But I use this in the field. Lowe's, yes. You get these at Lowe's. We've already preset 18-inch shorter pieces of rebar that were going to slide the conduit onto.

As your anchor.

These longer pieces of rebar in this string, I've used in this field repetitively since April. This is how I mark my lines and keep my bed widths--

Consistent and neat and tidy.

Consistent and straight.

Which is great, because whenever you're organized and everything's straight going in, like you can really pack the plants and make the most of the ground that you do have to work with.

Exactly.

OK. So we're laying this on. We're going to make it tight. You're going to hook-- just lay your ends on the corners of the rebar. And David's going to help you and make them tight. Can you get that corner? Of course, it's the broken one. The tighter the better with this stuff I've learned. It's plastic. So if it's not tight, it tends to get a little squirrely very quickly.

Nice and tight.

All right.

And what'd you tell me this was? This is the--

This is horizontal netting.

Horizontal netting, as opposed to the-- or no. Is this vertical?

This has been amended. This was vertical netting. It was 10 feet high and I cut it and I cut it.

Yeah.

I think with the horizontal netting that you can purchase from Johnny's, it's more of a square grid. But I had, a good 100 feet of this. So I cut it.

Using what we have.

And we're going to just lower-- it's good and tight. Yay. We're going to use this as our planting grid.

OK.

So this kind of does double duty. We're going to take our snapdragons--

So we just want to put it right down on the ground.

On the ground. We're going to put our snaps in. And then, once our snaps are in, we're going to put our hoops on, and then raise this netting up. And as they grow, we can raise them up a little bit more to hold their height.

OK. Perfect. So you just raise it as the plants are growing?

With the hoops too, I use the hoops. I've noticed-- this is the first time I've really put this out. If you have a big wind in the spring, if you had just this, it would be goodbye netting. Now this, actually, it kind of like moved.

OK.

But it didn't fly away. What I did later in the season is I took the hoops out, just so I could get in and out. And I had this up. And for security, I zip tied to make sure it was tight and didn't get knocked out of place. And that helped it stay. But I hit a point with the hoops being here--

We're going to overwinter these snapdragons. So this not only provides horizontal support, it's also going to provide a cage for either greenhouse plastic or [INAUDIBLE] or growing fabric, which just gives it frost protection. So that's what we do. And then, that's when you use all your extra rocks to weigh down the edges. Save the big ones for the end.

Random bricks left over from something. Yeah, OK. Perfect. We're going to put these in there, tuck them in?

Tuck the little plants in.

OK.

Specialty Cut Flowers book is a heavy handed book for me. And I highly recommend it for anybody that's seriously trying to grow--

And he wrote that book? Is that what you're saying?

Yes. He and another lady, and I can't remember her name right now, and she's wonderful to, but his books are-- I can't do without them.

Yeah.

His perennial book and his professional cut flower, specialty professional cut flower.

Yeah.

But the recommended spacing-- and it's a group effort, by the way. They used input from flower growers across the country and their experiences and they have them in notes. And they definitely rely on having it as a group--

Group effort. Great.

Because we can't all-- I mean, you can't--

Can't all know everything. That is for sure.

You can't test certain things in Athens, Georgia and expect them to grow in Spokane, Washington.

So I do plant in rainbows. It helps me organize mentally and it also helps me when I'm cutting large groups of things. So we're starting with purple then go in to velvet and then red and bronze, salmon, et cetera.

These are going to be roughly eight inches apart. And we're just going to use the grids. So we're going to do this y'all. And they're kind of eight inches apart, but kind of not. There might be some losses, but we're going to lay them out that way. I kind of do this a little ahead of time. And then, you can kind of throw your little babies in there. I try to get all of one color done first. And these look terrible right now. But oh my gosh, I can't wait til we come back in a week or two.

Yeah. They'll take off.

And so we're just going to lay them down.

Oh, I meant to ask you, like temperature and weather. Like when is the ideal time? Like if we had to cancel earlier because it was too wet to do this, like what would be the best way so that the plans aren't shocked? Like if you're looking at your calendar for the week and you're trying to pick the best case scenario, what's ideal?

So with this field, since we don't have the direct, like, water hose water source, it all has to be brought up from the spring down below, you plant it right before a few days of rain.

Got it.

And it's going to be naturally--

Taken care of.

Yes. That's important, getting things watered in.

So would you say like the first week is like really, really crucial for like the water?

Yes.

For them being set in?

Yes, I would say the first week, even if it's really dry-- I can't speak for a desert region. But if you're an area like this where we've had very dry periods, but when we do get rain we'll get a good inch or too, you have to give it a week, 10 days. And those are the times if I don't have access with a hose--

I'm just going to keep making circles.

If I can't do a hose, I fill up my backpack sprayer with water. And I go along and I just take off the spray nozzle. And if I can give it just a localized squirt of water--

That helps a lot?

Every other day, if I can get it through that first 10 days, it's usually golden.

Yeah.

After that, I'm just about trying to compete with the weeds, because the weeds don't seem to mind the fact that there's no rain.

I know. That's always funny how that happens, isn't it?

But if you're really doing a lot of planting and don't have that kind of access to water and you don't have the time to go in and do the hand watering, time it before a big rain. And they'll get watered in and your likelihood of survival is going to be good.

Much better.

Yeah.

I was going to say, is there like a survival rate that you typically see whenever you're planting? Like out of everything that we do today, like will you lose a few of these little babies along the way?

Yes.

What's normal to lose?

I have one of those, in my head, from landscaping for many years, which I usually beat it on landscaping. My percentage is really low on landscaping. But I think an average that you should consider is 15%.

OK.

Yeah. I think he should go for 85% survival rate. That's a good number. You know, if you're doing sunflowers, these pro cuts, they're geared towards stick it in the ground, they'll be done in less than two months. That should be like a 95% survival rate. But I think with smaller, less vigorous plants, 85 is good, because sometimes, as we talked about with like the marigolds being bad seeds, sometimes you'll just get little genetic glitches.

Yeah.

And you want to pull them out and you don't want to keep them around. And so I would say that factors into that percentage as well.

Jan 9

Jan 9 Live from Pasadena: Our 100th Podcast

This is quite a special episode of the Team Flower Podcast! Not only is it our 100th episode (hooray!), but it’s also recorded LIVE from Pasadena following the 2020 Team Flower Conference. It’s rare that our small remote team have the opportunity to sit in the same room, so we decided to take full advantage this year and give all of our listeners a special treat!

Jan 8

Jan 8 How to Create a Pampas Grass Hanging Installation

Mandy Hess

Like it or not, pampas grass is the Queen of Boho right now. From fresh feathery, ostrich-like stalks to dried, fluffy shedding-like-crazy stems, couples planning their wedding are into this look.

Jan 8

Jan 8 How to Use Floral Client Consultations to Avoid Being Ghosted

Shania Cummings

Every florist has a similar routine to respond to inquiries. We open the DM or email, craft a friendly response, click send, and cross our fingers. Sometimes, we get “ghosted.” These Ghost Brides give every florist goosebumps! Is the Ghost Bride watching from her corner of the Internet? Maybe she’s going to pop up at any second! Who you gonna call? Ghost-Bride Busters!

Jan 6

Jan 6 Fast Flower Video: Bouquet of my wedding flowers

Seven years ago this week Jesse and I were getting ready for our wedding! I thought it would be fun to celebrate by recreating the bouquet my sisters-in-law made for me. It has eucalyptus, spray roses, sweet peas, lisianthus, garden roses, anemones and lamb's ear. Watch this fast bouquet time-lapse come together!

Jan 2

Jan 2 Alaska Peonies and Peterkort Roses

American growers, Alaska Peony Cooperative and Peterkort Roses join us on this episode of the podcast. We’re talking about what it takes to get a successful flower co-op started, tips for growing peonies, running a family business, pest control and sourcing garden roses.

Jan 1

Jan 1 Fresh Inspiration for a Life with Flowers

Janine Harris

I challenge you to reflect on your life with flowers and write down the things they've taught you. Pen out your magical moments, those situations where you overcame limitations, the growing blooms that made YOU grow. Then pin them up in your studio space! And in those moments when you're exhausted and covered in dirt after sowing the fields, or furiously cleaning buckets and containers before your next event, remember. Take a moment to be still and remember how you have grown, and be inspired!

