Bare Mtn Farm

Quotable Sunday 06/30/2013

Summer is Here!

Yes, summer is finally here.  The calendar says we are in the summer season. The weather says it is summer with days in the mid- 90s, rather hot for Oregon. But the truly interesting thing is, our customers are telling us non-verbally that it is summer by the flowers that they are choosing. 

We love watching how people interact with our flowers through the months and even years we have been selling at our farmers' market. Even though we can have many varieties of flowers throughout our season, there still is a seasonality to what folks will choose.  Sure in the spring many flowers are in the soft colors of spring with a fair amount of purples. (One year, at one market, about 80% of flowers were purple shades, we declared it "National Purple Day") Anyway, choice is more on the pretty spring pastels.  Since Mother's Day we have been offering and selling out our sweet peas. We have been told over and over, that they remind folks of spring days in the garden with a favorite grandmother, aunt or mom.

Today, we had a limited number of sweet pea bunches which all sold but we noticed that the demand for them has changed. Those folks who really love them, wanted them one last week.  But most everyone else was interested in our bouquets.

We offer flowers by the stem so folks can make their own or just buy a few stems for vase by their bed; we offer bouquets that I make on the fly and custom bouquets requested by the customers. Here are some of the flowers I had to work with in making our bouquets.

                                                                               Dianthus

                                                                           Feverfew

                                                                           Brodiaea

                                                             Snapdragons and Sunflowers

 

Dahlias

                                                       Four different colors of Asiatic Lilies

Lots of colors and lots of different combinations. I usually make two different bouquets, a cool color and a warm or hot color bouquet.  The cool bouquet consists of the pinks, blues and soft color dahlias and lilies.
The hot bouquets are the super bright colors of reds, oranges, yellows and deep purples. 

Working fast and furiously I made bouquets while the folks picked and chose, and what bouquet did they choose on a 90 degree day.  The hot bouquet!!!  I could barely keep them stocked.  Over and over a incredible bright, bold and in your face hot bouquet was sold.  All the cool ones sold also eventually when there were no more flowers to make hot bouquets.  They wanted hot bouquets which happens every year. We keep track of flower trends throughout a season and every year it happens.  They seem to know it is summer and the flowers they love are the  bright and summery blooms. They will go along on this trend until one Saturday this fall,  the colors will change again. 

 Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson