Flowers Blog

Often it just takes a small change in your daily life to bring forth big changes in you general mood. Flowers can be very helpful in this process.

Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan is the author of a book and website called "Apartment Therapy," where she offers twelve steps to making your home more pleasant. Putting a new batch of fresh flowers on display in your home is one of these steps.

Summer is the best season for doing this - flowers grow in the garden, and they are readily available at flower farms. Of course, doing this makes your home more beautiful and it also gives you an activity to look forward to each week.

Flowers offer a constant beauty, no matter how bad your days are. However, it is important to remember to care for them correctly, they need fresh and clean water each day, giving them a longer life. The more well-cared your flowers are, the more of a therapeutic nature they have.

[Via: examiner.com]

Manhattan's Flower District is famous for its variety of flowers, from the simplest to the most extravagant. The recession has had a fairly big impact on sales. Though the streets are packed in this area, the stores are full of flowers but not many buy them.

Paradise Plant owner Sees Kumar says, "It's a very, very hard time right now. Very tough time."

Kumar's been in business for 25 years, and at this point he has a lot of inventory and not much business. It seems that regardless of his efforts people just do not have the money to be spending it on flowers.

Absolutely Wild owner Peter Cunningham says, "We're still doing a lot of charity work, but as far as the corporate side has gone, it has completely disappeared as of last year and that has affected 50 percent of our business."

John Grafenecker, a floral designer, says about customers, "They don't want to hear about lilies and orchids and beautiful centerpieces. People are retreating, they've got to do good at their daughter's wedding but not as luxuriously as it would have been."

But flower merchants are optimistic, they are just seeing this as tough times and are hopeful that things will get better. Most are saying they will weather the economic storm regardless of some of the economic losses they have experienced.

[Via: ny1.com]

As a part of the plan to reduce costs in Worcester, a decision was made to stop moving the grass. Though most would see this as a horrible decision, it has had some positive results.

The cutting of grass has not been stopped altogether, it has just been reduced, and the result of this is that roadsides are blooming with wildflowers.

Loads of spring flowers are blooming all over the city and ecologist Phil Williams says he has seen the common spotted orchid growing on one verge.

Warwick Neale, council park officer says, "On a local scale letting the grass grow from March to June has given the opportunity for spring flowers to bloom. We have spotted ragged robin, campion, common buttercup, creeping buttercup, ox-eyed daisy, orange hawkbit, bird's foot trefoil, cow parsley and the cuckoo flower which have grown from seed left dormant in the soil."

Though some residents have complained about the long grass and possible dog mess, other residents like Mr Williams, who was involved in ecological surveys of the past, are pleased.

"In previous years, with the grass being regularly mown, there hasn't been an opportunity for them to flower." Mr Williams went on to say that some orchids can take up to 15 years to flower.

[Via: berrowsjournal.co.uk]

People flock to Edith Williamson's farm in Fauquier County during June and July to pick flowers. Some of the most fragrant flowers are found here, often drying them out to use in baking or to add beauty to their homes.

Lavender is mainly grown at this farm, and the long purple stalks of "Croxton's Wild" have already started growing.

William says, "we like Croxton better than Provence for cooking because it's sweeter."

Her daughter Deborah Williamson lives in the neighboring house and she also has a hand in the business along with her husband and son. So lavender has become business for the whole family.

Edith says laughing, "A lot of people will come and say, 'where are the fields of lavender? This is it. We didn't have a market for more. Now that Debbie has gotten our lavender into Whole Foods, we plan to expand."

Though most of the lavender farms found in the United States are in Washington, California and Texas, there are very few on the East Coast, but Virginia holds its place with the competition as it has very good growing conditions.

"The winter in Pennsylvania are too cold, and the summers in North Carolina are too hot," says Edith, "We're perfect but we can't compete without west."

Growing lavender not only brings beauty into the lives of others and their own, and it also brings this mother and daughter closer together.

[Via: fredericksburg.com]

Daisies remind of the freshness of spring and summer, their white petals can remind us only of this.

They are a favourite among perennials, Shasta daisies are at their blooming peak at this time of year. They were created in 1890 by Luther Burbank, who gave them their name after Mount Shasta, found them close to his home.

Daisies are in fact a type of chrysanthemum. The name of this flower comes from Old English, "day's eye," which refers to the way these flowers open and close with sunshine.

These are some of the easiest flowers to grow and they offer plenty of blooms. A bit of deadheading is needed to bring out their maximum during the growing season. Daisies are good for bouquets containing only this type of flower, and they have been known to make other types of flower wilt.

[Via: examiner.com]