Thursday, March 25, 2010

March 25-Spring Living In Baltimore

I’m  so glad Spring is here. Flowers, friends, brides…what more could I ask for.

I spent the morning picking up flowers at Farmhouse Flowers. Calla lilies, stock, freesia, gerbera daisies (well…one, lone, white gerbera) lots of tulips, forsythia and the tallest snapdragons I’ve ever seen.

Dave and Snaps

The flowers I picked up today are for a wedding on Saturday at the Peabody Library as well as for Art Show opening for Lori Larusso at Jordan Faye Contemporary in Federal Hill.

Besides being excited to be around flowers again, I was especially excited to pick them up in the Transit Connect (which my friend Todd is calling the LoCoRoll).  I know there haven’t been many pictures of the Transit Connect, but there will be soon. I waiting for the big reveal until after we get it painted. I will say-it was perfect for picking up flowers today!

LoCoRoll

After a delightful lunch with my friend Todd, I headed up north to meet with a great bride and the lovely ladies at Elizabeth Bailey Weddings and Events. We picked vases, discussed table linens and of course…talked about flowers.

Finally, I headed home to get a little bit of work done in my own garden. My favorite thing in the garden right now are these purple hellebores that I planted last fall.

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I hope you all are enjoying Spring! Enjoy the flowers!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

LoCoFlo Mobile…put in your two cents!

LoCoFlo Mobile Option #1

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LoCoFlo bought a Ford Transit Connect yesterday! It’s perfect!  Plenty of cargo room, easy to drive in the city and pretty cool looking.

So now that we’ve go it, we need to give it a little LoCoFlo TLC.

We asked Young Kim to help us with the design. Young designed the LoCoFlo logo last year (which we love) so we were excited that she agreed to take on the Transit Connect.

I thought it might be fun to share our preliminary designs with you. Leave a comment and let you know what you think!

LoCoFlo Mobile #2

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LoCoFlo Mobile #3

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LoCoFlo Mobile #4

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Daphne! Sweet, Sweet Daphne!

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Wherever you live, I’m sure you have your own special indications that Spring has arrived. For me, since I’ve lived in this little house on the hill, my Spring sign has been the blooming of this beautiful Daphne.

IMG_0450 Ok, it may not look like much. It may just look like any other random shrub on the side of your house. But it’s not. It’s beautiful and it has the sweetest smelling flower blooms ever!

When I walk out my front door, early in the spring, I can smell it. And no matter what the weather, I have to go to it, and smell it, and love it. It makes me happier than I can explain. Of course there are other more noticeable signs of spring. Daffodils and crocus. I love them too. But they can’t compare to my Daphne.

What are your signs of Spring?

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Philadelphia: Flower Show Extravaganza!

It’s been almost 2 weeks since Eric and I went to THE Philadelphia International Flower Show. I had been hearing about the Philly flower show for years-ever since I became a Master Gardener five years ago. There was always a MG trek to Philadelphia in the Spring to see the Flower Show but I never went. Not sure why-but I was definitely missing out. It was crazy!

Some of the highlights for me included:

The Ikebana demonstration from two cool women from Ikebana International rocked my world. I didn’t know much about the Japanese art of flower arranging before this demonstration. It was fascinating. The basis of it is to connect people back to nature (which I LOVED). There were all sorts of rules about lines and color and scale, which fascinated me (since we follow few if any rules when arranging).  While they were arranging, the women explained perspective in such an easy to understand way (YES-they can arrange  AND speak to 200 people at the same time, unlike me).

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Flower Peddler: We’re hoping to do a wedding for a couple this Fall that are going to leave their wedding ceremony on a bicycle built for two…that they want decorated with flowers. I thought that this was great inspiration.

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Dinner Table in a Sea Container: One of the greatest displays we saw was this crazy dinner party setting INSIDE a sea container! I loved this this because it was a fabulous example of reusing something that is industrial (it felt very Baltimore)-that you would never imagine as the location of a beautiful dinner party. What was really interesting to me was that at some point we considered making a LoCoFlo workshop in my yard in a sea container…seeing it this way…it was SO SMALL! Who knows what we were thinking!

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We also got to visit one of our growers Dave Dowling of Farmhouse Flowers. He was selling bulbs and tubers from some of his most popular cut flowers. We only got to talk to him for a minute though because he had SO MANY customers! Go Dave!

There was so much MORE! I wish we could have stayed longer. I guess there’s always next year!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Garden Club Ladies Go Green and Buy Local!

