Pollination Florist

Weddings weddings wedding

2012-01-30T13:23:00.000Z

Here are some photos from the lovely Jen and Matts wedding last year. They got a sunny day, as all our brides do, down in Longniddry and North Berwick.

Jen's bouquet is a cascade of white and black calla lilies and her bridesmaids are carrying a tight posy of white hydrangea.

Although calla lilies are a very popular flower choice not too many brides opt to show them off to their full potential in a shower bouquet.

This year we have a definite hydrangea trend going on through the summer for our weddings - as there should be since they are gorgeous. We'll have more pictures up soon to amaze and inspire you :)

New Year, New Stock....

2012-01-23T16:13:00.000Z

Happy New Year - can you still say that on the 23rd of January...?

This year has started out pretty much the same as the last one; we are rested after a xmas break, we have a fairly large number of weddings booked in for 2012 already and we are still not millionaires. The only major difference is that the baby is outside and not inside his mum.

One thing we are doing differently this year is carrying a larger and better range of gifts and home ware for our customers. We now have a good selection of Sagaform products and ranges that compliment them. We may look to sell these online as well but for now they are only available from the shop.

We have added a few new wedding shots to our online gallery and there will be more to follow. These are mostly from the last few months of 2011 and a few from the first wedding of this year - a lovely, wintery day at Dundas Castle back on the 7th of this month.

Wedding Flowers

2011-10-10T13:34:00.000+01:00

Hi,

We've been meaning to post a few wedding photos for a while now so here we go

the beautiful bride

the beautiful flowers!

the marquee at Glencorse


our fav cake of 2011

These photos were from Emma and Simons wedding earlier in the year at Glencorse House which is one of our favourite venues. Emma very graciously passed on some of her shots for us to use on our website and her mother gave us one of the nicest thank you letters we have ever received.

Fame - for all the wrong reasons!

2011-10-05T16:55:00.000+01:00

About a week ago I was listening to Victoria Derbyshire on 5 live when they started to do a story on online dating fraud. Basically guys were meeting women on dating sites, making them believe it was a genuine romance and then trying to get money out of them.

My ears pricked up because we were, unwittingly, part of that same scam. A guy called 'Jake' had started ordering flowers from the website and sending them to various women that he was involved with through dating sites. We only noticed after about the 3rd order when he placed a double order going to two seperate woman, both with romantic(ish) messages. We thought he was some kind of jack the lad/international playboy and although we felt a little grubby taking the money were also glad of the business - it is a recession after all!

This continued for a few weeks and at this point we were definitely feeling more and more uneasy about the whole business. It came to a head when one of the recipients of the flowers got in touch to say that she believed she was being conned by this guy and if that was the case she thought we were probably being done too.

Lo and behold, Jakes many romantic purchases had all been made with stolen credit cards and all his potential love targets were merely marks waiting to be fleeced. We soon discovered to our dismay that we bore full responsibility for all of the transactions and had been taken for a £400 ride.

Anyhoo - when I heard the story I got in touch with Victoria via twitter and told her our angle on the story. She got back asking for more details and before I knew it I was sitting, shaking, in a radio car with head phones on, a host of different voices in my ear and a bloke called Ewan sitting opposite me.

I heard the show start, George do the sport and then there was a bit of weather and then Victoria mentioned my name. I gulped, told myself it would be just like having a gossip with one of our customers and jumped into our story. It was a little hairy and I was fairly nervous at first but it got easier as time went on. One of the other retailers that was on had been hit for a lot more than my paltry £400 so that made me feel better in a weird sort of way :)

They had a guy on from World Pay who I think did a pretty poor job of justifying his companies stance, or lack thereof, on fraud prevention. I definitely felt a lot better grilling him than I did recalling our own story.

I name dropped our company once by accident but Victoria was good enough to do that for us a couple more times through the course of the show. I listen to 5 live pretty much every day so it was an interesting, and ultimately satisfying experience being directly involved. The staff there all made it as easy as they could for me and I had a little more chat with them via email afterwards which was nice.

If nothing else good came of the whole fraud saga at least i got to go on national radio!

2011-09-19T14:02:00.001+01:00

Wedding season is slowing down but only just. We're now more than half way through september and we 3 to do this weekend, 3 to do next weekend and then a further clutch in October. For good or bad though there are a couple of weekends that are wedding free on the horizon, which will be strange. LAst saturday was also the first in over 4 months when I didn't have a bride in for a consultation!

Lots of flower pics to show but I'll save them for the next entry. I'll just leave you with this....

so it's been a while......

