It's that time of year again where kids are moving up a year or onto a new school and leaving their favourite teacher behind. And more popular than ever it seems is the gift of flowers.
For some it's just a few stems of gerbera, others a nice little orchid plant. And although we love the business we do feel sorry for the people comming in and ordering 4 or 5 bigger bunches, or 6 or 7, or 8 or 9, or even the very rare 15 bunches at once!
I'm not sure if these people have lots of kids or if their kids have lots of teachers but we welcome it all regardless. For next week the holidays start and Ashley Terrace will be a much quieter place because of it.
If it wasn't for the 5 million upcoming weddings we've got booked we might actually have time to be bored!!!
Also, we just want to say a big hello to all the brave souls who made it to the Edinburgh Canal Festival on Saturday. There was a pretty good turn out but I think that with there being as much water coming out the sky as there was in the canal itself, it wasn't quite what the organisers had hoped for.
Monday 29 June 2009
Monday 22 June 2009
Play it again Sam!
Both of last weeks events went without a hitch and we got away to Troon as planned!
The first was a party that Weber Shandwick were throwing for a client. This was based on the site of the old 'Fat Sams', an Edinburgh institution that many people over a certain age will have some kind of foggy, hazy memory of!
The new buildings are very shiny and presently unoccupied. Leona and Nik had to put on the blue plastic shoe covers and try not to make a mess as we set the flowers up.
Our next trip was to Senergy, a new company we have been working with who reside in a great office on Princes Street. They have amazing views over the Castle, Gardens and Station, thanks to some massive floor to ceiling windows. The down side of this is the temperature tends to creep up a little during the day so we have to give a little extra thought to their flowers. The event was the official opening of their premises and as such they wanted flowers that would make quite an impact. I like to think we obliged!
So, jobs done and all that was left was to pack up the dog and drive through to Troon in heavy rain and traffic to relax for a few days.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Birds, times gone by, and faking it the Pollination way
Pollination has been overtaken by stunning birds this week...unfortunately for Nik they aint the long legged, blond kind, but the long stemmed 'strawberry blond' kind...aka Birds of Paradise aka Strelitzia. We are knee deep in the said birds and white callas for one event, and more birds, red nutens and spikey rodeo gerbera for another.
Talking of long legged blond birds though, we did have a visit from one yesterday, this one was in the form of the lovely Hilary. Hilary used to work for us about 7 (or more) years ago before she ran away to become a teacher. Her and her man are getting hitched and came by to chat about wedding flowers. It was fab to see them both again and have a long overdue catch up, as well as talking business of course!
We recently got in a range of silk flowers to sell in the shop. We never really wanted to get into the whole fake flower thing, but as many of our customers enquire about them, we decided to do a bit of research and found some really gorgeous stuff...even we, who have never been known to 'fake it', were convinced. Low and behold, the old business adage of listening to your customer rang true, and they have been going down a storm. Teamed with some contemporary black glass bowls and vases they really have added a big splash of colour to the shop.
Talking of long legged blond birds though, we did have a visit from one yesterday, this one was in the form of the lovely Hilary. Hilary used to work for us about 7 (or more) years ago before she ran away to become a teacher. Her and her man are getting hitched and came by to chat about wedding flowers. It was fab to see them both again and have a long overdue catch up, as well as talking business of course!
We recently got in a range of silk flowers to sell in the shop. We never really wanted to get into the whole fake flower thing, but as many of our customers enquire about them, we decided to do a bit of research and found some really gorgeous stuff...even we, who have never been known to 'fake it', were convinced. Low and behold, the old business adage of listening to your customer rang true, and they have been going down a storm. Teamed with some contemporary black glass bowls and vases they really have added a big splash of colour to the shop.
Monday 15 June 2009
Florists, Wedding Planners, Barbers and a Beach
After working hard all week, we took Olive our 7th month old puppy down to Tynningam Beach near North Berwick on sunday. It was a bootiful sunny morning and we had arranged to meet 2 of our favourite clients - Suzie, from The Players Lounge, and Val, from As You Like It, and their kids, dogs, a hangover and a husband . The dogs ran around like mad beasts and the kids stripped off and jumped straight into the nearest rock pools. The rest of us grown ups, plonked ourselves down on the sand and wondered why we hadn't brought any beer!
Back to it this morning, with an early morning vase run for some of our contracts for Nik. Meanwhile Gill got stuck into creating some sumpteous summer bouquets for the edinburgh deliveries and a couple of exotic creations that will get picked up later by a courier. One will be taken to Birmingham and the other to London. All this by 10.30 am. Now there is just enough time for a quick caffeine intake, and maybe a scone, before more bouquets and deliveries need to be done.
Back to it this morning, with an early morning vase run for some of our contracts for Nik. Meanwhile Gill got stuck into creating some sumpteous summer bouquets for the edinburgh deliveries and a couple of exotic creations that will get picked up later by a courier. One will be taken to Birmingham and the other to London. All this by 10.30 am. Now there is just enough time for a quick caffeine intake, and maybe a scone, before more bouquets and deliveries need to be done.
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Flowers around Edinburgh
Although it's been a regular week in the flower shop our corporate and online flower sales have been keeping us working extra hard, helping to burn off the calories from the weekends donut extravaganza!
