Lovely Lilacs

Lilac flowers are one of our favorite harbingers of Spring. Days spent this past week walking through our neighborhoods and driving around town, we are already seeing it beginning to blossom in backyards and it is arriving at our flower shops by the bundle. As soon as it’s processed and in water our designers descend on it like ravenous wolves, incorporating its delicate blooms into a bevy of arrangements. Lilac is fragrant, beautiful, and one of our preferred flowers of the season.

Lilac, botanical name Syringa, is the state flower of New Hampshire, said to symbolize the Granite State’s citizens’ hardy character. And hardy is a perfect way to describe to the plant; draped with a cloud of aromatic blooms, these long-lived shrubs reliably scent the Spring countryside year after year. The timing of their blooms is said to signal whether Spring will come early or late and the beginning of the Vernal planting season.

According to Greek mythology, the story of lilac originates from a beautiful nymph named Syringa. Her beauty captivated Pan, the God of the forests and fields, but Syringa was frightened by his affections. When Pan chased her through the forest she escaped him by turning herself into a sweet-smelling bush, the flower we now refer to has lilac.

In the language of flowers purple lilacs signify the first emotions of love, perfect for the 8^th wedding anniversary flower, while white lilacs symbolize youthful innocence. They have a vase life (life as a cut flower) of approximately 6-10 days. They consume large amounts of fresh water, so be sure to add water to your lilac arrangement at least daily and do not smash the stems (a popular misnomer for woody stemmed flowers is that smashing or pounding the stems aids water uptake; however, it simply damages the vascular system of the stem which will inhibit the absorption); rather, your flowers will enjoy a very steep angled cut along the stem or if that isn’t conducive to your arrangement, a cross-cut (like a plus sign +) on the bottom of a straight cut stem.

Besides being beautiful to look at and amazing to smell, lilacs also have a delightful edible aspect. The flavor of lilacs varies from plant to plant, but is typically distinctly lemony with pungent floral overtones. It’s great in salads and crystallized with egg whites and sugar. We discovered the tasty combo of a few lilac blooms with a lemon zest sorbet, whipped cream and some sugary sprinkles, a refreshing combo for warm Spring days.

Lilac tea can also be made from the flowers, leaves and thinner branches of Syringa vulgaris (common lilac), and common white lilac, which has a floral flavor. Claims have been made that this tea has shown some signs that it may produce a light euphoria in higher amounts (3+ cups of strongly brewed tea), but this is relatively unverified with no scientific backing. Some find the white varieties of common lilac to have a sweeter and more pleasurable flavor, but both white and purple seem to produce more palatable tea with more flowers and only a few leaves.

Besides enjoying lilac flowers in their purest form, we also enjoy including their scent and color in other aspects of our lives. Lilacs and lavenders have long been a favorite color of sophisticated ladies, exuding femininity. This shade of purple suggests refinement along with grace and elegance. Add a little lilac to your look with nail polish, makeup, sparkly jewelry or a lilac cami under a sleek gray jacket. Mix up lilac with other colors for fun combos. Lilacs with pinks are very feminine, or add some mint green for a Springy look. Keep lilacs cool with grays and blues for a sophisticated look or take a modern earthy approach with light browns. Add warmth and romance to lilac with reds or burgundies. And don’t forget that heavenly lilac scent. Perfumes, soaps, incense and candles are all perfect when our beloved blooms are no longer in season. You’ve simply got to love lilac!

For the Love of Lucky Bamboo

It is estimated that bamboo has been a symbol of good fortune in the Asian culture more than 4,000 years. Lucky bamboo is one of the plants recommended by Feng Shui masters to improve Feng Shui and create a space where you feel safe and more energized.



Feng Shui is the ancient practice of bringing the natural elements of water, fire, earth, wood and metal into balance in our surroundings. This is believed to produce greater harmony and a more positive life experience.


Because lucky bamboo is able to thrive in many areas of the home or workplace where other plants would not, it is valued as a means to enhance the positive flow of energy or "chi" in these areas.


The Chinese have given gifts of lucky bamboo for centuries with significant meanings attached to the number of stalks. Special arrangements also have special meanings.



3 stalks are given for happiness,
5 stalks are given for health,
6 stalks are given for harmony, and
8, 18, 28, or 38 stalks are given for prosperity.


Lucky Bamboo Towers are also a popular choice. Whether 2-tier, 3-tier or more, lucky bamboo towers anchor Feng Shui and light up the future.


Lucky Bamboo Trellises are used in Feng Shui to prevent bad energy flow. A trellis is also symbolic of the ladder of advancement.


Braided Lucky Bamboo Canes are made into beautiful sculptural arrangements like pillar and pear-shaped trees. Double braided canes bring good news. Triple braided canes bring new development in business and life.

If you’re looking for a great gift or something to set off a room in your home or office choose Lucky Bamboo! Right now, all our Lucky Bamboo is on special, 20% off at Stein Your Florist Co.!

