A Flower Blog About Flowers, Plants & Gifting

Easter, Holiday Decorations, Julie's Blog

Some-bunny Loves Carrots

March 30, 2018

Tulips and Carrots for Easter Decorations

Carrots and bunnies go together like peanut butter and chocolate, which was my inspiration for these four fantastic Easter DIYs. Whether you’re attending an Easter celebration or hosting one, these creative ways to keep all of your bunnies happy this Easter season are sure to WOW!

Bloomin’ Carrot Bouquet with Orange Tulips

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers, and we are in prime tulip season! They are so easy to arrange. Just give each stem a fresh cut to the length you need for your container and remove the excess leaves. Make sure that the container is totally clean and filled with fresh, cool water before arranging your tulips.

Speaking of the vessel you use to display your tulips – what bunny wouldn’t love this carrot vase! For this carrot vase I used one bag of pre-peeled mini carrots, a rubber band, and a lowball glass.
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Floral Occasions & Holidays

Fun Facts About Easter

March 30, 2018

Chocolate Easter Bunny in a Basket with Assorted Candy

You know it involves decorating eggs, plenty of chocolate, and pastel colors galore, but how much do you really know about the origin of Easter, its many symbols, or the record-breaking candies associated with the holiday? With Easter just a few days away, we’re sharing some of our favorite facts about the Christian holiday that kicks off the spring season.

Easter Religion

Easter is a Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus.
It takes place after the 40-day period of Lent, a time when people typically fast during the day or give up something they enjoy.
The week before Easter is considered “Holy Week.” Palm Sunday takes place exactly a week before Easter, then comes Good Friday, and the week ends with Easter Sunday.
Easter is the oldest Christian holiday, and the one many Christians believe to be the most important Catholic holiday (even over Christmas!).

Easter Food

Each year, Americans spend nearly $2 billion on Easter candy.
More than 70% of that candy is chocolate.
Chocolate bunnies are the most popular chocolate candy.
While having hollow chocolate bunnies certainly saves on manufacturing costs, one of the main reasons for the hollow inside is so that people don’t hurt their jaw or crack a tooth.
People have long debated where you should start on an Easter bunny — at the ears or the feet. But it looks like the people have spoken! One study found that 76% of Americans think you should start at the ears.
In 2017, the world’s largest chocolate bunny was created in Brazil — it weighed an astonishing 9,359 pounds and stood nearly 15 feet tall.
Speaking of record-breaking Easter treats, there’s also a record for the tallest Easter egg ever created. It weighed in at 15,000 pounds and was 33 feet tall.
Easter falls just behind Halloween and the second biggest holiday for purchasing candy in America.
Before chocolate cornered the Easter food market, pretzels were eaten and exchanged as gifts.
During the week leading to Easter, it’s estimated that Americans eat around 16 million jelly beans.
Similar to how people eat turkey on Thanksgiving, it’s tradition to eat lamb on Easter Sunday.

Easter

Easter Table Decorations to Egg-cite Your Guests

March 28, 2018

One of my favorite parts of hosting a holiday gathering is the opportunity to get the creative juices flowing and putting the hours clicking through Pinterest to good use! If a sit down meal is involved then think of the tabletop surface as your palette. A good place to start in creating the theme that you will be building upon would be the invitation.

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Floral Occasions & Holidays

5 Pranks to Pull on Your Friends and Family this April Fool’s Day

March 28, 2018

The best April Fool’s Day pranks are the ones that make everyone laugh — even the prankee. With this day of mischief and trickery right around the corner, now is the time to solidify yourself as the prankster of your office, family, or friend group (or all three!).

1. The Squirting Flower

No joke is more timeless than the good old squirting flower prank. All you need to pull off this classic “got-ya” joke is an artificial flower, a coffee straw that matches the color of your flower’s center, a small squirt bottle, and a medicine dropper. Throughout the day, ask people for a hug or to read something that’s printed on your shirt. When the time is right, discretely squeeze the bottle sitting in the pocket of your shirt or taped to your chest, and enjoy a good laugh! Continue Reading…

Fun Flower Facts

A History of Tulips in Holland and the Dutch Trade

March 26, 2018

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone from anywhere in the world who takes one look at a tulip and doesn’t instantly fall in love with it. But the country of Holland may just take the cake when it comes to crowning the country that’s most in love with tulips. Let us explain…

History of Tulips in Holland

Tulips may not have originated in Holland, but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming one of Holland’s main exports and one of the things it’s most well-known for.

It was in the 16th century that tulips were imported to Holland from the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). Just a few years after arriving in Holland, tulips became the most sought-after commodity in the entire Netherlands, after Carolus Clusius wrote what’s considered the first major book about the flower. At the time, tulip bulbs were worth more than gold and were sold for 10 times what a commoner made in a year. Needless to say, the time period was appropriately named “tulip mania.”

Though they certainly don’t outweigh gold anymore, the Netherlands is still one of the largest exporters of tulips in the world. Today, roughly 60% of the country’s land is used for agriculture or horticulture, with much of that land dedicated to growing bulbs. And it’s a good thing because in 2014 the Netherlands exported more than 2 billion tulips worldwide.

