Bohemian Bridal Arch

Peace, love and hippie wedding bliss. It’s Wedding Wednesday and this week we’re bringing you a groovy bridal arch from a tie-dye themed wedding of two flower children.

We went on site at the beautiful Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia, PA to adorn this arch in colorful blooms including sunflowers, blue hydrangea, orange gerbera daisies, solidego and monte casino asters. We further decked the arch with curly willow branches, Spanish and sheet mosses and finished it with whimsical butterflies throughout and stones at the base. Our bohemian couple loved it!

If you're in the Philadelphia, PA or Burlington, NJ area and would like to meet with one of Stein Your Florist Co.'s expert wedding consultants call us at 800-887-4013.

365 Days of Floral Education - Days 311 - 315

As part of our 125^th Anniversary celebration at Stein Your Florist Co. we are sharing a year of floral education, November 1, 2012 thru October 31, 2013. Each day we will post something new on our Facebook page to share our knowledge of our favorite things, flowers and plants and we'll be updating our blog every 5 days or so. No need for pencils and notebooks, just sharing some simple lessons in floristry.


Day 311 - The Sunflower is valuable from an economic, as well as from an ornamental point of view. Every part of the plant may be utilized for some economic purpose. The leaves form a cattle-food and the stems contain a fiber which may be used successfully in making paper. The seed is rich in oil, which is said to approach more nearly to olive oil than any other vegetable oil known and to be largely used as a substitute. In prewar days, Sunflower seed was sometimes grown in this country, especially on sewage farms, as an economical crop for pheasants, as well as poultry. The flowers contain a yellow dye.

 

Day 312 - It forms one of the well-known crops in Russia, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, India, Manchuria and Japan. The average acre will produce about 50 bushels of merchantable seeds, and each bushel yields approximately 1 gallon of oil, for which there is a whole series of important uses. The oil is produced mainly in Russia, but to an increasing extent also in Roumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. In 1913 some 180,000 tons of oil were produced, practically all of which was consumed locally. The oil pressed from the seeds is of a citron yellow colour and a sweet taste and is considered equal to olive oil or almond oil for table use. The resulting oil-cake when warm pressed, yields a less valuable oil which is used largely for technical purposes, such as soap-making, candle-making and in the art of wool-dressing. As a drying oil for mixing paint, it is equal to linseed oil and is unrivalled as a lubricant.

 

Day 313 – Sunflowers, when the stalks are dry, are as hard as wood and make an excellent fire. Those who undertake to grow Sunflowers should, however, bear in mind that the ash obtained from the plants after the seed has been harvested is, owing to its richness in potash, a manure of considerable value, so that it is really wasteful to use up the dry stems merely on the domestic fire; it is of more advantage to make them up in heaps on the ground, burn them there and save the ash. The ash should either be spread at once or stored under cover; if left exposed to rain, the potash will be washed away and the ash rendered of little manurial value. It can be used with advantage for the potato or other root crop in the following year, being spread a little while before the crop is planted

 

Day 314 – Sunflower seeds have diuretic and expectorant properties and have been employed with success in the treatment of bronchial, laryngeal and pulmonary affections, coughs and colds, also in whooping cough. A tincture prepared from the seed with rectified spirit of wine is useful for intermittent fevers and ague, instead of quinine. It has been employed thus in Turkey and Persia, where quinine and arsenic have failed, being free from any of the inconveniences which often arise from giving large quantities of the other drugs.

 

Day 315 – The seeds of the large-seeded varieties of sunflowers are much liked by Russians and are sold in the streets. Big bowls of Sunflower seeds are to be seen in the restaurants of railway stations, for people to eat. Roasted in the same manner as coffee, they make an agreeable drink, and the seeds have been used in Portugal and Russia to make a wholesome and nutritious bread.

365 Days of Floral Education - Days 241 - 245

As part of our 125^th Anniversary celebration at Stein Your Florist Co. we are sharing a year of floral education, November 1, 2012 thru October 31, 2013. Each day we will post something new on our Facebook page to share our knowledge of our favorite things, flowers and plants and we'll be updating our blog every 5 days or so. No need for pencils and notebooks, just sharing some simple lessons in floristry.

Day 241 – Lavender flower spikes are used for dried flower arrangements. The fragrant, pale purple flowers and flower buds are used in potpourris. Lavender is also used extensively as herbal filler inside sachets used to freshen linens. Dried and sealed in pouches, lavender flowers are placed among stored items of clothing to give a fresh fragrance and to deter moths. Dried lavender flowers have become recently popular for wedding confetti. Lavender is also popular in scented waters and sachets.