A Petal for Every Wedding Season

So you’ve chosen the date, the venue and the dresses; you know what colors you like, the wedding theme, and the tone you want to set… and now for the flowers. With thousands of varieties and colors available, choosing the proper blooms can seem like a daunting task. Luckily, your local florist is an expert in this arena. At Stein Your Florist Co. we have been assisting brides in these careful decisions for 125 years and our first bit of advice is always the same, choose what you love. Sometimes this is easily accomplished, many popular blooms are available year round, while others are a bit more season specific. It is never impossible to procure out of season flowers, they may be specially grown just for you; however, seasonal flora is typically less expensive and of better quality.

Florists import flowers from around the world, acquiring much of their inventory from South America, California, Hawaii, Holland, Asia, and Africa granting a bevy of beautiful blooms in all seasons. Among the most popular are roses, many varieties of lilies, alstroemeria, bouvardia, carnations, chrysanthemums, freesia, gardenias, snapdragon, stock, gerbera daisies, liatris, iris, lisianthus, stephanotis (a wedding classic), veronica, many varieties of orchids, and tropicals, such as ginger, birds of paradise and protea. These seasonless standbys combined or standing alone create stunning bouquets, centerpieces and venue décor for your wedding day. Consider your colors and theme and have fun designing your dream wedding.

If incorporating the season’s blooms is something you’d like or if the everyday flora just isn’t your scene, then consider the time of year and spice up your wedding bouquets with the finest flowers of the fields. Winter lays claim to stunning amaryllis, asters, daffodils, Dutch, French and Parrot tulips, hyacinths, poinsettias, ranunculus and sweet pea. Much of this flora may sound Springy (especially tulips, hyacinths and daffodils) since we associate them with Easter, but as soon as Spring hits it is simply too warm for these delicate blossoms, but they create a perfect combination for March weddings on the cusp of Spring. Following the vernal equinox we are offered beautiful anemone varieties, lily of the valley, peonies, Queen Anne’s lace, and scabiosa. These flowers offer a wonderfully rich garden feel to your Spring wedding. Summer brings cockscomb, cornflower, dahlias, and zinnias. Summer blooms are often very bright and fun, they lend a carefree hippie vibe to your otherwise formal wedding. Finally, Fall flora brings us a palette of rusts, reds, oranges, and terra cottas mirroring the trees’ metamorphosis. Summer’s tuberose remains and anemones of a different variety return, with camellia and cosmos. Autumn weddings have a welcoming affect, greeting your guests with a blanket of warm colors and boasting a bountiful harvest.

Your bouquet is your star accessory and one of the first things your guests will notice as you enter your ceremony, it will be in most of your photos and even get its own close up shot. Take time to consider your bouquet and work with your florist to create the perfect combination of blooms. No matter what you chose, the stunning beauty of flowers is always in season.

The Hunger Games Wedding

"The Hunger Games" has taken the world by storm! The series of books already had a massive following and after last week’s movie release "The Hunger Games" seems to be all anyone is talking about.  While the series doesn’t exactly scream romance, that isn’t stop some mega-fans from wanting to incorporate its dark themes into one of the happiest day of their lives, their wedding day.  

Inspired by Katniss’ proficiency with the bow, our designers have replaced the traditional bridal bouquet with floral adornment on the archer’s tools. Flower clusters, featuring calla lilies, hydrangea, and sweeteart roses, embellish the bow and a pair of arrows are accented by hydrangea, ribbon and assorted foliage. Her quiver is covered in plumosa and also boasts an elegant hydrangea bloom.

Please enjoy this photographic collection from our recent shoot. “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!”

Photography, concept and designs by Stein Your Florist Co. 

Model: Jessi Buyers as Katniss Everdeen

Spring is Upon Us

By Jessi Rose - Stein Your Florist Co.

One of my favorite times of the year is finally here, Spring! I love Spring, for it brings us tons of beautiful flowers and gorgeous weather to enjoy them. With a warm breeze caressing the air and the sun in the sky, we can all spend more time outside in nature, before Summer’s hot temperatures drive us back indoors to our air conditioning. It is time to start forgetting the cold days of winter, and start warming up for Spring-time fun!

My most beloved Spring-time holiday is Easter, for all of the fun flowers that come with it. Lilies, daisies, azaleas, daffodils, chrysanthemums, tulips, and hyacinths… the list goes on and on. Though many of these flowers can be found at your local florist year round, they wait until the vernal days are upon us to being to show themselves in our backyards and public gardens. Their popularity peaks for Easter celebrations and we gather them from nature, bringing them into our homes. Centerpieces grace family dinner tables for holiday feasts and we decorate our houses with our favorites of these delicate blossoms to enhance Spring-time gatherings with loved ones. 

To extend the temporary beauty of Spring blooms I recommend starting a garden. While a cut flower’s life may be all too short, live plants growing and thriving will share their beauty much longer. Though this will require a bit more work than picking up a bunch of blooms from your local flower shop, the results will be lovely. One of my absolute favorite parts of Spring is seeing my garden come to life with white azaleas, red cosmos, pink begonia, yellow daffodils, purple hyacinths, orange gerbera daisies - a rainbow of blooms. There are endless possibilities when it comes to your personal garden, because you choose what flowers are grown. You can have an endless amount of flowers all through the season, and even through Summer. Take time to plan your garden well and you will be treated to lush blooms until the first frost.