Fun Flower Facts

Early Spring Flowers For Your Table and Garden

March 24, 2018

After months of the cold, dark days of winter, there’s nothing that brings a bigger smile to our face quite like the sight of blooming flowers. Whether on your walk to work or the living room, budding flowers are the universal symbol that spring has finally sprung!

In the Wild

While some wild flowers like to wait until we’re deep into the warmer months to bud, these flowers are so eager to see the sun, they open at the first sign of spring weather (and sometimes even before that!).

Daffodils: Perhaps the earliest flower to bloom, daffodils can sometimes be seen popping up through thin layers of late-season snow. Unlike their cultivated brothers and sisters, wild daffodils tend to be much smaller and more delicate than the ones you’d find in a flower shop.

Snowdrop: Named after its shape and ability to bloom as early as December (when there’s often still snow on the ground), the presence of snowdrops is a welcome sight for those who are not exactly fans of the winter months.

Fun Flower Facts

The Beauty of Bulbs

March 22, 2018

When it comes to flowering bulbs, there’s a lot more to them than meets the eye. Also known as “packaged plants,” a flower bulb is a circular mass that contains food and tissue (it looks like an onion!). In layman’s terms, it’s a self-contained flower factory, with everything a flower needs to grow held right there in the bulb.

Little Known Facts About Bulbs

Though most all bulb flowers bloom in the spring, they should be planted in the late fall before the first hard freeze.
Without a few cold months to sleep and set, certain bulbs can’t bloom (sorry to those of you in perpetually sunny Florida and California — but on the bright side, we deliver!).
Tulips, arguably the most popular bulb flower, have been around for centuries, far longer than some other spring flower favorites. Tulips were first found sprouting in the valleys and mountains of West Asia where temperatures range from sweltering hot to ice cold.
Speaking of tulips, tulip bulbs were more valuable than gold in 1600s Holland. This was during the height of tulip mania.
Though we don’t suggest trying it, some recipes still found today say you can substitute onions for tulip bulbs.
If you’re in the market for bulbs, always choose the largest, hardest ones — these are the healthiest.
Some bulbs have what appears to be two ‘heads,’ or points. These bulbs will sometimes sprout two flowers.
Several flowers that bloom from bulbs, including tulips, are known for being almost perfectly symmetrical.

Floral Occasions & Holidays

Startling Facts About Everyone’s Favorite Season – Spring!

March 20, 2018

The results are in — 33% of Americans say spring is their favorite season! And honestly, we couldn’t agree more! The weather is perfect, the trees are blooming, and tulips sprout from their bulbs just waiting to greet you — what’s not to love? In honor of spring’s arrival, we’re sharing a few facts about everyone’s (or at least 106 million people’s) favorite season — spring!

This year, the first day of spring will be on March 20.
The first day of spring is known as the vernal equinox.
In Latin, the word vernal means “spring” and equinox means “equal night.”
The Latin word for “season” is sationem, meaning “seed time.”
Attention all lovebirds! We hate to say it, but we may have some bad news for you. According to a Facebook study, early spring is when couples are the most likely to break up.
The spring equinox is one of only two times (the other being the fall equinox) when the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
If you were to stand on the equator during either the spring or fall equinox, you would see the sun pass directly over the top of your head. Continue Reading…

Birthday, Floral Occasions & Holidays

What Your Spring Birthday May Say About Your Health

March 18, 2018

Forget the moon and the stars — could the season you’re born in play a bigger role in your life and health? Though the science of birth seasons is still certainly an emerging field, some researchers believe, yes!

A 2015 study on birth month and disease risk published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that there may be some correlation between what season you’re born in and certain health risks and character traits you have. Though we suggest taking each finding below with a grain of salt (as the study was conducted using a relatively small sample size of only New York City newborns) it’s still fun to see how many of these are true for the spring babies in your life.

Spring Babies May…

Be more optimistic.

In a small study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers discovered that people born in the spring and fall may be more likely than those born in the winter or summer to grow up into more positive adults.

While we like to believe that it’s because they are born into the world right as it’s bursting with color and life, studies show that this may be because people born in the spring had higher levels of dopamine and serotonin (neurotransmitters that have been proven to reduce levels of depression and anxiety) in their brains. Continue Reading…

Easter

Your Guide to Easter Flowers

March 15, 2018

When the snow starts to melt and the tops of budding flowers can be found in the dirt, it can only mean one thing — Easter is just around the corner! And that means it’s time to say “goodbye” to the dark colors and hard edges of winter and “hello” to the beautiful soft pastels of spring.

If you’ll be hosting this year’s Easter festivities, there’s no better way to incorporate warm spring colors into your decor than with fresh flowers. That’s why we’re your one-stop-“hop” for all of your Easter flower and decoration needs.

Tulips

Of course, tulips had to be number one on our list. As the flower most associated with spring, tulips fully embody the spirit, colors, and joy of Easter Sunday. Because a tulip’s pastel colors symbolize everything from love and happiness to congratulations, you can never go wrong with a multi-colored bloom of tulips on your dinner table.