Flowers Unlimited Site Blog

Before building this flowers-blog, we offered readers trends and tidbits, which now will be published here.As we expand our blogging skills, it is our intention to be global in scope within our passion for flowers. If you have any news or sites we should know about, please be kind enough to send mail.

Going green is all about attitude and just a smidge about color.

Going green is all about attitude and just a smidge about color.

The global flower industry is an ecosystem of interdependance .

The global flower industry expands, reduces, compromises according to what is happening elsewhere. A shift across the world can impact a country's employment levels, even its traditions.

Flowers, Vancouver.An incomparable floral service for Vancouver or worldwide

Exotic, unusual and delightful flowers. Discriminating floral gifts. Flower selection is second to none. Creative floral design. Excellence guaranteed.

Flowers Enhance Our Lives Offering Insight to our Own Beauty

Flowers enhance our lives with a glimpse into the ethereal , and to ourselves .

Flower-Power Comes with Knowledge

Male flower-power comes from knowing a thing or two.

Rose considerations may merit a certain number or colour. Choose carefully

Rose considerations take into account the number in a bouquet, the colours, the meanings. And you thought it was the easiest ,most traditional way to send sentiments?

Flower questions about care and handling of cut flowers are answered here.

Have flower questions? This FAQ page allows you to ask questions about flowers, their season, origins, care and handling or whateer crosses your mind.

Flower auction buying gets better flower selection and quality

Flower auction largest in North America is best source of top-grade local flowers

In the Heart of a Flower, Everything

Pure poetry is this Vancouver educator's interaction with flowers and the senuousness of the experience. Was pleased to find this site.

"The Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh (1995), calls our interconnectedness with all things “interbeing” (tiep hien). He writes:

"When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It “inter-is” with everything else in the universe. (p. 11)"

SBI News:The Latest Tools for Website Building and Marketing

An SBI news feed keeps the latest web-building and marketing in plain sight. For all the SBI enthusiasts who know the possibility of this site-building platform, this is a bonus.

Singapore Orchids on Coins

Singapore's Vanda Mimi Palmer and Dendrobium Singa Mas orchids will grace the face of a new $5 coin in June 2007.

These exotic flowers are serious business in Singapore as the island supplies 15% of the world’s market for cut orchids “valued at $19.7 million in 2005.” The white orchids on tables at Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding banquet were donated by the Singapore government. With ever-mounting competition from India, Thailand, and China, Singapore’s orchid growers circled the wagons and formed a business cluster in May 2003. Their goals were to spot threats to their market position, improve sales, investigate expansion overseas, and develop new “products.” The PR team seems to have been doing a crack job: in 2011 Singapore will host the World Orchid Conference for a second time.

Mums and Roses at 2008 Olympics

Chinese botanists gathered in Beijing in November to select the flowers that will be used to decorate parts of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

"Experts will select 100 types of flowers from more than 300, which will be able to cope with Beijing's climate," said an official from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry.

Chrysanthemums and China roses are already confirmed on the list thanks to their status as "flowers of the city", titles bestowed on them by Beijing residents in 1986. Also on the list include peony and calla.

The China Daily reports that “Supporters of the flower argue that it received high praise in ancient Chinese literature and if you gave someone a single Chrysanthemum, it meant you viewed the person as honest." There are six types of chrysanthemum, viewed as a healthful drink in China and Taiwan, good for everyone, especially those who are a bit on the timid side.

APEC is Flower-Strewn Event

When world leaders gathered in Vietnam over the weekend, November 17-19th, workers had already installed thousands of plastic flowers in roadside displays. Apparently the Hanoi Public Works Department spent some US $400,000 to brighten the streets for the event.

New Orchid Found in New Guinea

With over 3,000 orchid species in New Guinea--the most species of any country--finding a new one still causes quite a stir.

The World Wildlife Federation(WWF)found the orchid and seven other new species from some 300 collected during three expeditions.Some 20 more are still awaiting verification as new varieties.