On a Monday morning the van goes out delivering vases to the offices of Edinburgh. Second stop is Bloomberg, where what should be a quick in and out mission often turns into a 20 minute chat about last weeks 5 aside match and the shoddy opposition put up once again by Kev and his coffee shop collective! Only joking Kev, you'll win a game eventually I'm sure.
Tuesdays see us delivering flowers to many of our retail clients such as 20 20 opticians and some of the Cheynes salons about town.
Wednesday, today, gives us a bit of a reprieve as there are no early morning deliveries to be done so we can take a bit more time walking the dog and sipping our tea. It won't last long though, the peaceful bits never do!
On a Monday morning the van goes out delivering vases to the offices of Edinburgh. Second stop is Bloomberg, where what should be a quick in and out mission often turns into a 20 minute chat about last weeks 5 aside match and the shoddy opposition put up once again by Kev and his coffee shop collective! Only joking Kev, you'll win a game eventually I'm sure.
Tuesdays see us delivering flowers to many of our retail clients such as 20 20 opticians and some of the Cheynes salons about town.
Wednesday, today, gives us a bit of a reprieve as there are no early morning deliveries to be done so we can take a bit more time walking the dog and sipping our tea. It won't last long though, the peaceful bits never do!
Saturday 6 June 2009
4 Weddings and a Donut (or 12)
it's been a busy old day here at pollination, what with 2 weddings to do and 2 future brides coming in for a chat. it's a shame the weather didn't really play ball but it could have been worse. check out the pictures here of todays bride's bouquets.
bride number 1 (who's bouquet is on the left) gave us a dozen kripy kreme donuts as a thank you, all but 2 were gone within the hour. cardiac arrest here we come but what a way to go!!!
today gill and lorna have been yapping about the apprentice, dissecting it and concluding that they both want yasmina to win (because kates too perfect!). matt, lornas other half, has brought us in chocolate cookies - we forgot to inform him of the donut situation and are now looking at them with longing and dread in equal measure.
only 2 hours to go now and then home for cava, grub and terrible saturday night tv - floristry is the new rock and roll!! not much left to sell here, been a pretty hectic day all round, but that's always a good thing!
Thursday 4 June 2009
Pollination gets it's Blog on!
woo hoo!!!! it's our first blog....been meaning to do this for a long while now, but usually get waylaid by the general runnings of our shop - pollination.
'we' are nik and gill and we have been in the flower trade now for over 10 years (nik has lost much hair over this time, and gill grown some!). we have a flower shop in edinburgh - 42 ashley terrace edinburgh eh11 1ry....0131 313 1011....www.pollination.co.uk
at the moment there is us, leona and lorna (our fabulous florists) and the recent addition, olive - our 6.5 month old gorgeous golden lab puppy, who is yet to pick up the scissors, but does manage to pick up everything else that she can chew on...
today we've managed to leave the shop for a few hours taking olive for a wee meander up around corstorphine hill, before staring at the computer for much of the day. we left the shop in leonas trusty manicured hands, filled with beautiful summer flowers after preping the latest dutch delivery hot off the wagon..the most impressive flower being a stunning and huge blue hydrangea which we'd ordered for one of the 4 weddings this weekend (4 - omg! guess it is the season!)
must have been consuming way too much caffeine today though, cos as well as getting our fingers oot the proverbial and starting this blog, we also managed to work out this twitter phenomonominum, well we joined it at least...hot news in twitter land seems to be the death of david carrodine (bill in kill bill - a poster of which incidently hangs, edges curling in the pollination loo!). you can find us on twitter under 'pollinations' - with the 's' cos someone else inevitably got in there first darn it!
so as the dog is jumping manically, the cat is purring in my ear and stomachs are growling all around, it must be feeding time at the zoo....hopefully we'll manage to squeeze in an update of our flower world in the comings days....
'we' are nik and gill and we have been in the flower trade now for over 10 years (nik has lost much hair over this time, and gill grown some!). we have a flower shop in edinburgh - 42 ashley terrace edinburgh eh11 1ry....0131 313 1011....www.pollination.co.uk
at the moment there is us, leona and lorna (our fabulous florists) and the recent addition, olive - our 6.5 month old gorgeous golden lab puppy, who is yet to pick up the scissors, but does manage to pick up everything else that she can chew on...
today we've managed to leave the shop for a few hours taking olive for a wee meander up around corstorphine hill, before staring at the computer for much of the day. we left the shop in leonas trusty manicured hands, filled with beautiful summer flowers after preping the latest dutch delivery hot off the wagon..the most impressive flower being a stunning and huge blue hydrangea which we'd ordered for one of the 4 weddings this weekend (4 - omg! guess it is the season!)
must have been consuming way too much caffeine today though, cos as well as getting our fingers oot the proverbial and starting this blog, we also managed to work out this twitter phenomonominum, well we joined it at least...hot news in twitter land seems to be the death of david carrodine (bill in kill bill - a poster of which incidently hangs, edges curling in the pollination loo!). you can find us on twitter under 'pollinations' - with the 's' cos someone else inevitably got in there first darn it!
so as the dog is jumping manically, the cat is purring in my ear and stomachs are growling all around, it must be feeding time at the zoo....hopefully we'll manage to squeeze in an update of our flower world in the comings days....
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