Category Archives: Flowers

How Long with they Last?

At Knight’s we are known for our flowers lasting for a very long time. One of the reasons is we test our flowers for vase life and only the longest lasting are the ones we carry. Of course, buying from great growers and following the stringiest care and handling procedures are a big factor too.

Each week we are going to feature one of our flowers and post pics on social media so you can see first hand the process we go through. We also are going to create a little contest and see if you can guess which flowers will last the longest.

This week we are going to test our spray roses. All our spray roses come from Rio Roses in Columbia, which is the 2nd largest producers of roses in the world (behind Ecuador). Rio spray roses are known for their open cut, which ensures a larger and fuller bloom and richer color. Each stem has at least four blooms, sometimes several more. These stunning characteristics you will rarely find with other growers spray roses. This makes Rio spray roses the creme de la creme of spray roses.

Once we receive our spray roses we make sure they are properly hydrated and put in a special formulation of rose food to insure the longest life. Generally, all our spray roses will last at least 7 days. Our spray roses are so popular we’ve even created a special arrangement called the ‘Rosy Day Bouquet’.

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Now you can join in the fun! Tell us how long you think our spray roses will last. The first person come close to guessing the closest vase life of the roses will win a free ‘Rosy Day’ Bouquet. Just copy and paste your answer in the comment section  of this post in facebook for a chance to win. Share it with your friends!

How long will they last?

‘Babe’-orange _____ days

‘Snow Flake’-white ____ days

‘Blue Moon’-lavender ____ days

‘Lovely Lydia’-hot pink ____ days

‘Yellow Babe’-yellow ____ days

‘Porcelina’-creme ____ days

‘Pink Majolika’-pink ____days

‘Sweet Sensation’-dark pink ____days

‘Chablis’-peachy ____ days

‘Ilse’-coral ____ days

 

The #1 Reason Flowers Die

There is no magic flower food or product that will keep flowers living longer if you have dirty water. Good clean water and clean buckets will do more to extend the life of your flowers than any flower food.

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For years in my shop I always thought we did a great job cleaning our buckets. It took just one mistake of an employee that ended up with a whole box of hydrangeas that wilted the next day. Luckily, we didn’t use them on a big wedding or funeral. That would have been a very costly mistake. Since this incident we follow very strict guidelines that make sure we have clean buckets and clean water for our flowers. Follow these simple rules and you’ll see dramatic improvement in the quality and vase life of your flowers.

  • Make an investment in new cooler buckets. This was one of the best investments we made in our shop. We dumped ALL our old buckets. We invested in a complete new line of buckets that had just come out from Syndicate Sales. 
  • Use professional cleaning solution. Floralife, Chrysal and Syndicate Sales all have great professional bucket cleaners for florists. 1 gallon, which will cost less than $30 will last for months.
  • Clean buckets every time you use them. Invest in some good scrub brushes of various types and handle sizes and make it a point to never put flowers in a bucket until it has been cleaned.
Question: How do you clean your buckets? Any tips that your shop uses to keep buckets clean? Leave a comment by clicking here.

Walking on Sunshine

If there were ever a flower that evokes the bright sunny outdoors it sunflowers. It’s one of the few posies that never go out of style. Sunflowers come in lots of different sizes. The mini sunflowers which are the size of baseball to huge sunflowers that are as big as a soccer ball. There are even little chrysanthemums called viking poms the size of a button that look just like a sunflower that are great in corsages and boutonnieres.

Some sunflowers have green centers and other have black centers. The petals can be bright yellow to a darker mustard yellow. Really cool are the two toned petals that are yellow on the edges and a rusty redish brown closer to the center. Also, sunflowers can be dyed with the most popular color being red.

Sunflower Varieties

Sunflowers are available year-around and at Knight’s we have them just about 50 out of 52 weeks a year. When someone wants an arrangement to cheer someone up and bring a little sunshine in a room you just can’t go wrong with these beauties.

When summer and fall comes around bridal couples just can’t get enough of radiant yellow sunflowers in their bouquets, reception flowers and for decoration. Doing an outdoor wedding, or barn wedding. oh my gosh, these settings scream sunflowers, with jute ribbon and a touch of greens you’ve got a classy country wedding. An added bonus is that sunflowers will stay fresh without wilting in the hot sunny outdoors!

We sell sunflowers from around $2 to $3 per stem and even better deals if you buy in bulk. Check us out.

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Check out our Flower Wedding package

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An Amazing Flower to Take Your Breath Away

One of the first flowers I fell in love with when I really realized I wanted to be a florist was the alstroemeria. I”ll never forget that day. I was working for a florist in New York in the late 1970’s and it was just around the time Holland flowers started having an impact in the United States.

charmeliaalstroe

Every week I would call my dad and we would just talk about what was going on in our lives. I would tell him all the cool things I was doing in New York and he’d be telling about what was happening back home. Maybe we’d talk about a ballgame we saw on t.v. or a current event. I remember one time I was telling him about the unbelievable flowers we got in from Holland. One was the alstroemeria. He had never heard of it. Of course, in the flower business today everyone has heard of it, since it is one of our most widely used flower. Back then in the late 1970’s it just started coming into the U.S. I told my dad how long it lasted and the fact that it had multiple breaks with lots of flowers on the stem. One of my favorite flower back then. Beautiful and unusual. I’m still in love with it.

 

Since my first introduction to alstroemeria this flowers had become super popular  with lots of colors, longer life and very affordable. Recently, my wholesaler gave me a sample of a new variety of alstroemeria to try called ‘Charmelia‘. It took everyone here at Knight’s breath away. Here are some of fantastic characteristics of this amazing flower:

  • Bloom count: unlike all other alstroemeria that have 4-6 blooms per stem, Charmelia has 20 or more blooms per stem!
  • Vase life: while many alstroemeria have a vase life of over two weeks, Charmelia lasts over 3 weeks.
  • Color: a gorgeous blush pink that keeps its color for weeks without fading
  • Bloom structure: trails up the break like freesia and unlike other alstroemeria all the blooms stay on the stem and don’t fall off after they die
  • Weddings: perfect for wedding bouquets and  blush pink and green color of the blooms will compliment many color palates

 

 

5 Gifts That Will Drive Your Sweetie Pie Nuts at Valentine’s

 When it comes to flowers for Valentine’s guys can become clueless as to what to get. More often than not they go for the safe bet…Red Roses.
nervousman
Just the other day I had a young customer come in to buy his girlfriend flowers for Valentine’s Day. He wanted to really impress her. I showed him a few arrangements and he kept saying “No that’s not impressive enough”. He REALLY wanted to blow her away. So I let it all hang out and sold him a big bouquet of our amazing  Groovy Lovin’ Roses in which each petal is tye dyed along with another dozen red roses added to the arrangement.Now that’s a statement! His bill came to over $200! Wow!

Wanna be a hit Valentine’s and have you bumpkin’ swooning all over you? Here’s 5 can’t miss gifts from Knight’s Flowers:

  • Groovy Lovin’ Roses- The most talked about roses we carry and we only get them at Valentine’s. Each petal is dyed in a rainbow of colors to create the most psychedelic look you’ll ever see in flowers. When your honey bun sees these beauties he’ll be speechless.

Groovy Lovin' Roses

  • Pretty In Pink-Our number one selling Valentine arrangement. Girls just loooove pink. Yep, I know what your thinking…red means love, but pink also means love. This is the most fenimine of colors that coveys caring and nuturing. Induded in this arrangent are one of the gals favoite flowers-pink Stargazer Lilies. With a few red roses added, this stunning arrangement will have your loved one bowled over with joy.v13Pretty in Pink1
  • Valentine’s Jewels Bouquet-Each year we feature a new rose that not red for that descriminating customer that wants something different. This year we are featuring the lavender rose variety called ‘Purple Haze’, with it’s light lavender petals that have hot pink edges on the petals.Valentines-Jewels
  • Chocolates-Sure, we’re a flower shop. We petal flowers. Chocolates? We’ve come across the most mouthwatering  handmade truffles from our chocolatier Sweet Shop USA we’ve ever tasted. Much, much better than that stuff you get at the drug stores. Perfect by themselves or added to a flower arrangement.GOCHOC
  • Red Roses-The most fail safe flowers a guy can give a girl. Are there any gals that don’t like red roses? We carry not just any red rose. We carry the greatest red rose in the world. No, I’m not kidding. We are one of the few florists in the country that carry the beauty called ‘Corazon’ , which is spanish for heart. This rose opens fully into a gigantic garden rose look and best of all it lasts and lasts. For over 10 days! Dozen Red Roses

So there you have it. An insider’s guide for men that gets your the biggest, wettest kiss and bear hug of all time.

Oh, one more thing. If you gals are reading this pass this along to you other half. You know what I mean? Don’t go away disapointed this Valentine’s. Make sure your pootsy wootsy gets his flowers from Knights.

5 Pitfalls to Buying Your Wedding Flowers Online

Many couples has they plan out their wedding stumble across ads on the internet for beautiful wedding flowers that can be shipped to you at prices much lower than your local florist. These ads are temping with beautiful photos of exotic flowers with unbelievable prices. Unfortunately, there are some dangerous pitfalls that brides to be need to be aware of.

Bridal Party

1.Pictures Can be Deceiving

Have you ever bought something online that looks huge and gorgeous, but when you get the flowers they are small and dinky? I’m sure we all have at some point. One of the advantages at Knight’s is we carry a huge selection of flowers throughout the week. We carry over 30 different variety of flowers in an array of colors at any given time. Many of the flowers that a bride will want for her wedding will be available to see, feel and smell right from our huge display cooler. This prevents any hidden surprises.

2. Wilted Flowers

Two of the most important components of keeping a flower fresh are water and cool/cold temperatures. When flowers have to travel great distances via FedEx they usually get hot (especially in the summer months) and are out of water. By the time they arrive in your home they can be wilted or very stressed. While re-cutting them will revive them, hopefully, the dramatic stress they endured probably knocked several days vase life off the flowers. Buying from a florist like Knights we keep your flowers in a temperature controlled cooler built just for flowers at around 35 degrees and 80-90% humidity so the flowers will be at optimum freshness for your wedding. We also hydrated the flowers in a special solution, plus store them in water mixed with just the right flower food to keep the blooms at just the perfect openness. When you pick up or have your wedding flowers delivered they will be in water with vases we give you.

 3. Sticker Shock

Online wedding flowers look to be like a great deal until you figure in the shipping and other charges the merchant tacks on at the end of the sale. Those bargain basement hydrangeas, once you’ve add up the miscellaneous charges can cost more than you can get at your local florist, especially Knights. We see brides that check our prices out and are amazed just how reasonable we are. Of course, you have to compare apples to apples-size, variety and color. With enough lead time we can get the prices way down, even  for the DIY’er.

4. Late Delivery

You have your flowers schedule for delivery on the day before the wedding and they haven’t showed up yet. Finally, they arrive really late in the day or worse the day of the wedding. Yikes! Believe me I waited on more than one bride on a late Friday afternoon desperate for last minute flowers for a wedding to replace the flowers that didn’t show up. Talk about panic stricken. At Knights we get our flowers in several days before the wedding to make sure they look great, properly hydrate them, and if there is a problem we have plenty of time to get replacements.

 5. Storage

OK, you’ve got your wedding flowers in a few days ahead of time to cover for possible problems. Now you’ve got to store them. You planned the perfect set up. Your old fridge out in the garage. This is just about the worst place you can store your flowers. I can not tell you how many brides that have ruined their flowers flowers in these fridges. What’s wrong with old refrigerators? Plenty. First, they may have old odors from leftover food that give off dangerous gases that can kill the flowers. Second, the temperature can vary dramatically from the top part to the bottom part of the fridge. Thirdly, If the fridge is in the garage or warm room the hot moisture from outside come onto the flowers in the fridges and collects on the petals and foliage causes them to turn brown or black…and possible wilt or die. Don’t put flowers in the fridge! Better to put them in a cool draft free dark room. Even better, buy your flowers from a local florist that has state of the art coolers just for keeping flowers.

Bottom Line

Stick with your local florist. At Knight’s we’ve been doing wedding flowers for over 60 years. When accidents happen, and they will, we are on the spot ready to fix it. Not 1,000 miles away sitting in a cubicle helpless to solve your problem.

Our Mission

We help budget minded couples planning a wedding make their dreams a reality with bloomin’ gorgeous wedding flowers without the stress and confusion of what to order.

 

 

 

 

 

Hypericum-a flower with unusual medicinal properties

This flower, which has been around for several thousand years, has only been available in the United States since 2001. Commonly known as St John’s Wort’s, it’s been hailed as a miracle cure from everything from depression, sunburns,insomnia, skin disorders and even bed wetting. Although none of these cures have been scientifically proven.

In the floral industry hypericum is commonly referred to as coffee berries. They look like little berries on a stem and come in a range of warm colors like hues and tints of red, orange, yellow and green. You’ll also see these berries died in colors like blue and purple.
    hypericumvarieties

A Knights we use hypericum regularly in our flower arrangements. Hypericum add a rich color to any arrangement and are expecially pretty in fall bouquets. Hypericum are used mainly as a filler and accent flower. They are also very nice in wedding bouquets. Hypericum are the most popular berry producing cut flower ever used in the floral industry and still becoming more and more popular. Hypericumvarieties-painted Care of Hypericum

  • If you buy hypericum loose, recut the stems and put in fresh flower food added water
  • To keep your hypericum looking pretty you can pull off the berries and foliage as they begin to no longer look good
  • Vase life of hypericum should be over a week

Dazzling Dahlias

Right now is peak season for dahlias, late summer early fall. These amazing flowers come in an extraordinary range of colors and some dahlia blooms can be huge.  Our dahlias are grown for us by Skyline Flower Growers in California, one of this country’s premier dahlia growers.

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Dahlias are native to Mexico and are part of the aster family, which includes asters, gerberas, sunflowers, marigolds and black-eyed susans. In some parts of the world people eat the stems of dahlias. Can’t imagine the taste and not quite sure I want to try.

Local Connection

Dahlias are very popular in the United States and there are several dahlia societies here in Tennessee. You may even have some growing in your yard. I found an old obituary for Elbert Cooper, SR, who died in 1974 that mentioned the fact that he was an avid grower of dahlias and won many prizes for his beautiful dahlias he grew on McAdoo St. Streets throughout Tennessee are named dahlia, including one in Knoxville.

Cut Dahlia Care

Dahlias come in lots of shapes and sizes. The vase life of dahlias can range from 4 days to 10 depending on the variety. Here’s a few tips to get the most vase life out of your dahlias from Knight’s Flowers:

  • If your buying dahlias loose by the stem or bunch immediately unpack them and remove any foliage that will be underwater
  • Recut one inch of the stem with a knife or garden shears, but don’t use scissors
  • Add the flower food (at Knight’s we’ll give you bulb food, since this is better) and follow the directors on the package
  • Arrange in vase
  • Check water level every few days and add more water if needed
  • Throw away any dahlias past their prime and after 5 days the rest of the dahlias that still look pretty recut them and replenish the water
Enjoy!

How I got to become friends with one of the giants in the floral industry-part 2

For most of the history of the floral industry in the United States if you were a retail florist or wholesaler and wanted to know something about the care and handling of cut flowers you usually got it from reading articles in trade publications or a rep from Smither’s-Oasis, Floralife or Chrysal (who were usually pushing their products) They would put on a demonstration at a convention or wholesale  house or sometimes floral designers would talk a little about this during one of their design shows.
The problem was there weren’t any professional, unbiased programs out there on the care and handling of cut flowers. Most of the so-called experts were researchers at major universities who stayed in the labs and classrooms and rarely ventured out into the retail and wholesale world. When they published articles they were usually in obscure horticultural journals that most florists and wholesalers never read.
But this was all about to change.
chain_of_life_network-logo
In the late 1970’s a flower researcher at Ohio State University was getting fed up with the lack of reliable information available to the floral industry, especially at the wholesaler,retailer and consumer level. Being attached to a university also presented lots of red tape and constraints.
During his time at Ohio State he, along with others, developed the groundbreaking marketing and educational program called “Chain of Life”. It simply stated that the life of a flower or plant is only as good as the weakest link in the distribution chain, from growers to consumers
So a man by the name of  George Staby decided to leave behind the university classrooms, not to mention the nice reliable paycheck and venture out into the real world and form his own company called Perishable Research Organization (PRO). Setting up shop in the mountains of California. Volcano, CA  became kind of the Menlo Park of the flower industry. George is responsible or played a part in creating several of the care and handling products that we use in the floral industry today.
I feel the biggest impact George had on the industry was not so much his research, but his tirelessly devotion to preaching the gospel of proper care and handling of flowers and plants. All across the country and the world he gave seminars and presentations at wholesale houses, florists conventions, wire service meetings, etc.
It was at a wire service function I first met George. In the mid 1980’s at a FTD Young Owners/Managers workshop in Fort Lauderdale, FL Having devoured the manual he had written for SAF I couldn’t wait to see him in person. To put it mildly, I was blown away. I’d never seen someone so energetic and madly in love with what many would consider the most boring subject in the flower industry-post harvest care of flowers. George was like a kid in a candy shop. It was obvious he loved what he was doing and he loved talking about it.
30 years later (2012) in Davis, Ca he gave what might be his last presentation. And you know what? He was just as enthusiastic and googly eyed about flower care as he was 30 years ago in Fort Lauderdale. For a little over 2 1/2 days from 7 in the morning to 7 at night he lectured and reminisced to 24 people from all walks of the floral industry from around the world about post harvest care of plants.
What did he talk about? What new inventions had come down the pike since I first saw him 30 years ago? What had changed in these past 30 years?   Well… the basic principles of proper post harvest care of flowers is still the same now as they were back in the 1980’s.
  • Proper Sanitation
  • Proper temperature
  • Controlling Ethylene
  • Identifying the cultivar
  • Use cut flower food
I suspect that 30 years from now the same successful tactics will still be important.
George Staby
George Staby