Dec 30

Dec 30 Video: Creating a Unique Holiday Centerpiece with Amaryllis

Amaryllis are one of my favorite flowers to use in design work, but the thick stems can get in the way for some types of design work. In this video I’ll be demonstrating how to overcome this challenge and create an arrangement perfect for a holiday gathering!

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Video transcript

- Hi, I'm Kelly Perry with Team Flower and today we're gonna make a centerpiece using amaryllis.

This can be a tough one to use in arrangements sometimes because the stems are so long and they can be very fragile but I wanted to take some time to show you a few tips that you can use to do some great arrangements with amaryllis.

With the holidays coming up, they're a beautiful flower to use in holiday arrangements, so I thought it would be fun to show you.

So we're gonna get started.

The container that I'm using today has a few little brass screws, so I've sealed those off with silicone.

And then I have a block of soaked Oasis in here.

And the Oasis is important for the amaryllis and the technique that I'm gonna show you for that, so I really prefer to use that as opposed to wire or flower frogs, just specifically for this and I'll explain a little bit later.

So I have the Oasis in here and then I have it taped in and I also have the container filled with water.

And that I have found really helps keep the flowers fresher longer, because whenever you're using flower frog, they get the maximum water absorption.

And I just have found that sometimes with Oasis the flowers don't last quite as long as they do in clean, fresh water, so I like to fill the container still even so with water, just to make sure that that is completely soaked all of the time, and that helps with longevity a little bit.

So we're gonna get started with, this is called rose sumac and this is what I'm gonna use to establish the general shape of the arrangement, and kinda where I'm headed with things.

And then we are gonna, after we add some of this, then we're going to add some pittosporum.

And I love what you'll see here, the importance of having these specific ingredients, it's not important that you have them.

You just need things that have a similar quality about them.

So the rose sumac is branchy and has a nice shape to it and the pittosporum has some branchier, or not branchy, just full full flower.

So that helps with coverage quite a lot.

So that's why I've chosen those two things.

So you're just looking for similar shapes.

I'm gonna use about five pieces of this, and these three you can see are out further, and then I wanna move these ones in.

Well, I wanna round out the back first but use these in a little bit more as opposed to very outside of the container.

So you can see how we have a nice dimension going there on the front and the back.

And this piece is just a little bit too much for where I'd like to put it, so I'm just gonna do a little trimming.

Okay, I like to, I always like save a little piece just in case if I see later that there's a place where I'd like to use that.

So now with the pittosporum, I'm going to just add some more fullness into these areas.

So I'm just kind of following the sumac, and then what I like about pittosporum is it has several opportunities here to use the same stem multiple times, so I'm just clipping right above each of these groups of leaves, and then these are so great to go nice and low in the arrangement.

And you cover up that exposed cut that you made since it's nice and low.

Whoops.

That one clipped itself for me.

Okay, we'll leave a few of those, and next I'm gonna add some pepper berry.

You can see some of it that came in the bundle is bright red and some is just a green.

So if it's important to you to have one or the other you might wanna just check with your wholesaler and see what stage it's in, or if it's in the stage where you could get either one (laughs).

Actually, I think I'm gonna wait to add this until I get a few more things in here.

Same thing with this willow eucalyptus.

Next I have some carnations.

I think these are great to use low in the arrangement.

And a dark color, it draws your eye in and gives the arrangement some depth.

And if your carnation comes and it's all tight and wound up like this, you can just kinda massage this section of it and fluff out the flower.

And as I put these in here, I'm just thinking about putting them in at different heights.

I want everything to be pretty low, but I don't want it to be one dimensional.

I don't want it to be so tight in there either that I can't get my other stems into the arrangement.

Next I'm gonna follow that with some roses.

And these are also gonna go nice and low in the arrangement.

This just adds another shape and another size to this layer.

And I'm gonna start working these roses up, out of this base line, just a little bit.

Just one step up.

And I'm gonna check in here on the side of my arrangement as well, 'cause I want there to be a little bit of that color popping through over there.

And this Lazy Susan is so helpful to keep you working around the arrangement rather than really focusing in on one side and then it becoming unbalanced which is something that you wanna avoid.

Just clipped out a little piece of that rose sumac that I felt like was in my way and obstructing the line a little bit, so feel free as you go along just to clip things out that you feel like aren't working for you.

