I was going to call this an "early spring" update until we got snow and twenty degree temps! Although we're in a chill, the sunshine is gorgeous, and the Kanzan cherry branches I cut a few weeks ago have started blooming inside. I've been bringing more in every week or so, to stagger the blooms so that these beautiful branches can go into our flower subscriptions which start back up next week!
Winter has been busy planning how to best map out the year for our small business. For 2022 I've decided to focus on floral design for events and weekly flower subscriptions. We are still offering "one-off" flower deliveries, but are limiting the days of the week they'll be available.
Outside, it is so exciting to see fall-planted ranunculus, tulips, hyacinth, narcissus, iris, and anemones poking their leaves up from the ground! The plants seem a little behind their normal bloom schedule in our garden, but most made it through the unusually cold winter and that's all I care about!
Before the snow came in December, we planted a winter trial of 60 lisianthus and 30 Colibri poppies to see what we can get away with fall-planting in our garden. The lisianthus didn't seem to mind the cold but hated the snow and rain, and all but four plants died. The poppies on the other hand were like, "Wait, what? It snowed?" They are so happy, and I can't wait to see their gigantic blooms. (And don't worry if lisianthus are your favorites - we're planting more in March!) Pictured below are what the Colibri poppies will look like (photo from Farmer Bailey's) and a few of my favorite lisianthus shots from last summer.
Inside we've been sowing hundreds of teeny tiny seeds - foxglove, Iceland poppies, snapdragon (pictured here), sweet peas, campanula, bee balm, lupines, pincushion, zinnias, and we even started some dahlia seeds again - which will be a mystery until they bloom. We also "woke up" some of our dahlia tubers, which we'll take cuttings from to multiply our stock. Are you getting in the mood for spring & summer yet? We have one more spot left in our March subscription, two left for April, and will be posting for May and June soon!
I had so much fun designing for Valentine's Day and wanted to include a few fave photos. We sourced flowers from Seattle Wholesale Grower's Market, and every stem came from the West Coast - Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia. It is incredibly rare to find such locally sourced Valentine's, and really cool to see more florists heading that direction. For all of you who gave or received a GGS Valentine, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was our biggest day yet and we had so many orders that I rented a big sprinter van for deliveries!
In other news, we've been getting a lot of interest in our event design, and created an à la carte event menu for easy ordering. We've booked several more weddings this spring and summer, and have been having so much fun creating the design boards full of fresh local floral ingredients.
I am starting to run out of space and am looking for a few things I thought would be worth asking my community for. I'm looking for a garage or workshop space I could rent out for a few days at a time before big events, and in the future potentially rent out full time. It needs to be a space out of direct sunlight that can be kept cool so that flowers stay hydrated, and with access to a sink/water. Preferably it would be on the first floor so that I don't have to lug heavy buckets of flowers up stairs, and carefully packed arrangements down stairs. I love to work into the night when I design, so it would need to be safe, and somewhere I wouldn't disturb others. It's hard to find a space like this in Seattle, so if you have any leads I would super appreciate your ideas.
I'm also looking for a freelancer to assist me with designing for and setting up a few events this year. While this might sound like a fun flower-filled job (it really is!) it also entails a lot of hard work and sometimes heavy lifting, so I'm looking to hire someone who has a positive attitude and is a hard worker, even if their background isn't in floristry.
The last big update is that I'm starting a podcast, Flower Friends, to document my journey in the flower world! I have lined up some amazing growers, florists, landscapers and more to talk to about all things flowers. I'll be recording in March and will send out more info when we launch the first season!
Thank you for being part of this flower-loving community, and I hope we can stay in touch. Email me anytime at sarah@growgirlseattle.com to say hello.