Tag Archives: flowers

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Spring Has Sprung, Only 2.5 Years Late

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Meets shoots and leaves

Shortly after I moved to California, I went to Home Depot one cold winter night and bought some plants for my balcony.  One was a Birds of Paradise.  It has always been one of my favorite plants, because it looks like a creature.  I also love the orange and blue color combo (“opposite colors,” for those who know about such things).  And it felt like a local plant, because I see so many of these in the area.

But for the past two and a half years, my Birds of Paradise were one color: green.  All I got were the leaves and stalks, no flowers.  I had watered them and used Miracle Gro, but otherwise am a bit of a black thumb.  After the first year, I went back to the guy at Home Depot (who, by the way, claims and is said to be extremely knowledgeable about plants) and asked, “what’s up with my no flower flowers?”  He said that Birds of Paradise can be temperamental when brought to a new home (they are creatures, after all), and that it was perfectly normal for them not to have flowered after a year.
paradise found? after the jump

Announcements, Events, People, Twitter

Make Someone Smile With Free Flowers!

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As someone who works in a hospital, I’m quite familiar with Teleflora’s annual Make Someone Smile Week. This July 19-26, thousands of Teleflora florists nationwide will deliver over 40,000 of their signature Be Happy® Bouquets to hospital patients, children in foster care, nursing home residents and many other people who do not usually receive flowers, but whose day will be brighter because of this surprise gift. It’s a really cool event.

Teleflora is hosting its first-ever Tweet-up tomorrow, Sunday, July 19th to kick-off to the week long celebration  They will be giving away 100 Be Happy® bouquets for free to LA tweeps.  You can keep the arrangement for yourself or give it as to someone who might need a pick-me-up.

For more event details and to RSVP, click on the twtvite.

The LA Make Someone Smile Tweet-up happens tomorrow, Sunday, July 19th, 2009 from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm at Teleflora Plaza, 11444 Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA  90064.

Follow @teleflora on twitter and the hashtag #smile to keep tabs on the event.

Holidays, San Gabriel Valley

A Float Gets Built

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Volunteerism
Volunteerism

After sharing my experiences decorating floats with my daughter, I figured it would only make sense to actually show her.  The entire family packed into the car for a quick trip to the float near us in the City of South Pasadena, the oldest self-built float in the parade.

Located behind the War Memorial on Fair Oaks, the group of long-time volunteers and South Pasadena High School students pitched in on their entry into the 2009 Tournament of Roses. Since the entire float is raised up through volunteer efforts, the committee has several ways for locals to donate money.  Last night was their Crunch Time Dinner, a sort of last minute shove to get bills from this year paid off and ramp up for next year’s float.  Another little way to raise money was to give us the opportunity to get our name on the float, so to speak. For $1, we signed a vial that will hold flowers that will be placed on the float.

Walking in, we came upon a group of women who were deveining luminaria.  I spoke to one who has been volunteering for 15 years and another, Wendy Snow, who has volunteered for the last 27 years and is now on the float’s committeee. My daughter, fascinated by the project, quickly jumped in to help them and you can too.  There is still a few more hours to decorate before the float gets towed to Orange Grove Blvd.  If you’re in the area and want to experience the fun or just drop by to make a donation, they’d love to have you.

Continue reading A Float Gets Built →

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It Caught My Eye: Cactus Flower Bees

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It’s that time of year again, when the neighbor’s tall cactus busts out with its gorgeous night-blooming flowers, and this morning I was drawn to the activity going on at one of the blossoms as a group of bees tried to frantically score some last-minute pollen before the bloom called “Last call!” and closed up shop for the day. I was just amazed at how the bees just wallowed around in there, gettin’ some.

UPDATE (8:10 a.m.): Well, after dozens of minutes and thousands of braincells wasted trying to get the @#$%&&*[email protected] YouScrude embed link to go from FAIL to function, there’s a still from the clip above and you can take your pick from  the YouTube link and  the Quicktime vidlink.

PS. You might recall this timelapse I compiled of one of the flower’s last year sloooowly opening across an evening.