Hello Flower Friends,
Welcome to my monthly installment of blog posts based specifically on my Monthly Flower Subscription offerings.
This series of monthly posts aims at bringing awareness and knowledge to the reasoning behind my botanical choices in the monthly subscriptions and will be a good resource if you receive my subscriptions to your door and are curious about the flowers that are now in your home or if you are interested in having a peek in to the world of my Monthly Flower Subscriptions.
April 2023
Spring is here and with this fresh season comes a personal favourite flower - tulips.
This month's feature flower are the double tulips, these aren't just your ordinary tulips, these tulips have extra petals and resemble peonies when they open up.
Seasonal blooms are something I like to focus on because it means that I can get them grown locally and in this case they were grown in Chilliwack BC. Buying locally grown flowers allows me to reduce the footprint caused by cut flowers and considering Earth Day is on April 22, the day after these specialty tulips went to their homes as part of my flower subscription offering, it is even more important to stay focused on supporting local.
I find the growing aspect of tulips fascinating - did you know that tulips are treated as an annual in the flower farming world? Flower farmers plant a bulb in the Fall and when the tulip is ready to harvest in the Spring, the entire plant is ripped out of the ground! The farmer sacrifices the life of a plant and any chance at regrowing the bulb next year so that you can enjoy a strong and long stem as well as the largest flower head that bulb can provide. Us non-flower farmer folks plant tulips because we know we can enjoy them for several years but if you want to grow them to sell in the flower world, you'll have to replant every year. That's a lot of work and time and helps to explain why flowers are priced the way they are.
To enjoy your tulips in your home, they are happiest in a cool environment naturally so try to emulate that in your home and you'll find the best success rate with cut tulips; when filling up your vase, fill it with cold water; when thinking of a place to display your tulips, avoid a warm or sunny spot - these tips just help to extend the life of your flower.
I love tulips because of their movement - tulips are a phototrophic flower which means they grow towards the light. Tulips are also one of the only flowers to continue to grow once cut! Nature is incredible!
If you don't like your tulips to stretch out, try taking a pin and poke it through the stem of the tulip, directly below the tulip's head. This should stop the tulip from growing and also force them to straighten up. Try it and let me know what happened for you!
I hope that if you received a flower subscription this month that you are enjoying the beauty that is Spring.
I hope these double tulips bring you joy.
-Nicole