Day 242 - The ancient Greeks called the lavender herb nardus, after the Syrian city of Naarda (possibly the modern town of Dohuk, Iraq). It was also commonly called nard. Lavender was one of the holy herbs used in the biblical Temple to prepare the holy essence, and nard is mentioned in the Song of Solomon. During Roman times, flowers were sold for 100 denarii per pound, which was about the same as a month's wages for a farm laborer, or fifty haircuts from the local barber. Its late Latin name was lavandārius, from lavanda (things to be washed), from the verb lavāre (to wash). The Greeks discovered early on that lavender if crushed and treated correctly would release a relaxing fume when burned. In medieval times powdered lavender was used as a condiment.

Day 243 – Commercially lavender plants are grown mainly for the production of essential oil of lavender. This has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. These extracts are also used as fragrances for bath products. English lavender yields an essential oil with sweet overtones, and can be used in balms, salves, perfumes, cosmetics, and topical applications.

Day 244 - Sunflower "whole seed" (fruit) are sold as a snack food, raw or after roasting in ovens, with or without salt and/or seasonings added. Sunflowers can be processed into a peanut butter alternative, sunflower butter. In Germany, it is mixed with rye flour to make Sonnenblumenkernbrot (literally: sunflower whole seed bread), which is quite popular in German-speaking Europe. It is also sold as food for birds and can be used directly in cooking and salads. American Indians had multiple uses for sunflowers in the past, such as in bread, medical ointments, dyes and body paints.

Day 245 - Rhizomes of the German Iris (I. germanica) and Sweet Iris (I. pallida) are traded as orris root and are used in perfume and medicine, though more common in ancient times than today. Today Iris essential oil (absolute) from flowers are sometimes used in aromatherapy as sedative medicines. The dried rhizomes are also given whole to babies to help in teething. Gin brands such as Bombay Sapphire and Magellan Gin use orris root and sometimes iris flowers for flavor and color.

365 Days of Floral Education - Days 26-30

As part of our 125^thAnniversary celebration at Stein Your Florist Co. we are sharing a year of floral education, November 1, 2012 thru October 31, 2013. Each day we will post something new on our Facebook page to share our knowledge of our favorite things, flowers and plants and we'll be updating our blog every 5 days or so. No need for pencils and notebooks, just sharing some simple lessons in floristry.

Daffodils

Day 26 - Daffodils last longer in shallow water, so when you re-cut their stems and change their water (adding additional floral food) every two or three days, fill the vase only partway. You can leave the protective husks on or gently remove them. When daffodil stems are cut, they release sap that can shorten the life of other flowers. To prevent this, after cutting their stems, place them in a bucket of water for at least 12 hours on their own before mixing them with other flowers. Some modern designs use daffodils with the bulb and roots still intact on the stems. The soil is washed from the root system – and you can enjoy the full botany of the flower from roots to stem, leaves and blossoms.

Sunflowers

Day 27 – Sunflowers are a wonderful cheerful flower that can put a smile on anyone’s face and their seeds are a tasty treat, but did you know their stems also were once used for a rather practical application? Before the advent of modern materials early life jackets used dried sunflower stems for buoyancy. Sunflowers also lent themselves to the Chernobyl nuclear crisis, sopping up dangerous strontium and caesium. Beautiful and useful!








Pine needle tea

Day 28 – Tis the season for pine and we are using tons of it in our shops, but besides looking and smelling great it has some edible qualities too (though we don’t recommend eating our ornamental pine). Some species of pine have large seeds, called pine nuts, that are harvested for cooking and baking. The soft, moist, white inner bark, cambium, found clinging to the woody outer bark is edible and very high in vitamins A and C. It can be eaten raw in slices as a snack or dried and ground up into a powder for use as a thickener in stews, soups, and other foods. This was so common among the Adirondack Indians that they got their name from the Mohawk Indian word atirú:taks, meaning "tree eaters". And a tea made by steeping young, green pine needles in boiling water (known as "tallstrunt" in Sweden) is also high in vitamins A and C.

Flower varieties

Day 29 – On any given day at our flower shops you’ll see more than 100 varieties of flowers, but did you know that there are between 250,000 and 400,000 species of flowers on planet earth, making up 462 different families? Only about 85 percent of these species have been cataloged. There are 1,300 species of begonia alone and approximately 130 species of roses, not including hybrids.

Flower pollination via hummingbird

Day 30 - Fossil evidence suggests that flowering plants have only been around for about 140 million years. This could be because flowering plants are dependent on animals for their reproduction and dispersal. Despite their relative youth, flowering plants, or angiosperms, now dominate the world's plant life. Many fruits and seeds are eaten or otherwise used by people and almost all the plants we use in agriculture are flowering plants.