2011-08-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

I just haven't been able to get my blog on of late and I'd like to blame the baby or the jet set life style we're living or even the stress of being self employed, but none of these would be true. I think it's just general inertia creeping in. I miss one week and then two which becomes three and then four and then it's become a 'thing' which makes it even harder to get into to.

But no more, the Blog must return and this one will be worth the wait I promise.

We have provided flowers for lots of weddings this year, more than any year before in fact. But this is the first time we have ever seen our flowers in a 'Marryoke'! I never met the bride, Lindsay, or had any contact with her at all, until the day of the wedding itself. All of our correspondence and decision making was done through Lily, one of her 7 bridesmaids. This isn't because Lindsay was incredibly lazy, she lives in Malaysia with her fiance, now husband, Taylor.

We don't have any pictures of the wedding to show you exactly, but thanks to an email from Lily we do have THIS

It was a great idea and amazing how everyone threw themselves into it. I'm sure Lindsay and Taylor were very pleased with the finished result, as were we with a musical display of our flowers - thanks!

Our latest employee!!

2011-04-19T16:46:00.000+01:00

It's been a little bit too long since our last post but not without good reason. Shortly after valentines day our son, Daniel, was born. As Gill has been off being a full time Mum and I've been skiving a lot being a part time dad, a lot of the little things we try to keep on top of have been gathering dust. This is terrible on our part but what can we do, he is super cute and very time consuming!

However, as we now have an heir to our throne we should really get back to the business at hand; selling more flowers!! Valentines was ok for us, not the busiest but still decent. From asking around it seems that most florists were in the same boat.

Mothers Day however was a lot better this year. I don't know if thats a sign the recession is receding or just that we all have more time for our Mums than we do our wives and girlfriends!! Maybe it's a little of both.

Our wedding season is now in full swing with6 bookings though April and only one free Saturday between now and mid October. Our online shop continues to go from strength to strength which is also a very positive sign. Our google rankings have improved greatly over the last year and our international business is soaring.

Talking of weddings there is one fairly major one coming up in less than a couple of weeks. We were asked about providing the flowers but we don't go south of the river round here. Apparently 3 florists are working together to transform the venues with a colour scheme of whites and greens using lots of scented blooms. So, in honour of the royal wedding we will offer a 10% discount on all online orders placed between now and the end of the month. All you have to do is enter 'Wills and Kate' in the discount box and you will save a few sovereigns! Please pass it on to anyone you feel may be able to use it.

and the winner is......

2011-02-10T09:50:00.000Z

After much debate and discussion we have decided that the winner is.......

AIMEE!!

Well done to you and thanks to everyone for taking part.

Aimee, if you can send us an email to info@pollination.co.uk we will get your prize organized.

Flowers for your Thoughts

2011-02-01T12:40:00.000Z

Hello, they say the mind is the most romantic part of the body so we thought we would give you all a chance to exercise yours for Valentines.


The Mr Darcy

Simply compose a small poem or ditty and post it in the comments field of the blog. It must be original and it would help if it's funny or romantic or, ideally both!

The George Clooney

On the 9th of February we will judge which poem we deem to be the best and the winner will receive a £30 bouquet of flowers for themselves or a lucky someone else.

Get thinking/writing and best of luck to you!

Fame at Last!!

2011-01-24T16:27:00.001Z

It's always nice to have lots of people appreciating your work and thats exactly what happened to us last week. One of the brides we provided flowers for last year, Amy, was featured in the Love My Dress blog. We only found out when we got a wedding inquiry on the back of it, less than 12 hours after it had been posted!!

As well as lovely flowers the blog also contains some great pictures of her and Chris's day so feel free to check it out.

http://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2011/01/scottish-autumn-wedding.html#more

(Un)Happy New Year?

2011-01-17T16:41:00.000Z

Apparently it's the most miserable day of the year today....I'm not so sure.

I feel pretty good myself, the shop has been busy, most of our orders have been for happy occasions, most people I've met are good and the dog seems pretty chuffed too.

Maybe it's being surrounded by spring flowers thats the key. So if you are feeling a bit mopey then get out and buy yourself some tulips, gerbera and hyacinths!! And not just today either :)

And The Winner Is....?

2010-12-01T11:43:00.000Z

We have just drawn the winner of our first 'Followers Flowers' competition and can reveal it to you now

.....(drum roll)

.....(x-factor type extended dramatic pause)

Lauren Barrie!!!

Well done Lauren, we'll be sending you an email and you have a lovely bouquet of flowers to do with as you please.

For those of you who did not win then don't worry - we'll be doing this again.

