I am writing this blog to help ANYONE having a difficult time trying to force fresh cut Peonies to open.

I love Peonies!  Who doesn’t? I have never had too much trouble with them.  I once had crummy ones a few Decembers ago, but I passed them off  as a random, off season duds.  So I thought nothing of working with them for my spring wedding this past weekend.  I have never had a problem with in season Peonies.  It seemed simple enough, Roses, Spray Roses, Ranuculas, and Peonies.  Piece of cake, right? WRONG.

These Peonies were “bullet tight,” as florists call them.  Rock solid, not going to budge, tight as could be.  So I began my normal regimen of coaxing tighter bloomed ones to open.  Place in hot water with the proper floral solution, place on sunny windowsill.  This did nothing.  So an hour or two later, I recut them shorter, placed back in fresh hot water, misted them with water, wrapped the bucket and all buds in clear plastic, and placed them back on the windowsill.  I went home shortly after doing this, expecting there to be significant progress by morning.  Well when I returned, only one had opened, and it was still only about 50%.

It was time for the dunking technique.  I took each bud and dunked it into hot water, and shook it up and down, hoping to loosen the outer petals from the force of the water.  I left them upside down for about 5 minutes.  I re-cut them, placed into more fresh hot water, recovered them, and again, placed on the windowsill.  I repeated this technique every few hours.  I also plugged in a space heater, but kept it a safe distance, for fear that I might scorch the little buds.

When this technique STILL wasn’t working the night before the wedding I got my space heater, the brightest desk lamp I had, and repeated the same dunk, mist, cover technique but created a little heating area for them, surrounded by tall buckets and plastic.  Well I was finally able to tease them open at this point.  It was a VERY late night.

A few of them still weren’t open by the morning, so I cut them super short and used them in centerpieces, rather than put them into the bouquets.  Fortunately by the time we were pulling the van into the venue driveway, almost every one of the buds finally “popped”.  But not without a TON of help.

So the next time you question whether or not you should hire a professional to create your wedding florals, consider this story.  And if you are one of the professionals who is stuck in this situation, know you are not alone!  I think we have all been in this kind of situation at one time or another.  I would love to hear similar stories if you have one to share!

~Heather

P.S. If you were one of my brides trying to contact me this week and I was slow to respond, this is why.  And I assure all of you the same care and attention will be given to your florals should any blooms not cooperate as they should   Thanks so much for bearing with me, and your patience everyone!!!

]]> http://anightinbloom.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2898 0 http://anightinbloom.com/blog/?p=2884 http://anightinbloom.com/blog/?p=2884#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:54:50 +0000 Heather http://anightinbloom.com/blog/?p=2884 No time to write much folks, we are full swing into wedding season over here!  Here is a lovely arrangement we created for a rehearsal dinner at Locust Grove today.  The party hosts opted to have us create one large focal point piece containing Lemons, fresh herbs, Ranuculas, Freesia, and Roses.  They elected to create their own custom centerpieces with the help of our by the bunch offerings with gorgeous Ranuculas and Olive Branches.  It is going to be one beautiful event by the time it all comes together!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

~Heather

Think of reusing vintage sheets of music, postcards, stamps, and stationary.  I really enjoy the look of using vintage paper and stamping table numbers over it. Place it in a frame and voila’, custom table numbers!  Much like the Librarian Chic trend http://anightinbloom.com/blog/?p=2510, this is also a look that is perfect for anyone who enjoys decoupaging.  I don’t think it would be possible to run out of ideas when you consider the decoupaging options available with either of these trends.  If you are wondering about which flowers to pair with this trend, I would suggest softer blooms such as Peonies and Ranuculas, if you are planning on using victorian inspired paper.  For those of you leaning more toward retro vintage looks (think old bumper stickers), you may want to pump up the color and lean more toward flowers such as Daisies, and Spider Mums.  I hope this helps those of you who are looking for just a little vintage in your big day!

 ~Heather

http://www.stylemepretty.com/new-york-weddings/2012/03/26/shadow-lawn-wedding-by-oh-darling-photography/#comments

Debbie and Mike were one of my favorite couples of 2011!!!  I have even more beautiful pictures of the flowers and details from this wedding that I REALLY need to get up on our website!  I’ll try my best sometime this week.

Debbie was a delightful bride to work with, and she left us the sweetest feedback!  Here is what she had to say:

“OMG! Heather is AMAZING! First of all, she is SOOO nice and fun to talk to. The flowers were something that I thought I didn’t care about – however, when I saw how beautiful they came out, I realized that they/SHE is one of the vendors that I am SO happy with! I wasn’t always sure that Heather understood what I wanted because its hard to communicate through email. But once we discussed everything, I felt like I was in good hands. Well, I didn’t know how good it was! The suggestions Heather made combined with my ideas just came out amazing. Heather is truly passionate about her job and loves what she does – and it shows! We had amazing flowers that didn’t break our budget. And I’m pretty sure I had the most beautiful bouquet ever Heather wrapped the bouquet in material from a vintage victorian dress – who goes to that much trouble to get the details perfect?”

Thanks again Debbie, the pleasure was all mine!!!  I’m still getting non-stop requests for your bouquet!

~Heather

First of all we were published again, this time on The Plunge Report with Jillian and Jamie’s absolutely LOVELY fall wedding!  Here is the link:

http://theplungeproject.com/real-wedding-jillian-jamies-elegant-homespun-wedding

Then a monumental event occurred, on my birthday of all days!  Preston Bailey (my all-time FAVORITE floral designer), actually commented on his blog about something I wrote in response to one of his questions, and posted a picture of one of my designs on his website!! I was beyond overjoyed!  For years I would read his “Design For Entertaining” book before I fell to sleep at night.  I loved that book so much,  I used to bring it to work with me while I was working at another flower shop, and drive my coworkers crazy with it.  He is the florist I most admire, for his relentlessly brave, innovative and BEAUTIFUL floral creations!  This is surely one of the very greatest honors in my life!  Here is the link if you don’t believe me:

http://blog.prestonbailey.com/2012/03/09/friendly-friday-great-ideas-for-dealing-with-tricky-guests/

We have also recently become very good friends with another artist here in our building and can’t wait to show you some of the things we have been cooking up!  You’ll have to wait until April to find out more.  And there may even be a Free Flower Friday or two coming soon, so if you haven’t “liked” A Night in Bloom on Facebook yet, now would be a good time to do so!

 Have a great weekend everyone!!!

~Heather

~Nadine

~Nadine

It hasn’t always been easy doing garden work with my little ones, however I have noticed that one of the easiest way to get Matthew to snap out of a bad mood is to put him to work; carrying heavy buckets of dirt and watering cans, and digging around rocks.  Not only does it give him some exercise and tire him out, but it is a great way of distracting him from whatever put him in a bad mood in the first place.  I recently began a winter project planting tons of Echiveria/ Hens and Chicks, and involved him in the process.

For his first activity, I buried all of the plants under tons of potting soil.  I had him bring his Firetrucks along and dig and “rescue” the Hens and Chicks.  Once he did that, I showed him how to plant them and water and mist each one with misting bottles.  Have you ever seen a four year old or toddler with a mister or water gun?  It doesn’t get much better!

In the days that followed we had his mini bulldozers in the dirt, filling flower pots and vintage teacups for me.  Messy and dirty?  For sure!  But he absolutely LOVED it!  And we had beautiful potted plants to enjoy at the studio and at home!  Of course if you are going to try this type of activity with your own children you must supervise them, this isn’t an activity where you want to leave your kiddos to their own devices.

Since the Hens and Chicks were such a hit, we have now moved on to fresh herb gardens and are having tons of success with them as well.  Stay tuned for more reports on our progress and stories on how we are slowly getting Violet (our one year old) involved too!

  Here is a photo of one of our finished creations

The first most fabulous piece of news to report is that gluttonous displays of wealth, via floral designs, have become a thing of the past.  See ya later entire carpet of rose petals! It just seems inappropriate to fill large vases with fruit slices when so many families are struggling to even put food on the table these days.  Rather than opting for gigantic topiary balls stuffed with Roses on tall glass vases (that all end up in the dumpster), Hudson Valley couples seem to be requesting understated, but very elegant floral displays.  This new trend is carried out by  incorporating reusable rental items, recycled materials, and locally and domestically grown flowers, plants and produce.  Make no mistake, the weddings will be just as beautiful (and in many cases, just as pricey) as those with the towering candleabras.  However they will incorporate much more customized focal point tables, such as place card tables and bar areas.  And even better news is that our LOCAL economy will benefit from this trend!  We are currently looking into a way to recycle wedding flowers as per many of your requests, and will keep you posted once we have finalized this type of offering.  Hopefully by the end of this month.

The second piece of fabulous news this week is that spring may be arriving early!  Although we actually had snow yesterday and the day before,  I did notice some early signs of spring earlier in the week.  On one of my walks I saw some Crocus, and the Tulips are already emerging from the ground at my house!

There is plenty more fabulous news to come, but in order to keep reporting on it, I must get back to work!  Have a great weekend everyone!!

~Heather

~Nadine