Whether you’re buying a seedling as a present for yourself or a loved one, there are plenty of reasons why you should celebrate your next big occasion with a ready-to-plant tree. Trees aren’t only great for the environment — they can also help you commemorate life’s most precious moments, from births to marriages. Read on to learn why trees make the perfect gift for every celebration.
1. Trees are the gift that keeps on giving
Our plant and tree experts handpick only the healthiest, sturdiest, most beautiful trees that you can enjoy year after year. Their beauty also changes with the seasons, so it’s like having a brand new tree with each month that passes.
2. Trees are perfect for celebrating important occasions and holidays
Whether you’re toasting to a new beginning, marking a milestone anniversary, or honoring a loved one, no gift commemorates life’s most important moments quite like a tree. If you have a baby on the way, or are celebrating a birthday or housewarming, trees are the perfect symbolic gift for long life, strength, and happiness.
Have you lost someone close to your heart? Honor their memory and spirit with the everlasting beauty of a newly planted tree. No matter what the occasion, a tree makes for a truly meaningful, memorable, and enduring tribute.
3. Everyone LOVES trees
No matter how old we get, we’re always amazed by watching a tiny seed grow into a giant tree. Plant a tree today, and it’s sure to spread smiles for many generations to come.
4. Trees are easy to care for
Each of our trees comes with detailed care instructions and is specially grown to start flourishing as soon as it’s planted. Plus, our pros will help you pick the best tree for its recipient by suggesting which species will grow best in their hardiness zone. Because long-lasting trees require very little maintenance, they make a beautiful gift the recipient can enjoy with minimal effort.
5. Trees are awesome for the environment
In addition to providing us with the oxygen we breathe, trees also provide shelter and food for birds and animals. They also absorb rainwater, which may contain pollutants that could contaminate our waterways.
It’s a blast from the past! Terrariums, which were hugely popular back in the ’70s and ’80s, are resurfacing again as one of today’s hottest indoor gardening trends. And it’s easy to see why: These self-enclosed, self-sustaining miniature ecosystems are virtually maintenance-free. To jump on the bandwagon, you can pick from plenty of beautiful ready made terrariums, or you can take the DIY route and create your own.
If you decide to take the time to make one for yourself but don’t know how to make a DIY terrarium, what materials you need to fill your terrarium depends on what kind of plants you want to grow. So, if you want to grow a small dessert terrarium, it should be filled with rocks and sand. But if you want to create a rainforest terrarium, it should be filled with soil, moss and other woodsy materials. To make your own basic terrarium with plants that require soil, all you have to do is fill it with the following layers, starting at the bottom and working to the top:
1 inch of gravel or pebbles
1/2 inch of charcoal
Thin layer of sphagnum moss
2 inches of potting soil
Once your layers are set, place your selected plants into the soil and add some decorative elements to give your terrarium some personality. Spray the plants with some water (10 sprays should be enough), and then tightly seal the terrarium lid. Place them in a source of natural light and keep track of the internal temperature with a thermometer. (Make sure it’s ideal for the type of plant you’re growing.) Then just sit back and watch your plants grow!
What kind of terrarium will you make for your home?
I’m still thinking about this whole feeling good and being happy thing. Of course, I immediately think of the power that flowers have on one’s well-being and state of mind, but there are so many little ways and things we can do each day to make a difference. Have you heard of The Happiness Project? It’s a book by best selling writer, Gretchen Rubin, that is an account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. She also has a website and a blog where she shares insights to help you create your own happiness project. I highly recommend checking it out. At the very least, take one minute to watch this utterly charming, sweet, and heart-warming video that Gretchen made based on one of the Four Splendid Truths that she identified – “The days are long, but the years are short.” To view the view click here.
One of my goals this year is to work on my own personal happiness project. From time to time, I will share with you some of the things that I have found or learned that might be of interest to you too. It might just be a quote or a beautiful image. Please feel free to pass these along and share your thoughts with me. As Chris McCandless (on whose journey the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer was based) wrote at the end of his Alaskan journal in big block letters: “HAPPINESS ISN’T REAL UNLESS IT IS SHARED.”
There’s only one word to describe the 184th Philadelphia Flower Show: “Brilliant!” This year, the world’s biggest indoor flower show tipped its hat to our favorite neighbor across the pond: Great Britain. From the royal crown jewels to the quaint country cottages, the Pennsylvania Horticultural society gives visitors a flower-studded tour through centuries of British history and culture.
And with new features like the Make & Take Room, where you can get crafty with flowers and create your own fascinator, we knew this year’s show simply couldn’t be missed. For those of you who couldn’t make it there, don’t worry. It runs through March 10 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, so grab your mates and catch it before it’s over.
Here’s our behind-the-scenes look at the show’s biggest displays. Get ready for the British invasion!
