Quotable Sunday 10/06/2013

Looks can be deceiving....

After a couple weeks of lots of rain, a really bad wind storm and night after night of mid thirties, here it was Friday and time to cut for market.  The morning was dark, very foggy and really cold, there just can't be many flowers down there.

Maybe this is the last weekend at our market, we will take in what is good and left and call it a season for the farmers' market.  All good things come to an end and maybe the end is here and clean up is the next phase.

With the wagon loaded up with buckets, the cutting began. But first a few photos of what is left, not much, I believe.

Zinnias still standing after 45 mph winds and horizontal rain. Definitely some leaners and some that are spent. In the distance you can see a small stand of some sunflowers we were hoping for the last market.  They were down in the dirt, mangled and messed up.

It was cold, damp and time to get cutting; at least to warm up.  After a hour or so here is the first wagon load.  I call it the Hot Pink Pizazz Load.

Oriental lilies came on fast in the past two weeks.  The fragrance was wonderful, the color was bright and bold and these would be popular.

 This is the quickie, it is time for lunch load.  This load is called Pink Pizazz Part Deux

The next load was picked in the sunlight that finally appeared after our lunch. It was warm, the dampness was gone and the flowers seemed to glow.

This is the Fall Bright Load

Back to the field we cut some more and loaded up again.This is the Pastel Load of Pretties.

Hey there were more flowers down there than we thought there would be to cut. Foggy looks can be deceiving. 

A full truck load at 6:30 a.m. on another very foggy morning on the way to the farmers'  market.

These are the last little jars of flowers I made for market restaurant. They are done for the season. Drat, no more yummy bacon and eggs for breakfast till spring.

O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief...
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst...
~Robert Frost

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

Flowers in the House


It is the last Monday in October and Jane is hosting a fith (flowers in the house) party.  Normally, I would not be participating because we would have no flowers as we are mostly a field grown flower operation.  However we have built season extension low tunnels and hoopty do high tunnels and are now able to have a few flowers earlier and later in our season.  So for late October we have dahlias, dianthus, a few more lilies, snapdragons and gladiolas still blooming.  Here are a few vases of flowers we have in our house this week.

Our goal is to provide more flowers to our designers longer in the season with Thanksgiving being our target date.  We have not ever done this without being wiped out by a heavy frost which hasn't happened yet.  But we are keeping the cold Oregon rains off our flowers which is a HUGE help so the last component will be, will the flowers keep blooming as the light levels keep going down.  We shall see.....

Join the party and see what others are doing in their homes.  Hop on over to smallbutcharming.

Quotable Sunday 09/30/2012


The Colors of Fall

After a long and very busy day at our market and a very late football game which we won,  I am just now getting to this blog. I am  sorry this is much later than usual and I am not feeling very inspiring, so I think I will let the colors of fall speak for me today. They are inspiring and truly colorful.  Happy Autumn!

 

          "The season for enjoying the fullness of life -- partaking of the harvest,
sharing the harvest with others, and reinvesting and saving portions
of the harvest for yet another season of growth." -   Denis Waitley

Flowers in the House


Another month has gone by and it is time for another flowers in the house party at Jane's house.  I so enjoy this day, because I get a trip around the world and get to peek in people's homes and see how they live, hopefully with flowers.  While we are waxing and waning with our flowers, I imagine the southern hemisphere is beginning to burst with spring time flowers.  So from our neck of the woods, we offer a few flowers that were leftover from a wedding and our farmers' market.  They might be a little ragged but still beautiful in our eyes.  

                                               A toast to the first days of Autumn

                                             A girly flower bouquet just cuz!

                      Mmmm... which flowers were left over from the wedding, I wonder.....

Join the rest of the party at Jane'sSmallButCharming house and see the world. 

Dahlias And Lilies

Right now we are cutting dahlias and lilies.  Here are our two bouquets for Jane's flowers in the house at SmallButCharming.

Check out Jane's house and see flowers from around the world.   Thanks Jane!

Quotable Sunday 07/29/2012

Planning

We are the point in the season where it is time to shift our focus to the future.  Pretty much everything is planted that is going to be planted for this season except a few more sunflowers.  So now we turn to the next season of flowers which need to be ordered and some will need to be seeded and planted this fall for next season's flowers.  Can you imagine deciding what to purchase for tulips, daffodils, callas, lilies and dahlias with an eye for what folks will be excited about, a whole year in advance.  If I could get all the beautiful choices of flower bulbs I would but I can't so I am now at the point of making a guess on what will be popular.  I need a crystal ball to see into the future of what brides will be wanting, what colors will be popular and what the popular flower will be for 2013.  This is where you can help us.

LILIES  -  Orange was really popular last year but not so much this year.  What do you think, hot or not?  Yellow lilies seem to move real well,  yes or no?

 How about fragrance?  The two above are not fragrant but the one below has a lovely fragrance.

  Is fragrance a positive or negative?

How about Mini Callas?  Last year we grew a variety of colors and they seem to sell really well.  We increase our calla order a tiny bit and they aren't as popular as last year.  We figured out how to grow them with a good stem length but are brides interested in other flowers?

Dahlias-  For years it was purple dahlias but the last couple of years it is orange and coral dahlias.

So what is the most requested dahlia besides Cafe au Lait.  We have it but need to expand the number of plants we are currently growing.  What dahlias to you like?

I am interested in everyone's opinion!  I have finally made the choices for daffodils, tulips, and ranunculus and they are on order.  Now I need to choose my lilies, dahlias and mini callas.  Please help, even if it is to say your favorite color is pink or white or your favorite flower is a sunflower or a dahlia.  My choices are endless but my resources are not, so all ideas will be helpful.  If you are a designer, please look into your crystal ball and give me a hint of what the trends are for 2013.

"Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now"
-Alan Lakein-

"I Would Love Local Garden Flowers For My Wedding"

We had another request for locally grown garden flowers for a small garden wedding this week.  Any flowers, any color (except orange) and designed for the mason jars.  We love and appreciate folks wanting to purchase local and sustainably grown flowers. We are getting many requests and think that is really great to support local flower growers!

                           So the following is a pictorial of some of the flowers we used.

                                       Snowy white feverfew and purple-pink spray dianthus

                                                              Drum-stick alliums

                                                                Mini Calla lilies

                                                         Bupleurum- a beautiful green

                                                                           Dahlias

                A table of assorted flowers from penstemons, lilies, lavender, phlox and rudbeckias.

Around and around the table I went creating garden style, country chic, summer vintage or whatever you would like to call them, locally grown and carefully made summer bouquets.  Four proconas later, I had a bunch of beautiful bouquets ready for the jars.

When they were delivered, they were exactly right, just what she wanted, amazing!!  All the words we so love to hear!

          A wish for a beautiful wedding and a long and happy marriage to the bride and groom!!!