The Independent Weekly is conducting their annual survey of best businesses in the Triangle.  One of the categories is for Florist.  Well, we think we're the best florist but they only let us vote once on that, so if you think so too please follow this link to add your voice to the survey. 
http://beedfack.com/do/survey/465

A couple of caveats:  You have to create an account and vote for at least 25 categories out of over 200 available, so it takes a few minutes and some knowledge of area businesses to get through it.  Also, if you don't finish or save it within 30 minutes it will log you out and you have to start over, which is really annoying (I know, it happened to me!)  But if you've got a bit of spare time, we'd love to have your vote!

PS - Tell your friends!

Business has been really slow this last week at the florist. Its a slow time of year, but also Chapel Hill has been in a general funk since it became obvious that UNC basketball this year is not going anywhere.

Good thing we have all these flowers around us.  Read the following study results to find out why nothing ever gets us down!

"Bouquets in the home boost women’s moods, according to a study at Harvard University.
Within hours of placing flowers in their homes, participants reported feeling less stress and anxiety, benefits that carried over into the subjects’ work spaces.
Lead study author Nancy Etcoff, PhD, believes the reason is rooted in evolution, adding, 'Flowers signal a fertile environment that makes us feel secure.'”
First for Women – 20 August 2007

February 14th is the one day that men feel compelled to act romantic.  They will express their love and affection, buy flowers and chocolates and sometimes attempt to get poetic.

Mostly such forays into a world forgotten since high school are benign and boring, producing messages like, "Happy Valentine's Day to the only girl I've ever loved" or similar Hallmarkish crooning.  This is mostly because these men know that they are on foreign ground so tread very carefully, avoiding the risk of sounding foolish or over the top.

Thankfully, there are a few foolish but daring enough to express their true thoughts.  This year was a good crop of these and I'll share a few with you:

1. "I love you, and I'm sorry, you really don't have a fat butt" (This guy has a lot to learn.)
2. "I hope you get drunk and wasted"
3. "Have a naughty, naughty day, red pants!"
4. "This is to remind you of the best decision you ever made." (How modest!)
5. "To the sexiest teacher alive." (I hope this didn't come from a pupil.)
6. "I can't wait until Saturday for a movie and some hot sex"  (Here's a man who knows what he wants - I just hope he wasn't planning for a night home alone....)  

Well Valentine’s Day has come and gone, as it always does, even though its demands on florists are so all-consuming that for a while, it’s hard to imagine life beyond the 14th of February.  Actually the 14th was a slower day than either the 12th or 13th this year as it fell on a Sunday.  We still worked the whole day, closing soon after 6pm, but it was nothing like the 16 hour days we put in during the lead up.  Of course by the end we were all pretty gaga, wandering about in a daze, dead from the neck up, hands still producing lovely arrangements, but on technique more than inspiration.  We also started to run short of certain flowers so creativity was called upon all the same.  Sunday afternoon, Emily had just put a lily in her hair to lift her mood when Margaret spied it and snatched it out as it was the last orange one in the shop and was needed to finish off a basket arrangement.  Emily replaced it with a red gerbera and cheered up anyway.  We’ve all calmed down now and the florist is blissfully quiet, our bodies returning to normality with sleep at night and square meals in the place of caffeine and pizza.  Thanks to all our faithful friends who made this Valentine’s Day a success.  We hope we brought you some love and joy. 

• Here's a few  (moderately) interesting facts on our Valentine's week so far that I thought I would share with you.
  
• 76% of our customers this week have been men vs. a normal 23%
•  Most of those male customers had a surprisingly good knowledge of flowers, wanted to choose their own flowers from the cooler and pick up the arrangement.
•  More people are picking up their flowers than having them delivered.
•  Prize for biggest romantic is a guy who bought 5 arrangements for his woman totaling $474.00. Wow!
  
•  Wholesale price of roses from the farms increase about 50% in the ten days before Valentine’s Day. We put our price of roses up by 15 - 25% as a consequence.
  
• Bear this in mind when you see offers online for cheap roses, you will know that they are already at least a couple of weeks old.
• Normal Valentine’s rush is 13/14th February. This year it started on the 12th with orders for business addresses. The 15th is also being regarded as an extension of V-Day as it’s closer to the 14th than Friday was.
• Most florists will be open on Sunday 14th, although it is likely to be a slower day than either 12th or 13th.
• It snowed again last night in Chapel Hill. What is it with this weather?!!