Next I have some of this beautiful striped foliage.

Gosh this is my new favorite thing, and I wish I knew what it was called.

I'll have to look that up and put it in the email for you.

But I went to go look for the little tag and it seems that I tossed it out.

This is a house plant from just Lowe's hardware.

Sometimes I like to pop in there and see what kind of interesting house plants they have, just so I have some kind of interesting foliage on hand if I'm in a pinch or on the fly or just putting something together.

It's a way that you can really take things from ordinary to extraordinary by just having one of those really special ingredients.

So what do we have in here?

We have three wholesale ingredients that most people frown up, we have roses, carnations, this pittosporum.

But with the addition of the rose sumac, which is interesting and textural, and then this leaf, it really elevates it to another place and I think that you don't need to get too hung up on, you know, my wholesaler doesn't have all that much to choose from or that's interesting, but really all you need is that one thing and you can find one thing.

You never get real far when you're always wishing that you were somewhere else or that you had something else.

You really have to be content with what's in your space and make it work.

Okay, so I'm layering these in.

These are what I would call a framing flower.

And I love to use those to set off some of the larger focal flowers in the arrangement.

So I've layered those in there with that in mind, just areas that I'd like to have those focal flowers.

Next I'm gonna take, these are, believe it or not, these are Quicksand roses.

They look like Saharas.

I think they were maybe just, I don't know, cut a little bit earlier or just from a different grower.

I'm not sure, but they are definitely not the blushy pink that were anticipated but they look really lovely with amaryllis, so no worries there.

I have a few there.

I'm gonna balance it out with a few over here.

We've gotta lot of contrast between this cream and the red but we are gonna bridge the gap using the amaryllis here that we have, 'cause you can see how these are, this is what I would call a transition flower.

And you can see how this has both the red and the cream and it blends those two pieces together so beautifully.

Transition flowers are very important.

Wake up, little guy.

(blows) Okay.

Okay, so the moment you've been waiting for, the amaryllis.

Got some cotton balls that I soaked with water.

And I'm going to take the cotton ball and put it in the stem of the amaryllis.

This makes a funny noise, wait for it.

(squishes) Uh, kinda gross (laughs).

And then I'm gonna clip the amaryllis stem to the place where it would hit the base of the floral foam.

So it's hydrated by the cotton, but it has the stem that can just easily pop right into that foam and be a very stable and secure hold, which is what we're after.

Amaryllis I would recommend purchasing.

The stems always come in better if you purchase them by the box, and boxes have about 15 to 18 stems in them normally.

But it's tough whenever the wholesaler, you know, if you just need a few and those are shipped to you, they just sometimes the stems get cracked and you have a hard time with those.

Now these are huge, so what I'm gonna do is clip out a few flowers here.

I actually think that I like how this little group here looks.

Just these two little ones.

I think we need to get it even shorter.

There we go.

And then some of these small ones that we tugged off we can set low in the arrangement.

Pop those right into the foam.

Let's leave these guys out for now.

Okay, next I'm gonna go in with some of these white Majolica spray roses.

Just kinda catch everything up to speed.

Let's just build this out one more layer.

And don't be shy to clip off some of the pieces of the spray roses if it's too full or getting in your way.

If that's not the look that you're going for, you can just clip those out.

Kinda like we did with the amaryllis so that it was the puzzle pieces is what we needed to fit into that particular spot.

And I have a few peachy spray roses.

I'm just gonna add those in.

Look how those connect with the amaryllis.

See like this right here, like this is too much for me personally.

So I'm just gonna tug those out for now.

I just wanna open that up and leave some more room for some of these other beautiful flowers to go.

I have these romantique antique garden roses.

These are gonna start low in the arrangement, and then I'm gonna bring that pink color out.

Not real pleased with this bunch that I got.

They aren't opening as nice as they have sometimes.

With roses sometimes they open really beautifully and then sometimes they don't, and a lot of people think that it's something that they did, that it's their fault that it's not opening, or whatever, but actually a lot of times it's when the flower was cut.

Maybe it was cut just a little bit too early, or just stressed in shipping, I mean there's so many things that happen in the lives of these flowers before they ever get near you, and so you could do the same thing over and over again in terms of how you treat them whenever they arrive to you but if you're getting different results, there's something else at play.