Spring is a wonderful season when it comes to the beauty of the great outdoors. We watch Winter’s dreary trees transform into luscious verdant vegetation. Through the environment’s annual metamorphosis we are able to observe nature’s beauty as plants grow and blossom into the flowers we know and love. Before the, all too brief, days of Spring are taken over by the heat of Summer use this time to enjoy the floral bounty and the warm weather. Get outside as the sun glows longer, and the flowers grow bigger, and most of all just remember... to have a happy Spring!

Save a Spider

Spiders. We get it, they’re creepy, they’re crawly, and a few are just downright dangerous, but they are also very beneficial to one of our favorite things… flowers and plants. Today (March 14^th) is Save a Spider Day, so we are celebrating the wonderful symbiotic relationship between spiders and flowers.

There are lots of insects (by the way, spiders are not insects, they are arachnids) that are harmful to flowers and plants. The offenders include beetles, stink bugs, caterpillars, some ants, weevils, and grasshoppers to name a few. Some of these reprobates suck plant’s juices, leaving holes in leafs, others transmit diseases between plants, like mosaic and bacterial wilts, while insects like grasshoppers and caterpillars chew jagged holes in leaves and tatter the edges; in extreme cases they can wipe out entire gardens (or farm crops). Rather than dowsing your plants and flowers with harsh chemicals, why not employ your friendly neighborhood spider?

Spiders help rid our gardens and homes of these unpleasant petal munchers, feeding on them and not on our plants. Spiders are predatory and will eat pretty much any insect they catch, keeping our plants safe and infestation free. They have no interest in eating your plants, their webs will not harm your plants, and they want nothing to do with you (they don’t attack what they can’t eat unless threatened and they have terrible vision, they can’t even see you unless you’re within approximately one foot of them).

Also, in our opinion, lots of spiders are really cool looking, even pretty! And few things rival the beauty of flowers like a dew covered spider web in the morning.

All this praise for spiders we would like to point out that we are not fans of spider mites. Spider mites are mites, not spiders and are bad news for your plants, especially the two-spotted spider mite. They feed on plants, draining their juices, causing major damage and may even kill your plant. They are very small and can be carried by a light breeze, spreading easily from plant to plant, potentially decimating all the plants in your home, greenhouse, or garden. If you have spider mites you should isolate the affected plant as soon as possible. We found many good spider mite control methods here, at How to Get Rid of Stuff.

Not sold on spiders? If it eases your mind, only ~200 of the ~40,000 species of spiders actually have a bite that can cause health problems to humans… so chances are that the spider you save will be of the helpful variety, keeping your flowers and plants happy and healthy and causing you no harm. To save a spider capture it under a glass, slide a piece of paper over the opening and release your new friend outside in your garden. Happy Save A Spider Day!

Go Green for Oxygen

Ivy plants for oxygen.

Succulents for oxygen.

Oxygen. It is an element with the atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O on the periodic table. In its most stable and useful form two oxygen molecules join together to form dioxygen, O₂. Uptake of dioxygen (which we all just commonly refer to as oxygen) from the air is essential to our respiration, to living! We like oxygen. We need oxygen. Let’s fill our homes and offices with awesome life giving oxygen. Let’s go green for oxygen!

Spider plants are very effective at

removing carbon monoxide from

the air.

We recently learned that the universal color for oxygen is green and, being florists totally in love with plants, we find it no coincidence that most plants are green too. We all remember learning about photosynthesis in school… plants take in carbon dioxide and water and turn it into sugars and oxygen. It’s perfect! We exhale carbon dioxide and breathe in oxygen, plants do the opposite. It’s a wonderful symbiotic relationship that we have, so it only makes sense that we surround ourselves with these wonderful creatures. Houseplants do more than just brighten up a room with color and living energy; along with being pleasing to the eye, they bring real health benefits to our bodies.

Spathiphyllums, commonly

known as peace lilies, are

great for removing carbon

monoxide.

Ficus tree, great for
removing formaldehyde.

Some houseplants, such as spider plants and spathiphyllums (peace lilies), are effective for removing carbon monoxide from indoor air. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that when inhaled may result in seizures, coma, or even death. Spathiphyllums are also the most popular house plant in the US. They give off more oxygen then any other houseplant, a winner in our book!

Other plants, like ficus and aloe vera are effective at removing formaldehyde often found in adhesives and furnishings from the air. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen… it causes cancer. Cancer sucks.

Aloe vera plant, removes
formaldehyde from the air.

Cattleya orchid for oxygen.

Not only do houseplants purify air, but complaints about headaches, stress, heart/circulation-symptoms and colds decrease when indoor plants are present, according to Dr. Leona Rogler. Not feeling so hot? Get a plant! Bring a touch of the outdoors in with beautiful verdant houseplants. They only require a small amount of care and can really liven up the home or workplace. Leafy or blooming, whichever plant you choose it will add a bright touch to any room and trade your unneeded carbon dioxide and toxins for wonderful oxygen. Take a deep breath and enjoy.

Go green for oxygen!