Big Ben and the Entrance to the Philadelphia Flower Show
Here at Petal Talk, we live and breathe flowers in their every form. Whether we’re discovering new ways to decorate with fresh blossoms, creating our own DIY flowers or spotting our favorite blooms in works of art, flowers are what make us smile. So you can imagine the excitement we felt when we came across the newly released book Flowerby filmmaker and photographer Andrew Zuckerman. His mesmerizing high-definition images capture flowers in all their glory, creating a vibrant bouquet of photographs that will take your breath away. We were so fascinated by Zuckerman’s flower photography that we just had to reach out to him personally and learn more about his inspiration. Here, Zuckerman himself gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how he brought his latest project to full bloom.
Throughout your career, you’ve photographed a variety of subjects: legendary artists, politicians, business and religious leaders, as well as birds and other wild animals. Why did you choose flowers as your most recent subject?
My interest in flowers was twofold, really. For one thing, since I began exploring the natural world with Creature, I found myself wanting to create a kind of collection of two-dimensional taxonomy, which I equate most immediately with turn of the century naturalist drawings. Flower was the next step in this process. In addition, I like to work with self-imposed constraints and I tend to be inspired by subjects that have been exhausted. Since flowers are one of the oldest subjects in art (their appearance dates back to ancient Egypt), they presented a unique challenge. I was really interested in divorcing the flowers from all their symbolic and metaphorical associations, as well as their ecological contexts, in order to reveal their essential qualities.
In your book Flower,you show intimate close-ups of 150 flower species. How many flower species did you shoot in total while working on the book? How did you select the final 150 images?
I shot around 250 species in total, all of which are included on the project’s microsite, FlowerTheBook.com. I like to be pretty comprehensive once I start investigating a subject, and I work across a few platforms to create more points of entry into the work. So the projects will include films, a website, taxonomical index, and of course the book, which I consider as an object, so how all the images work together and flow from page to page is important. I usually start with my favorite images and go from there, making sure every image makes sense as part of the larger whole.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Zuckerman
The bright colors of your flowers set against a sharp white background give your photos a surreal effect, putting an intense focus on the flowers themselves and nothing else. Why do you shoot your photos this way?
I find this reductive approach suits both my taxonomical impulses and my desire to reveal the essence of a subject.
Many of the exotic flower species you shot for your book aren’t the kinds of flowers you see every day. How did you collect them for your photo shoots?
We were very fortunate to have the support of amazing institutions like the New York Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian Institute, and Fairchild Tropical Garden. But I wanted the project to be a broad survey of the botanical world, so you’ll find a lot of New York City deli flowers mixed in with the incredibly rare orchids and tropicals.
Working at 1-800-Flowers, we know how delicate flowers are and how carefully they need to be handled. What would you say was the most difficult thing about working with such a perishable item?
I was actually surprised by how resilient they were! We work with very hot lights at the studio (and on location), and I expected the process to be much more delicate than it was. But we also handled them with care. We had coolers and water on hand, and we benefitted from working closely with the horticulturalists at many of the institutions.
What was your favorite flower to shoot for this project?
Image courtesy of Andrew Zuckerman
Even though it’s not the most visually striking, I found the Darwin’s Star orchid, named for its role in the formulation of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the most fascinating. The bloom has an 11-inch spur, which Darwin posited meant there had to be an insect that existed with an appendage long enough to pollinate it. At the time, none had been discovered and Darwin’s hypothesis was ridiculed. But 40 years later, entomologists discovered a moth with a furled tongue that was four times longer than its body.
What was the most important thing you learned about flowers during this project?
While compiling the taxonomical index for the project, we learned that botanical classifications are in a state of flux since advances in technology have revolutionized the science of classification. So a lot of plants that were grouped according to visual cues are now being re-identified in terms of their biology. I don’t know that it’s the most important thing I learned about flowers, but it was definitely one of the most interesting. I just think about the custodians of the vast botanical world (endless, really; new species are discovered all the time) collecting and reclassifying all the data. That really blew my mind.
Your work is known for being accessible to its audience through multiple points of entry, such as photographs, films, and interactive apps. How did you interlace photography and videography to get up close and personal with flowers?
The reason I do films, as well as make photographs, books and websites is because I believe no one medium is best suited to conveying a concept. In the case of Flower, I knew that I wanted to capture the peak, heroic moment in the photographs, but I also wanted to explore the life cycles and rhythms of the flowers, which is so inherent to our emotional response to them. The films allowed me to do that.
In this film, you show the life and death of flowers, along with music that is synchronized with their life cycle. Stunning! How did you go about making this film, and what was the artistic goal you wanted to achieve with it?
The goal, which is always one of the goals, was to render the subject in the most precise way possible. So instead of using video footage, the films were created from thousands of high-definition stills, which were taken every minute or so on a time delay setting. I was very lucky to collaborate with Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5, who composed the scores, and I love that the music seems like such a natural extension of the visual aims.
What advice would you give to budding flower photographers?
It’s not flower photographer-specific, but I would pass on the advice Chuck Close gave me when I was interviewing him for the Wisdom project: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” I think this is one of the most important things for anyone pursuing a creative life to bear in mind.