If you live in any of the states north of the Mason Dixon Line you'll find it amusing that North Carolina got a dose of between 4 and 10 inches of snow and a little sleet this weekend.  In Minneapolis or Buffalo that's spring weather.  In North Carolina it prompted Governor Perdue to declare a State of Emergency.  I'm not kidding!  All events were cancelled; churches closed; schools shut down well into next week; a policeman came by our florist on Friday warning us to close early ahead of the coming catastrophe.  I'm not making this up.  All the news channels were full of reporters standing by a stranded car somewhere warning viewers of the certain death which would come to anyone who dared venture out of their driveway.  I took a chance, broke the rules and drove to work on Saturday morning to survey the carnage.  The roads were almost empty except for a tractor pulling some guy on a snow board.  Defying all the odds, my Ford Focus managed just fine, by just driving slowly and braking carefully - skills that are lacking among a surprising percentage of drivers in NC as there were, in fact quite a few cars parked at crazy angles in ditches.  I put on the "Open" sign in the shop and turned it off 4 hours later with zero customers and one phone call wanting to send flowers to someone in the coffee shop next door which was, of course, closed.  Not sure when the "Emergency" will end.  They say here that the local method of dealing with snow on the roads is to wait for it to melt.

Valentine’s Day is a love/hate event for florists. It is the biggest day of the florist’s year and vital for our financial survival. (Love it!) It means  hundreds of people who all need their order delivered on the same day and, given the significance of the occasion, catastrophic consequences if a mistake is made. (Hate it!)The normally sleepy, laid back pace here turns into something like the pit of a mercantile exchange on black Friday, with everybody rushing around shouting with a phone in one hand, orders clutched in the other and roses protruding from everywhere.

Our staff has to expand dramatically as does the length of hours spent at work. Fortunately, we have some fabulous backup designers who have normal careers and take the day off to add some chaos to their lives for a day. I don’t know why they do it, but I’m so grateful to them, (Michelle, Lauren, Emily, Jene, you’re crazy but thank you!) Maybe it’s the joy of saving some poor sap who forgot his wife/girlfriend wanted roses and phones us at 5pm on Valentine’s Day praying for rescue. (We get a one or two every year). Maybe it’s the romantics who do things like order a vase of roses with the middle one of a different color to draw attention to it and then hides an engagement ring inside. (Yes, he really did it!). Maybe it’s the perverse joy of living through a hurricane, or that feeling we all get when we finally close the doors and collapse in our chairs and open a bottle of wine and share the common euphoria of coming through alive.

Like it or not, V-Day is coming. It is relentless, merciless and unforgiving. We bow to its mighty power and pray for the strength to rise to its challenge. So this year, spare a thought for your poor florist who is digging deep into her soul to summon up the stamina to design that next gorgeous vase of flowers, take pity, and order your Valentine’s flowers early!

Our New Front Counter!

For those of you who visited our old shop, you will have to agree we've tidied things up a bit.  Here's a photo of Margaret at her new work space.  I never thought the colors would work but they did and we have a lot more light and space than our old location.  To be honest, its not this tidy any more.  Floristry is a messy business and Margaret works best amidst chaos, but at the end of the day we clean it all up and get ready to make another mess tomorrow.

We've got over the move, the grand opening and now are in the throes of the Christmas season.  Everyone by now is thoroughly sick of pine and shiny baubles.  Only four more days to go and we'll have our first full day off since we started the move on 1 November.  Hooray! and a Happy Christmas to you all. 

Apologies for the protracted gap in time between my last blog and this one.  During this period we have not been idle.

From 1 November, its been all go, go, go with what has turned out to be a marathon move to our new shop location at the other end of Timberlyne Shopping Center.  The coolers alone took four days to break down, move and re-connect.  The painting and design of the new space took the rest of the month and we have to give a big shout out to two extremely talented, hard-working and visionary designers, Betsy James and Ingrid Speakman.  These amazing women are a team of professional interior designers who have made a vast difference in the look of Victoria Park Florist.  If you want advice from the best, give them a call on (919) 260-1650.

All the sanding, scraping and painting has left no time for blogging, but that's all done now and we'll try to make new postings in a more timely fashion.

WATCH OUT! There are hijackers at work in the floral industry.  They are internet companies who are ripping off consumers by posing as local florists. These pirate order gatherers  spend millions to grab prominent positions for their web advertising and lure people surfing for a good florist. Once they get the orders, they forward the order to a genuine florist in the location of the recipient to be filled and delivered. The ripoff occurs when the order gatherer pockets a hefty  "service charge" plus a big chunk of the value of the order and then hands over as little as half of the money to the florist to go into the flowers. The customer gets fleeced and the genuine florist gets the blame for a smaller than expected arrangement. Most quality florists don't accept orders from these order gatherers but the pirates have learned to go underground and create a host of fake florist names to operate under, tricking the filling florist into accepting the orders.  For more information on these crooks as well as tips on how to avoid them, see www.floristdetective.com

In  May, WRAL TV of Raleigh did an expose on this problem and it featured Victoria Park Florist as well as Ming Garden florist, so if you want to see a bit of Margaret and Dave and our shop, click on the picture link next to this and click to watch the video at the WRAL website once you get there.  Get informed, stay vigilant and don't fall prey to these pirates of the internet waves.