What makes George Staby so unique in this industry and why will they may never be another like him? It’s pretty simple when you think about it. While there have and will continue to be great researchers in the field of floriculture that will come up with groundbreaking products and ideals to make our flowers last longer, there still has to be someone who can educate and get the industry to use these tools. Someone who is not tied to any one company or institution and has the time to tirelessly educate the industry and consumer about post harvest care of flowers. Not too many horticulture professors would leave behind their nice, stable job at a university to go out on their own and do this. George Staby took a huge career risk and it paid off for him and most importantly, for the floral industry. For this, I and the floral industry owe George Staby more than we could ever pay back.

How I got to become friends with one of the giants of the flower industry

Last week I attended the PRO Institute in Davis, CA on the care and handling of cut flowers and plants, presented by Dr George Staby, one of the foremost authorities in the history of post harvest care of cut flowers and plants along Dr Michael Reid, who is also a world renowned flower care expert.

About a month or two ago George called me up and said he was  retirirng and giving what could possible be his last major presentation and invited me to come. I said I’d think about it. He said you HAVE to come. Quickly regaining my thoughts and realizing how much I owed George for the path I took in the floral industry I booked a plane ticket and signed up.

I’m not sure where or what I might be doing today if it wasn’t for George Staby. After getting out of college in the late seventies with a major in music I ended up working in one of my dad’s three flower shops. I hated it. Flowers just wasn’t for me. Since I was very culturally inclined I took off to live in the cultural capital of the world- New York City.

Quickly needing a job I ended working in a flower shop, something I knew a little something about. After settling into the job I found flowers could be fun, especially in New York, with flowers coming in from around the world. Unlike my dad’s shop in which most of the arrangements were funeral designs I was making arrangements for broadway openings, society dinners, opera performances, photography shoots, not to mention making arrangements for famous people. It was, shall we say…cool. It was also a very expensive town to live on a flower designers salary.

Not wanting to live like a starving artist, I packed up my bags and moved back to TN, but not for long. With the taste of the big city life I decided to try another culturally craved town-San Francisco. Loved working with flowers in San Francisco and in my mind San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Then, disaster strikes!

I ended up losing all my hearing.. Some days I could hear, others I couldn’t. Ironically, the world’s leading ear doctor for my problem was in Memphis and I needed immediate ear surgery. I had a one in four chance that if the surgery wasn’t successful I would be deaf the rest of my life. Luckly, it was successful.

There was a year of recuperation and doctor visits. Not idea from going back and forth from the west coast to Memphis. So… back to living in TN.

After several months of recovering I got back into working in my dad’s flower shop in Clinton. Having seen all the wonderful flowers from around the world in New York and San Francisco I decided I wanted to try to bring some these wonderful blooms to Clinton. I started importing flowers from around the world, when importing flowers from countries other than South America, was in its infant stage. My cooler at one time had over 50 different varieties of flowers. It was paradise. Except they didn’t last very long, sometimes they didn’t even make it through shipment. Customers loved the flowers, but complained about vase life. This wasn’t working.

My next thought was to carry only flowers that lasted a week.  This was in the mid 1980’s when flowers that lasted 5 days was considered great. I had a huge challenge ahead of me. Where do I begin? About this time the Society of American Florists (SAF) came out with a groundbreaking manual called the Flower & Plant Care Manual-A Contemporary Approach by Dr George Staby.

This manual and its author literally changed my life.

Next, how George Staby’s passion for flower care changed my life and the floral industry for years to come and why they’ll probably never be another one like him.