"The island of New Guinea is an incredible gold mine of orchids," Wayne Harris, a WWF researcher and botanist with Australia's Queensland Herbarium said.

Thailand Flower Expo Celebrates King

A 92-day horicultural exposition, the longest-running of its kind,celebrates the 60th anniversary of His Majesty the King’s Accession to the Throne and his 80th birthday. Royal Flora Ratchaphruek is one of the grand celebrations being hosted by the Royal Thai Government for the world’s longest reigning monarch.

One of the world’s finest tropical flower, fruit and plant expositions befitting the name, RFR 2006 will be hosted in the city of Chiang Mai from November 1, 2006 to January 31, 2007.

While the majority of events are for horitculturists, florists would be most interested in the 50,000 orchid plants--over 10,000 species and the orchid park that is being built over several acres to replicated natural environments in which specific orchids originate.

Tidbits of flower trends, trivia and industry news

The latest flower trends and trivia to keep you up-to-date about what people are buying.

Dole Cuts Flower Numbers in South America

Fickle fortunes in the flower business can be found in stock market disruptions, or a longer and hotter summer than usual, or some cultural upset, or..any number of reasons why consumers stop buying or shift their interest to other products.

In the flower export world, Dole Foods announced in early November that its subsidiary --Dole Fresh Flowers -- would close all its flower farms in Ecuador and two in Colombia.As the biggest fresh flower grower in Latin America, one report said the decision to reduce staff by about one-third will impact some 2100 employees in those two countries.

Apparently Dole's crop reduction will allow it to grow flowers that China and India are not competent in growing as the growth in flower production in those countries is putting the squeeze on the traditional flower producers.

Columbia horticulture authorities insisted that increased US purchasing was the way out of a deteriorating industry. In a speech, the flouriculture exec said that,"While Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, and Holland grow 83% of the world’s cut flowers, said Velez, Germany, the United Kingdom, the U.S., Holland and France buy 75% of imported all cut flowers."

So, buying more flowers isn't only just good for personal health, stress reduction, and happiness endorphines in the recipients, it's good for maintaining the stability in an entire global industry.

Boutonniers Boost Floral Biz on Aussie Race Days

It's spring in Australia and florists have a captured market for their talents as the sailing derbies get underway. A special flower and colour has been designated for every event of the racing season. The savvy Australian florists have linked a flower with just about every event of the racing season. "The cornflower is de rigueur for gentlemen on Derby Day, as lily of the valley was for the Caufield Cup and the yellow rose will be tomorrow, for the Melbourne Cup."

Having a signature flower for each raceday is smart, and not just because people at the track want to look good. Gamblers are notoriously superstitious and so, given the suggestion that there’s a floral good luck charm for each big race, they’re likely to spring for a bloom and wear it.

A clever marketing move by Australian florists as boutonniers are a small part of most floral businesses.In Vancouver, the 2010 Olympics could be a possibility....

November 2006:florists

Flowers Shape International Trade

The world's largest Dutch auctions are merging to increase their efficiency in light of devlopments in the international flower market trade.

According to a report the merger should be completed by 2008.

Increased competition has surfaced from India and Dubai, and China is fast growing inside this, a new industry for it.

While India uses flowers for celebrations more than any other country,and has a large flower auction at New Delhi, until now there was no funding for coolers to support an auction-export industry so this new auction facility is being built at Mumbai (Bombay). But with the rituals now completed for this new venture, it's expected that the auctions will be operating by the end of the year.

November 2006:international

Time for Tulip Planting

If you're tucking the last of your tulips into the garden before the frost--or the long winter rains we get here--just reflect on their wonderful history dating back to the mid-1500s. While the Dutch have a virtual monopoly on the propagation and cultivation of tulips,we forget that the tulip origianated in Turkey.

The red tulip appears in Turkish designs in ceramics, in fabrics and, if you look closely, woven into their rugs. October 2006