flowers Tagged Articles - Primrose Blog

5 Tips for Creating Flower Arrangements

Sure to bring a smile to just about any face, fresh flowers remain one of nature’s most beautiful gifts. Whether someone you know needs a day-brightener or you just want to add life, color and beauty to your home, a few tips for creating fresh flower arrangements can help you enhance your own little corner of the world.

1. Choose an Appropriate Vessel

Vessel is a good word because just thinking about the typical floral shop vase can be limiting. Simple glasses, bowls, urns and jars can do a beautiful and unique job of holding your arrangement. A good tip is to choose a vessel with a smaller opening and a wider base so that the stems have room to spread out, resulting in a fuller arrangement above. For example, if using a quart mason jar, choose a small-mouth version over a wide-mouth version.

If your vessel is not transparent, loosely ball up some chicken wire in the bottom before adding water and flowers. This allows for a more loosely gathered and natural look for your arrangement.

If your arrangement will be a table centerpiece, consider making it somewhat tall so that conversation can happen around it or short so that conversation can happen above it.

2. Select Flowers that Make You Smile

Picking up a bunch of flowers from a grocery store is fine, but picking something that you personally enjoy and find beautiful will make your arrangement extra special. Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Fresh Market tend to have high quality and interesting floral options. You can select a mixed bunch or choose several smaller bunches that strike your fancy. Keep in mind the size of your vessel as you buy as well as variety of size and style of flower. A little really goes a long way, especially when you follow tip number three below.

3. Search for Additional Flowers and Greenery

Why purchase greenery when you probably have some beautiful things in your own backyard? Of course, the time of year and location will play a factor, but magnolia, evergreen and many other varieties are beautiful all year round. If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a yard with flowers and greenery, ask friends, neighbors or relatives if you can come and clip a few things from their yard for your arrangement. Most people will gladly allow you to do so. Be sure to clip a little more than you think you’ll need and to keep the stems fairly long. You can always cut them down if needed.

4. Remove All Leaves Below the Waterline

When you begin your arrangement, fill your vessel ¾ up with water and don’t allow any leaves to fall below that line. Doing so causes bacteria to form more quickly, shortening the life span of your arrangement. Feel free to put in the packet of cut flower food as well. Continue to add flowers and greenery to your arrangement, keeping in mind that you want different heights, types of flowers and multiple colors spread throughout the arrangement. If you don’t like the result, take everything out and start over again. Rather than getting frustrated, think of the process as a sort of therapy as you work with something beautiful that will be enjoyed by many.

5. Add a Signature Touch

Especially if you’re giving the flowers away, it’s nice to add a personal touch such as a lovely ribbon or handwritten card. Sometimes, you find a beautiful item that you would like to include in an arrangement such as a couple of sprigs of curly willow, some fall leaves or an ornamental butterfly. Even adding a brooch to the center of a ribbon or some sparkly sticks can show that you’ve contributed your own unique style to the arrangement.

Flowers are a gift of nature that have so much to offer, and learning to create more beautiful arrangements is within the reach of most people. The artistry of floral design is truly something to be enjoyed by its creator and shared with others.

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Alex Briggs is a contributing writer for Park Avenue Floratique. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family and hiking.

Garden Tools, Gardening, Ross

The History of Copper Tools

Origins

The first metal tools ever forged were likely made from copper. As a building material, copper was far softer than stone, but that made it far more malleable and easier to shape for different tasks. Copper was soon replaced by bronze, however, which is a far stronger material. Combined with the experimental designs created with copper, the bronze age gave rise to new forms of tools that could perform a number of different, specific roles.

Original smelters added arsenic to copper to create bronze, but the toxic fumes emitted by the arsenic during smelting affected the eyes, lungs and skin. Tin was the next point of interest; the bronze alloy created by a 90% copper – 10% tin composition was stronger and easier to cast than copper alone. When polished, bronze would also break out in a golden sheen that mimicked the look of a true golden tool. Tools and weapons created in copper soon became as much about prestige and status as practicality.

Viktor Schauberger

The most famous advocate for bronze tools was the biomimicry experimenter and naturalist, Viktor Schauberger. Born in Austria, Schauberger was a forester who rejected academic training to remain in the woods and mountains to run his own experiments. Although most of his inventions centred on different uses for water, his great exception was his copper tool project.

After years of experiments and observations, Schauberger concluded that cultivating soil with copper instruments would be more beneficial to the Earth and lead to healthier plant growth. Primarily, he believed that using metal tools, which decay and rust far quicker than copper or bronze, was incompatible with the process of plant growth. How could one justifying using a decaying tool to help make a plant grow? He also surmised that growth best occured in cool conditions – heat, he argued, was primarily used to decay or kill, rather than to invigorate. Iron tools, with a greater frictional resistance than copper and bronze, increases the temperature of the soil during use. Bronze, however, stays cool.

Finally, Schauberger concluded that iron, as a sparking metal, depleted the electrical charge of rising groundwater, leaving less for the plants. Copper and bronze are non-sparking metals, meaning that groundwater retained its electric charge as it rose. His observations may have seemed wild conjecture to some, but in the late 1940s, fourteen trials across eight crops proved his theories correct. Seven crops were cultivated with a traditional steel plough, and the other seven with a copper plough. Results were consistent across the board – crops cultivated by copper bore larger, healthier yields with fewer pests.

