Live Flowers, LLC Named to 2011 Wedding Hot List!!!

Live Flowers, LLC is Named to the 2011 Wedding Professional Hot List

 

2 Jan, 2012 - MomentVille.com one of the worlds leading wedding websites, is pleased to announced that Live Flowers, LLC has been selected for the 2012 Wedding Professional Hot List.

The annual Wedding Professional Hot List recognizes excellence within the wedding industry, as determined by reviews from tens of thousands of brides and grooms. Live Flowers, LLC was among the best reviewed vendors in the past year.
"The Wedding Professional Hot List recognizes best of class wedding professionals." said Geoff Evason, MomentVille's CEO. "Highlighting the success of the top wedding professionals is an exciting way to spread the word and help newly engaged couples find the right professionals for their own weddings."

About Live Flowers, LLC
Outdoor wedding? Green reception? Make your wedding greener with natural unique bouquets of fresh-cut garden flowers from my local, sustainable Minnesota flower farm. Flowers may be purchased by the pail or as hand-tied bouquets and arrangements. Member, Minnesota Grown, Land Stewardship Project, and Buy Fresh Buy Local--St. Croix Valley. Located just north of Stillwater, Minnesota.

About MomentVille
MomentVille.com offers engaged couples and wedding enthusiasts a one stop place for planning and sharing a wedding. Offering free wedding websites, wedding planning tools, a gorgeous gallery of wedding pictures a searchable list of reviewed wedding vendors, and lots of helpful and inspiring wedding content, MomentVille helps newlyweds with all aspects of their wedding. For more information contact media@momentville.com

Above is the press release...just received this morning.  I am so pleased to have my business recognized in this way.

Renee Arcand
Live Flowers, LLC
www.minnesotaliveflowers.com

Seed catalogs

I am so excited to start looking at seed catalogs finally!  Ah, the photos...oh, the varieties....what wonderful colors!  There is quite a stack to dive into, including Johnny's, Pinetree Garden Seeds, Gloeckner's, Stokes, Park, R. H. Shumway, Harris, and HPS out of Randolph, Wisconsin...I hope there will be some lovely TALL new introductions this year because I want nice long stems for cutting.


My first step was to make a list of seeds I have on hand.  I keep them in ziplock bags in the freezer between plantings.  Sometimes there are 1,000 seeds in a package, and those seeds will get me through 3 or more years!  Some seeds do not keep for me, though, for instance  statice, annual phlox, and salpiglosses.


Must sign off so I can get busy!  Happy garden dreams!

What's Blooming August 31 at the Flower Farm?

 

Here are a few of the flowers blooming now:  Rudbeckias, Zinnias, blue ageratum, tansy, sunflowers, annual phlox...lots more than those pictured, like euphorbia (green and white striped leaves), amaranthus in burgundy and rusty orange/brown, lisianthus, and LOTS of celosia...

Here are bridesmaids' bouquets I arranged a few weeks ago.  Have been so busy cutting flowers for weddings, orders, and farmers' market I have not had time to write in my blog, so sorry.  One week I actually sold out of zinnias, amazing!  This rudbeckia above is a beautiful pale yellow called Prairie Sun.

Just Ranting on the Weather

Just a little RANT on the weather this month...good grief, we have only had about three days of 'normal' temperatures during April...tonight at 6 pm it is 39 degrees,  Again!  I am having to use a heater out in the uninsulated potting shed ... even during the days sometimes.  This is "Costing Me Money, Darn It!" 

 Perennial plants are up and shivering as much as us.   I'd like it to be a little Warmer for ME to start digging up and dividing them for the upcoming plant sale! 

Plant sale dates May 12-14 and May 19-21, 2011...10 am to 5 pm ...hope to have the plants ready for you!

The forsythia in the front yard is just beginning to bloom.

Transplanting Delphiniums Today

Today, I  transplanted Blue Mirror delphiniums.  They are a shorter delphinium with sprays instead of spikes, a most lovely cobalt-blue color, and perennial!  I had started seeds in a plastic cookie tray with another tray underneath it (for watering from the bottom)...I planted too many seeds in this container!  I did not think they would all germinate, for some reason.  I added extra perlite to both the germination mix and the potting soil mix.  Ideally, I should have got these transplanted a few weeks ago. 

However, today was the day I finally got to them.  I just used my finger to dig into the moist soil and pulled  out a chunk of soil with roots attached.  This year I put two seedlings in each pot.  Gracious me, there were a lot of them!  I ended up with about 25 or 30 plants replanted into the tray, and 74 pots!  This is part of the end result:

After I watered them, I put an upside down tray over the top to keep humidity in.  I'll remove that in 24 hours.  I will have these Blue Mirror delphinium plants  for sale at my plant sale in mid-May!

Seeds Ordered!

I have just finished ordering seeds...this year from FEDCO, STOKES, GLOECKNER'S, PINETREE, and HPS....there is a new basil with flowers to use in bouquets.  I am trying a cactus-flowered zinnia for the first time.
Found a few new varieties for the plant sale, including a wonderful lime green agastache called 'Golden Jubilee' I grew a few years ago.  Lastly, Cosmos Is Still My Favorite!  I will have Sensation, Dazzler (deep fushia/maroon), Double Click, and Early Wonder (supposed to flower 2 weeks early, that'd be good).   I'll grow several varieties of rudbeckia and several colors of zinnias again...blue ageratum...painted tongue...oh yes, and 10 varieties of celosia.  A yellow/green spiky celosia called Sylphide is new this year...of course it was outrageously expensive but I thought I Had to Have It....for great bouquets, you need great flowers!  

Seeds should all be here before the end of the month, and I will start the first seeds in mid-February.
More on that later.

Zinnias!

Zinnias are so well liked!  They are bright, cheerful, and available in many colors.  I grow several shades of red
Benary's Giants; State Fair mix; and other separate colors of Benary's.

Very easy to grow from seed...I start seed indoors in April but you may plant the seeds right out into the garden in late May (Zone 4 Minnesota).  Keep cutting them and they'll keep blooming for you.

This photo was at Marine Farmers' Market about 2 weeks ago.