IMG_0441 What a beautiful day!  I was definitely nervous at the prospect of speaking AND arranging (at the same time) for 200 garden enthusiasts. I can proudly say though-that Marina and I rocked! Don’t get me wrong-some things just didn’t come together-like ME -talking and arranging at the same time. It just didn’t work.  But, Marina stepped in seamlessly and made some fabulous spring arrangements-including the one below. This was one of my favorite arrangements EVER! While Marina arranged, I told everyone about the joys, challenges and quirks of arranging with locally grown flowers. I think they loved it!

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The District 3 Ladies were pretty fabulous themselves. Their  Annual Meeting was an opportunity for representatives from 25 Baltimore County and Harford County garden clubs to get together for lunch, awards and a keynote speaker.  This year’s theme is “Going Green. Living Lightly on the Land” In that spirit, each garden club brought one table arrangement that they were supposed to make out of recycled materials and was supposed to cost under $20.  These arrangements were awesome!

One of my favorites, which I think some of our clients will love, were the melted records as vases!

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I am definitely stealing that idea. I also saw beautiful arrangements in old ice cream containers, in an ice skate, in a broken bowl, in a vacuum tube (yes, a vacuum tube) and in all sorts of cans, jars and bottles.

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There are loads of reason why I love this “job”. Days like today are high on the list! I’m proud and grateful.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

DIY Paper and Clay Flowers

Brides inspire me. It’s true. Yesterday I received and email from a woman named Sarah. She was writing to tell me that her Aunt (a Master Gardener) and Uncle (Watermelon and bean farmer) passed along to her the article from Lancaster Farming Newspaper about LoCoFlo. Sarah’s getting married and they thought she’d like reading about us.

Sarah went on in her note to tell me about the paper and clay flowers she was making for her own wedding. Check them out below-they’re awesome!

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The top row is made of clay and the bottom row is made out of paper. Sarah said she is “stemming” them now and trying to figure out the best way to bunch them in a bouquet. Has anyone reading done this? Anyone have any tips?

Sarah was so cute in her note. She then went on to tell me that she posted our web address on offbeatbride.com  because she thought folks on there would be interested in our business. Go Sarah! You Rock!

I thought I’d pass this along because this is a great example of how fun and unexpected this “job” can be. It’s great meeting (in person and online) folks that care about farming, that are creative and generous and that want to share a little bit about their most special day with ME! Pretty cool.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

DIY Dried Flower Wreaths: MD Style

If I haven’t said it before-I LOVE MARYLAND FLOWER FARMERS!  I really love them. I love their flowers and their farms but I really love THEM too!

Last Thursday I got a phone call from Mel Heath, owner of Bridge Farm Nurseries in Cockeysville. Mel doesn’t have email and he doesn’t text. Sometimes he sends his flower lists by fax, but that is as technical as Mel gets. He invited me to come over to the farm on Monday morning for dried flower wreath making. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. All I could imagine was craft making in girl scouts.

When I got to Mel’s, he took me up to the second floor of the barn where he dries flowers. I’ve been in the barn dozens of times, but never upstairs. There were hundreds of bunches of dried flowers in dozens of the varieties. They were flowers Mel hadn’t sold in the past year including beautiful dried peonies.

So here’s what I started with: a “starter” wreath (as Mel called it) and a bouquet of dried green hydrangea and purple monarda or bee balm (which I would have SWORN was pincushion flower).

IMG_0373 I kept it pretty simple. I only added pink celosia to my wreath…and then I was finished.

IMG_0385 To be honest, I was more interested in chit chatting and watching everyone else’s projects than I was in my own wreath.

My great friend Kathy York of Scarborough Farm was there. Of course she had a crazy, unique, MARYLAND wreath; crabs, a crab hammer, a hot sauce bottle, shells, driftwood…and she was trying to figure out how to get beer bottles or bottle caps on there.

IMG_0377I also got to meet Kathy’s “Aunt Sue” who I’ve heard about for YEARS! Turns out, Aunt Sue and I have lots of friends in common-including my old friends at Epiphany Episcopal Church!

IMG_0375 Finally, Mel and his staff, Eric and Rose Marie were so much fun and so inspiring. Mel and Rose Marie were making the greatest, wreaths with local flowers that I’ve ever seen!

IMG_0376 Check it out! This was one of Rose Marie’s wreaths.

IMG_0383 I’m so glad I played hooky from my “TO DO” list to make wreaths!!