Sending Smiles ~

Have you ever wondered how they grow those amazingly huge gerbera daisies that you get from our shop? Well, this week we were lucky enough to visit one of the farms that grows them for us - Ever-Bloom Farms in California. Ever-Bloom has over 14 acres of these amazing flowers - all under the protection of very sophisticated green houses.  According to Sue, the Director of Sales at Ever-Bloom, they grow over 120 varieties of gerbera and gerbera mini's in all shades from white, red, pink, orange and even one that is almost purple. Sue says that hot pink is the color in highest demand. The amazing plants are putting out flowers each and ever day, requiring they be harvested 6 days a week. Sue says the workers walk through each row picking them by hand and sorting them right out in the green house where they are added to these very cool carts by variety.  Minutes after being harvested, they are cut and placed into a special water solution to allow them to continuing drink

Do you know that Stock is the name of an amazing flower? If you have read my blogs in the past, you may have seen it mentioned a time or two.  We use it all the time in our daily designs as well as our event and wedding work. Today we had the pleasure of being shown around Ocean View Farms in Lompac, Ca.  by Dan Vordale, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Dan was kind of enough to take time out of his day to show us around the farms!  I wanted to share some photos of the stock fields. Because I'm on vacation (I'm told I should do something other than talk or write about flowers) I'll be sure to  write a  more complete blog of what Kevin and I saw and learned at this amazing California Flower Farm but for now, I'll show you the Stock Farms!! What an amazing sight to see, rows and rows of this fragrant flower blowing in the breeze! Dan told us that although white is the best seller, all shades of purple are next in demand.  Dan explains to Kevin how the s