Copper Tools

If you wish to run your own garden experiment, Primrose has launched a range of beautiful copper tools that will surely stand the test of time. Although aesthetically pleasing, these tools are made from high-grade, work-hardened bronze that will make light work of your gardening tasks whilst helping cultivate the soil with beneficial copper trace elements.

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Ross works in the Product Loading department and gets to see all the weird and wonderful products that pass through Primrose. Ross is a life-long Southampton fan and favours jazz music, reading and a quiet place to enjoy them.

See all of Ross’s posts.

Zoe

Care Home Competition – Winner announced!

As many of you are already aware, Primrose has been running a national care home competition in which the lucky winner would receive £1000 towards their communal garden. We have received near 100 entries from across the country from Glasgow all the way to Isle of Wight! There have been some incredibly moving nominations from those who work in care homes, those who have family in care homes and people who just simply want to support their local community.

A common pattern in all the entries was people recognising the amazing benefits of spending time outdoors, echoing the belief that the outdoors can relieve stress, stimulate the senses and promote calmness. One entry also said “the garden is important for the residents not only for them to enjoy being in an outdoor space that is safe and accessible but it’s also a great social space” which highlights the ways a garden can encourage residents to speak to one another and build lasting friendships.

Despite all the wonderful entries though, there could only be one winner…and we are thrilled to announce them as Abbeywood care home in Aldershot!

We were touched to see the heartfelt nomination written by their activities co-ordinator which talked about what difference this money could mean to them and how the garden was currently being used by the residents to connect with the community and spend time reflecting.

We learnt that Abbeywood would use the money to encourage local woodland wildlife so that the residents may enjoy watching the birds and other creatures in the garden, and also invest in some raised beds which would make gardening much easier for residents who have trouble bending down. We loved the idea of making the outdoor space a place for people to relax but also a place where residents may get involved with growing vegetables and gardening if they wish to.

There were also several other nominations for the same care home from families of residents which reflects the great care work they currently do. Well done Abbeywood – it’s so great to hear positive reviews!

Thank you to everybody who took the time to enter, we have really enjoyed the entries we’ve received and can’t wait to move forward with Abbeywood and their garden transformation.

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Zoë works in the Marketing team at Primrose, and is passionate about all things social media.
After travelling across Europe and Asia, Zoë is intrigued by different cultures and learning more about the world around her. If she’s not jet setting, Zoë loves nothing more than curling up with a good book and a large glass of red wine!
She is an amateur gardener but keen to learn more and get stuck in!

See all of Zoë’s posts.

Geoff Stonebanks, Pest Advice

Geoff Stonebanks on Using Slug Repellents

When you open your garden to the public, it’s important to me to ensure that all my blooms and foliage look the best they possibly can. With planting so tightly packed to achieve the look I want, it’s very easy for slugs and snails to hide away amongst the foliage unnoticed. Now, I have to admit, I’m not one of those gardeners who is out there with a torch at night, picking the snails off and then driving them miles away to deposit them. I need to get rid of them without that hassle. We have a gorgeous little Jack Russell, Albert, so it’s equally as important to find something that is not going to harm him, as he loves to spend time in the garden as well.

A few years ago, I discovered a great product that works well for me, Advanced Slug Killer. This slug killer really is amazing. It’s an innovative blue pellet containing a naturally occurring active ingredient Ferric Phosphate. Once attracted to and consuming the bait pellet, slugs cease to feed, and crawl into a dark secluded place or under the ground to die which eliminates the problems of unsightly slime trails and slug bodies to clear away. All this combines to make Advanced Slug Killer just about the best anti-slug product I’ve found in my years of gardening. On moist soil or in humid conditions, the pellets absorb some of the moisture and begin to swell. The granules do not decay after a few swellings, also slugs much prefer the moister texture making them an attractive meal instead of my lovely flowers.

I don’t grow organically or grow vegetables, but the pellets can be used as a bait for the control of slugs on bare ground and around all edible and non-edible crops grown outdoors, in the greenhouse or under other permanent or temporary cover. More importantly, I find it remains effective after exposure to rain, watering and sunlight too. So, whether you open your garden up or not, if you have a problem with slugs and snails what not give it a go? I always check the garden daily and apply the pellets at first sign of plant damage, putting out late evening or early morning when slugs are most active.

Read more of my garden at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk

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Geoff Stonebanks lives in Bishopstone, near Seaford in East Sussex and spends all his time gardening and fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support. Using his multi award-winning garden, Driftwood, he has raised over £76,000 for various charities in 7 years, £40,000 of that for Macmillan. The garden, which first opened to the public in 2009 has featured on BBC2 Gardeners’ World, Good Morning Britain and in many national and local media publications. In his spare time, Geoff is also the National Garden Scheme’s Social Media & Publicity Chair as well as an Assistant County Organiser & Publicity Officer in East & Mid Sussex.