What's Happening at Victoria Park Florist?
VICTORIAPARKFLORISTONLINE.COM
Flower Campers
What a great week we just had! Nine talented, motivated and creative girls just spent six hours a day from Monday to Friday learning a thousand new things about flowers and how to use them in creative ways. Along the way they met friends, new and old, dressed up in outlandish costumes and helped to write and direct themselves in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Yes, Macbeth, and the final scene was performed around a steaming witch’s cauldron of spells and mystery performed to parents seated at tables carefully set for tea by the campers and adorned with all manner of floral creations they made during the week. It was declared the best week of camp ever by many and if joy can be judged by the mess made in creating it, I would have to agree.The florist is eerily quiet this week, not only because summer is our slowest time of the year, but especially in contrast with all the joyful noise of last week echoes of which can still be heard gently fading.
Love is Blind
Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. -Diane ArbusMargaret’s parrot, Oliver, displays a good example that life and love are complex and we don’t always see the world as it really is. When you love someone your greatest goal in life is to look into their soul, and learn what makes them happy while also trying to convey to them that same understanding of you. This is made all the more complex when you throw in the fog that creeps into the mind of anyone smitten by love.
Here at Victoria Park Florist we can’t promise to make it all clear and success is never guaranteed (even though the flowers are).However, we have definitely found that flowers communicate at a level beyond our own ability and understanding. Lots of customers agonize over what to say in the message they send with their flowers but if they ask me, I always suggest they keep it simple and let the flowers speak in their own special way.
Red, White, and Blue
For Independence Day, I found a red, white, and blue photo to post.
This one shows Margaret preparing some wedding flowers two weeks ago for a couple getting married at The Angus Barn in Raleigh. The Angus Barn Pavilion is a great venue for a big party and we decorated a big huppa/arbor outside overlooking the lake to frame the ceremony. Great setting, for sure, but any outdoor venue offers potential problems. This day the heat soared to almost 100 and it sure felt like it while draping the huppa with all that tulle, while the sun baked the bricks under our feet. Relief came with its own perils as the rain arrived just before the wedding was to commence, and turned into a torrential thunderstorm. The right solution was found: postpone the ceremony and start the reception! Open up the champagne in the pavilion and start the party. There were a couple of false starts when it looked like the rain would cease, the chairs returned to the patio and then the heavens opened again precipitating another retreat to the Pavillion. Finally, the knot was tied, the heat-stricken cake was cut just in time before it collapsed into a melted mess – (still delicious) and the reception began in earnest. Happy to say that the flowers held up as did everyone’s spirits and it turned out to be a great day.
So, here’s to the old Red, White and Blue! Have a happy 4th of July and God Bless America!
Disaster Averted
No, That's not Santa Claus coming to the florist early. It's our maintenance man, Steve, fixing a leaky return valve in the overhead water piping that could have flooded us out last week. We were working late on Friday for a Saturday wedding and Lauren walked into the toilet (Margaret calls it "the "loo") and encountered a waterfall. It seems a heavy brass return valve up there decided to call it quits and, without any provocation, cracked and started spewing water everywhere. My lack of plumbing skill is only exceeded by my lack of enthusiasm for plumbing, but I managed to find a knob to turn which stopped water coming into the shop, thus controlling the leak. It also meant we had no water in the shop at all so we had to finish setting up the wedding by hauling in water from an outside connection. Fortunately, Steve arrived early on Saturday and regularized everything, and left us imagining how bad it would have been if hadn't been working late and the water left to spew into the ceiling all night. Thank you!
A Country Wedding
Last weekend we did a wedding with a difference. Instead of ordering arrangements to arrive pre-made, our bride ordered the flowers instead, then asked all her friends to send along interesting bottles to put them in. Margaret and Lauren arrived with a vanload of flowers and no clear idea what to expect. They found over 100 bottles, jars, and other quaint containers waiting. With only 3 hours to set up for the reception, they gasped and then set to work. Several talented friends of the wedding couple pitched in and helped and the task was completed in good time and with lots of fun!
The result was a beautiful, warm, family feel out on the lawn of the Aqueduct Conference Center south of Chapel Hill.“ Maggie's (the bride) plan for the reception flowers was a great idea, and one that we'll use again sometime” was Margaret’s comment.
A fun day and a picture perfect country wedding. Days like this are why we love what we do!
Flowers from North Carolina Fields
It’s late spring and North Carolina is a’bloomin with flowers! Not only in yards, fields and roadsides, but the local flower farms are getting into gear, too. We love to use locally grown flowers whenever possible. It not only supports local industry, but ensures a much fresher product. All year long our lilies come from a farm right next door in Durham, and other flowers like tulips and iris from nearby. But summer brings a whole lot more local flowers to market and we use them as much as we can. The delivery in the picture just arrived from a farm in Clayton, and the colors of Delphinium, Dianthus, and Larkspur are just electric!
Most of these summer blooms are not in our online designs, so call us and ask for a summer mix and Margaret or Anna will work their magic with some of the year’s most exciting colors.
Some Motherly Information
Here's some motherly trivia in honor of Mother's Day - May 9th. If you love Mom, send her some flowers to tell her so.
The highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets.
August is the most popular month in which to have a baby and
Tuesday The most popular day of the week in which to have a baby
Oldest recorded new mother: 70 years old! On November 28, 2008, 70-year old Rajo Devi of India gave birth to her first child, a baby girl, after IVF treatments.
"I look on child-rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that is fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world, and one that demands the best that I can bring it." - Rose Kennedy
Field Trip to Victoria Park Florist
On Tuesday, we had a special day when 15 members of the local Arc of NC came to visit us to explore the world of a florist. The Arc are a state and national organization that supports, promotes and defends people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.Our little shop was crammed for a couple of hours with members and helpers all getting stuck into making their own flower arrangements and a tea and cake party to follow.
Many of the arrangements we saw come out of the day were quite beautiful, and there’s no question that there’s a lot of talent to be found in unlikely places when you give it a chance. We had a great time and everyone got caught up in a very infectious enthusiasm, which we hope will lead some to follow their new-found skills in floral design.
The Arc of NC are a great bunch of folks and you can find more about them by visiting their website at www.arcnc.org .
A Lesson from Jackie Robinson
Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, commemorating the 61st anniversary of the day that he became the first black man to break the color barrier in major league baseball. This achievement was hard-won as he endured threats, hatred and fear from fans and fellow players alike before he eventually won the trust and admiration of so many and turned his detractors into admirers. I am now going to introduce you to our own Jackie Robinson. Jackie is a Bombay cat (a breed that is similar to Burmese, and are always jet black) and he is kind enough to allow our family to share his house. I can best describe him as an exceptionally cool cat. He loves everyone, including dogs and children, the noisier the better, and will walk right up to a snarling, barking beast of a dog, rub against its legs and roll over expose his tummy as if he expected the dog to give it a rub. The results have been surprising. So far, the reaction from the dog has always been one of disarm and confusion, suddenly unsure what type of creature he has before him. Such confidence and calm assuredness changes the social equation completely and Jackie assumes control of the moment, neutralizes an adversary and sometimes makes a new friend.
No amount of anger, stress, fear, threats or violence could produce anything close to the power that flows from his quiet, confident openness. There are lessons that we can learn from both Jackie Robinsons.
A Man's Florist!
Jimmy and Angie sent us this photo of a local florist in the UK.
It's a name that's bound to appeal to one gender, but probably will not find universal approval among the other.
