Pretty Peonies

Lately, we've been getting a lot of requests for peonies. Of course, we can see why -- they're beautiful Spring flowers. As one of our Twitter friends put it, they are "feminine and gorgeous, classic yet contemporary!" We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

There is a lot of myth and folklore surrounding the peony, too! Records that date back thousands of years give us a few different stories. One legend has it that the peony is named after Paeon, a physician to the gods, who received the flower on Mount Olympus from the mother of Apollo. And another tells the story of that same physician who was “saved” from the fate of dying as other mortals by being turned into the flower we know today as the peony.

Whether your believe one story or the other, you can believe this: these gorgeous flowers are versatile and look lovely both pre-bloom and in bloom:

Wedding Pompadours!

So, who saw Grey's Anatomy last night? It was a great episode! We're so excited for Callie and Arizona (minus Callie's horrible mother.)

But we were most excited about... of course... the flowers! Oh, they were so perfect and elegant! Our favorite part? The pompadours! Last night, we speculated on Twitter that they were made of hydrangea, but on closer inspection they are garden roses!

Unfortunately, that's the only shot that's up online right now, but hopefully they will release a full "wedding album!"

Speaking of May Flowers...

Today on Style.com, there is a poll asking readers to cast a vote for the best floral fashion moment. One big problem! We aren't in the poll! Sure, we're just a little flower shop, but we've done big things. In February, as some of you may know, we participated in NY Couture Fashion Week. We presented three gorgeous dresses made all out of flowers:

And as biased as we may be, ours were way better looking and natural than the tacky 80's floral patterns that the industry is trying to bring back. Plus, our dresses are the most couture of them all; after a day or two, they die. Could real flowers ever be the next fashion trend? We like to think so. Flowers, after all, are as ephemeral as fashion itself.

April Showers...

April showers bring May flowers. But in some places, the flowers are suffering from too much rain. With the changing of the weather, as it becomes more extreme because of (the world ending in 2012, global warming, childhood obesity, whatever), we are seeing more Spring rain than ever. In Portland, it rained 29 out of the 30 days in March -- delaying the annual tulip festival.

Just yesterday, a record tornado pulverized Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and other surrounding towns in Alabama. Rain and destruction is abundant around the areas.

And here in New York? It's rained more than we'd like to think about this month. (It's more difficult than you think to get around in the rain in a walking-city!) In fact, the sky just opened up and began to pour. Again.

So what do we have to look forward to here? Being able to run through a field of tulips isn't exactly the outcome, but we are trying to keep things bright at the flower shop.

And since May is around the corner... MAYbe the rain will cease and give us some flowers. Some sunshine would be nice, too.

Size matters

Our block - 56 between 5 and 6 is New Yorkishly funny. Here you can find the most bizzare collection of businesses. We have fancy steakhouses (2), hotel, trendy offices (of Etro, Testoni and other designers), crappy delis, dirty dry cleaners, 3 florists, chinese restaurants (2), korean, sushi (2), salons (seems like 20, for all budgets), Argentinian Consulate, subway, and others (such as wedding dresses, contractors, pr agency etc).. and of course the huge line to Abercrombie and Fitch ... that takes a third of a northern part of a block.

A couple of months ago, before Valentine's Day I had an idea to put something outside on both side of our entrance door to attract clients - like 2 pots with spruces or whatever. I did not really care much as long as it's nice and catchy...
So we put 2 red pots with spruces. 2 weeks later another florist put a big pot with collection of flowers, another week later korean restaurant put a palm tree next to their door. Today our neighboring steakhouse put 2 enormous planters with elaborate topiary.

Probably soon we all will be broke, by putting more and more money into outside objects, trying to outperform each other... hope not.... but we have a very decorative block so far....

Oh, did I mention that each consecutive business put their plant/pot/tree twice bigger than the previous one.... and of course today we went even bigger... we put 10 feet tall curly willow with tulips.... and i think.... not big enough, and now searching for something more presentable.... and of course bigger.....

Easter Hat Parade

Today was an Easter Hat Parade. People had all sorts of hats, but i did not see any which i thought was amazing or at least interesting, or had some work put into....
At most there were random eggs and rabbits attached to the edges...
But you can do so much with it..... You can do tutty -frutty hat by Christ Sake... Oh, Carmen Miranda (for a log time i thought she was a transvestite... to be honest i still do)...
but back to flowers and hats.... i'll do something for next year for sure.... hat of thorns or hat with lily of the valley (very Scandinavian forest folk tale-ish...), or just luscious burgundy peonies (well they won't look all that luscious after 20 min, but rather like an old lady pretending to be a young sex bomb, sad and withered), or red and orange gerbera like a new jersey lady ( don't know why i have such an association..)

in any case till next year....

Phalaenopsis

Phalaenopsis orchid. Everybody loves them. Everybody buys them. Everybody sells them.
From unique delicate luxury flowers they transformed to a "rolex" - it became a status symbol (the first expensive watch to show that certain income level is achieved :).
If you want to show that you have a fancy office, expensive store, luxury boutique, or just a "classy" taste you buy a white phaelonopsis or better few in a nice pot.

They are gorgeous, it's undisputable - just became a bit too common....

I've seen them small, big, with more flowers on a stem, less... but few days ago I changed a supplier and now we have GORGEOUS orchids... and i am a bit sick of them....

They are huge and strong and each stem has few branches and it's all with flowers... so one orchid plant will have probably 20-25 flowers when blooming.... it's unbelievable!!! I was delivering one today, people were turning their head, pointing fingers, asking me where i get such an orchid... it was like a mini tree....

I guess you can't really get sick of something sooo beautiful!!!!