So just keep that in mind and don't get too ruffled up that you're doing something wrong.

They just like clean water and fresh cuts, little bit of food.

Okay.

And then let's leave these guys out for now.

Let's just see, these are Prince Jardinier, really really pretty garden roses, and they smell amazing.

Those last ones were O'Hara's.

They're pretty Barbie pink.

I don't love love them for what I'm doing right now but they're okay, they'll work okay.

But I like how these look with the romantique antiques.

I got them as a transition flower to go between the two and they do, I mean, there are these really outside petals that have, if we can get a close-up of this, the really dark romantique antique pink and they have that little touch of burgundy on the ends of them and they have some of these lighter pink petals and then a medium pink.

But the tone is just slightly off for me.

But sometimes you have to work with slightly off and that's okay.

Nobody but you probably notices.

These just open so beautifully.

I just love, love, love.

And you have to give 'em time to open.

Really do.

They need about four days to get looking really pretty.

Sometimes even a week.

Okay, so we just have that focal point anchored, pretty centered there.

And I think we need one more in here but I'm not sure if I wanna put it...

Just wanna see how that affects the other side.

Okay, I like that.

It carries this line throughout the center of the arrangement, which I like.

You know, what I don't like what's happening now can be solved with a little bit of greenery, and it's just that there's not softness between these layers so I wanna add some of that in with this willow.

Actually, let's use some berries for that.

I'm gonna do a little bit of willow here on the sides to soften this area.

And this is willow eucalyptus, just not like a willow tree.

Okay, and then let's see.

I think the answer might be some of these berries.

So you can snip that off and have a different size.

The nice thing too about this Oasis water mix that I like is that if you do have something that doesn't do well in Oasis and really needs to be in the water you have both options right there at your fingertips, which is great.

Oh, and I forgot to put my pomegranates in.

We can go back in and do that easy enough.

Another ingredient I love to soften up the flowers once they're in, is ivy.

You can use jasmine or other kinds of vines as well.

And I just like to wrap this kind of around the different flowers.

Okay.

And pomegranates.

I really like the silhouette of how the front of this is looking with this low.

I like how that looks quite a lot.

So I think I'm gonna put these actually on the side over here with these burgundy roses.

And I just like, when I'm doing fruits, I like pairs of them.

And one that's a little bit smaller than the other.

I think that that helps.

(hums) A few little ranunculus here that could be sweet up this area.

And then some scabiosa which are fun for a little bit of movement up higher.

We need to put something low in here.

I don't like how that just is open, so I'm gonna tuck one of these down in there pretty deep.

Same with this guy here.

He's gonna, if we can get a close up of this, I had just like an exposed branch cutting here so I'm just kind of tidy that up.

Okay.

I think we are done.

Let me clear this off so you can get a good look at the finished piece and I wish you all the best as you're working on your flower arrangements and putting some beautiful things together for your clients.

So it was great to have you with us today and I hope you enjoyed this lesson.

Dec 23

Dec 23 Video: How to Reflex Roses and Tulips

Reflexing flowers like roses and tulips is one of my favorite ways to enhance their natural beauty. It’s an old-school idea making a lovely comeback. In my floral design work, I seek to emulate the natural ebb and flow of nature. I find it comforting. As flowers reach their peak of beauty in nature the outer petals of many flowers unfurl, bending back towards the stem before surrendering their petals. That fully open point, right before surrender is so beautiful.

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Video transcript:

- Hi, I just wanted to pop in and demonstrate reflexing flowers. It's one of my favorite things to do with tulips, and since we're chatting about tulips on the blog today I thought it'd be fun to do just a quick little demo with some flowers I have in the studio. It's amazing how you can take a tulip from looking like this to looking like this. This would be something that would be fantastic to drape off the edge of an arrangement, but here we have all of a sudden a focal point flower. So, in springtime sometimes it can be difficult to find that, like, nice little spring focal flower, and so here is a way that you can transform a tulip into that capacity. The important thing about reflexing flowers is that you use ones that have aged just a bit. You don't wanna reflex flower petals that are real crispy, or brand new, because often they will crack here at the base and then you really shorten the life of your flower. The important thing with reflexing also is to make sure that the petals are nice and moist, so I'm gonna use a little bit of Crowning Glory on this. And I'm going to take my thumb, right here, and you're gonna hear it. Very quietly, it pops. This takes a little bit of practice, it takes a little bit of feeling it and being able to sense it, but once you get the hang of it it's very quick, it's very easy. If you're concerned about vase life on your flowers, things like this, or you're just thinking about, ooh, I don't know if I wanna try that for something, I wouldn't recommend, I don't reflex every tulip that comes in. It's just if in arrangement there's the perfect place that it's like oh, I could really use a little bit of an extra punch, I'll pop it in up there. What I would not recommend doing is getting in flowers for the first time, reflexing every single one, you know, putting them out there, and it being the first time that you've ever experimented or practiced with it. This is something you need to get comfortable with and you need to practice just a bit. So I've sprayed it again with some Crowning Glory on the top of the petals because what I've done, if you look here the petals are only losing moisture right here on this outside part. This is pretty protected in here, so now I've just flipped them open and I wanna make sure that the moisture that was inside those petals stays there, so that's what I'm doing with the Crowning Glory, I'm sealing it inside. Let's do one more tulip and then I also thought I would show you a couple of roses, that's another one of my favorite flowers to reflex. So we'll just give it a little spritz. And final spritz. So those are all ready to go, let's take a peek at these roses. This variety is called Sandy Femma, it has a lower petal count which makes it easy to reflex. And these have been aged for about six days. It's Tuesday, they came in last Wednesday. So I'm just going around the base and very gently tugging them back. You can do this with roses that are maybe at that three, four day stage but much earlier than that and they just look very obviously reflexed, they don't look like a natural reflex. You can still do it, it's pretty, just depends what you're going for, I think they're a little bit easier at this point. What I love about reflexing flowers, this is a standard rose, so, I think these were about 90 cents a stem. But I can get a garden rose feel by reflexing the petals and exposing this beautiful center. So I've taken them from this, which is pretty, to this, which really is fantastic, look at how much bigger, how much more room and real estate that's gonna take up in arrangement. Really ups the perceived value of the flower. Just like I did with the tulips it's important to keep the insides of these petals moist as well, because they were protected previously. These have a nice, it's faint but it has a nice little scent to it. Again, just be very careful of not cracking low in the petals, that's the most common thing that can happen. It can cause browning and petal wilting, things like that. Mostly it's because it's done too early. Once you get the hang of this you'll be able to just touch your rose and know, well, is it ready or not? So see how this one doesn't look quite as natural in terms of the openness of it? So these petals right here, this is where I'm seeing the defined difference, so I'm just gonna loosen these up a little bit, I'm gonna bring this back, fluff them out just a little bit. So I still get that look, but it doesn't look like that I really peeled them back too hard or in a way that would be different than they would naturally do it as they age. And just gentle movements like this if you're working with ranunculus or some other flowers like that, just gently opening them is an important part of helping the flowers become their best, that's our job is to take the flower and to just make subtle adjustments. It's been through a lot, maybe it's been shipped or traveled across the world, needs a little bit of a pick-me-up. So there we go. I'm just reflexing them back a bit, it's more open than it was before, but it doesn't look unnatural. So there you have it, the reflexed roses and the reflexed tulips.

Dec 18

Dec 18 How to Practice Sustainable Floral Design for Destination Weddings

Jalisca Thomason

After a long and winding road, I find myself an adult—a professional studio florist, an organic micro flower farmer, and a professor of Forestry and Range Management in the Central Valley of California. You might say that I have a bias toward sustainability, and I try whenever possible to keep my impact on the earth as light as I can. However, I also have to balance my affinity for eco-conscious floral design with the ability to provide high end, high impact design for my bridal clients, whatever the conditions.

Dec 17

Dec 17 Embracing New Floral Mechanics with 46 & Spruce

Meagan Cooley

When was the last time you allowed yourself to boldly create, without the pressure to perform for a client or project? It can be hard to set aside time to stretch our creative muscles when we’re constantly running from one deadline to another. But creativity is critical if we are going to grow our skills and stay relevant in the marketplace—and stay inspired while doing so!

Dec 16

Dec 16 Video: How to Price and Order Rose Petals