In other news, our Christmas window will be going up on friday now due to staff/weather issues.

Snow Joke in the Flower Trade

2010-11-27T11:46:00.000Z

It's only November and already the snow is knee deep around some of the country! Snow, like Christmas shopping, should be left until December in our humble opinion.


our dog, Olive, wondering what all the fuss was about

As pretty as it looks it can cause us a few problems with our national delivery service. Last year we had lots of fun and games trying to get flowers to people who were pretty much snowed in up in Northern Scotland. One lady actually had the local farmer take his tractor out to meet the courier as the roads could not be travelled with normal vehicles.

This years Christmas window will be going in next week, incorporating seasonal style and a competition for the local kids. We'll post a picture as soon as it's finished.


winter table flowers

We are also creating a few Winter installations for some of the bars around Edinburgh next week and are looking forward to working outside in the snow :(

There are now only 4 days left before we draw the winner of our Bloggers Bouquet competition. Start thinking about who you might be sending the flowers to if you should happen to win. Of course there is no reason that you shouldn't just keep them for yourselves!

creative types around Shandon last winter

We'll be back next week to announce the winner and show of our window display.

A Florists Ode to Christmas

2010-11-11T15:24:00.001Z

Just 6 short weeks to Christmas
The Flowers are turning red
The weathers getting frosty
And we want to stay in bed
But the order box is filling up
And the wreaths wont make themselves
So we'll turn the heaters up full blast
And work like Santas elves!

COMPETITION!!!

2010-10-28T16:53:00.000+01:00

To celebrate our current and unintended lack of Blogging we'd like to offer our loyal followers the chance to win a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. You can keep it for yourself or you can send it to family or friends. The only stipulation is that it needs to be dispatched to a UK address.

At the end of November we will put all our bloggers names into a hat and draw a winner. That person will then win a £30 bouquet of their choosing.

If you recommend a friend to our blog then don't worry about diluting your chance to win. Let us know about them and we'll give you an extra entry for every extra follower.

Good Luck!

Weddings Weddings Weddings!

2010-09-27T13:34:00.000+01:00

Usually at this time of year our wedding season is winding down. We always have a few autumnal and winter weddings to do but they tend to be every two to three weeks rather than week in week out.

This year though it feels like we are just getting started, with 6 to do just in October! Not that we are complaining, weddings are good for business, not because we add extra £zeros to all our costs, but because 80-120 people get to see our lovely flowers all at the same time. The word of mouth business we pick up from events brings us far more business than the weddings themselves.

The shop has kept busy through the summer too, which was always a doubt in these troubled financial times. Thankfully our customers still felt the need to send flowers along with paying the mortgage :)

Thats all for now, the next blog will hopefully not be so long in the making!

A rare and seldom seen outdoor wedding in Scotland


Looks good enough to eat!

The lovely marquee at Glencorse House, made even lovelier with our flowers!

Fair Trade Flowers

2010-07-20T16:50:00.000+01:00

Normally when we do a wedding we buy the flowers, arrange them and deliver them to the appropriate places.

This Saturday however the bride is bringing the flowers with her, all the way from Ecuador!
She is a firm believer in fair trade practices, and being from Ecuador, she felt one way to be sure of the source was to see it and buy them for herself.

The flowers started their journey about 3 days ago and will arrive with us on Friday morning, all 600 stems of them!! That will give us just enough time to prep and strip them and arrange them in time for the big day...we hope!

July should typically be a quieter month, what with everyone either being off on holiday or spending their hard earned on entertaining kids...but so far we've been pretty busy. Add to that a full wedding schedule and it's smiles all round.

Our home grown organic flower bunches are still going down a storm. The picking is a little erratic this season though as the farmers have to crop them before any big rains come down. As they are a little bit delicate, down pours can be bad for their health.

That's all for now, hopefully the next instalment will be a little quicker.

2010-06-26T14:24:00.000+01:00

Well summer is here, which means we can stock locally grown bunches of flowers again. These gorgeous selections of the prettiest summer stems, from alchmelia to snapdragon, campanula and dill are grown at

Oxenfoord Organics out near Pathhead. Not only are they grown locally, they are organic too. Summer in a vase.

We are also glad that summer's arrived because the weddings are in full swing at the moment. Yesterday we created bouquets and arrangements for a wedding at Holy Cross Church followed by a reception at Craighouse Campus, which is a gorgeous venue. The happy couple chose a stunning selection of white and green summer flowers, including peony roses, sweet peas, hydrangeas and delphinium.

Flowers for The Proms

2010-06-19T11:44:00.000+01:00

'It's wasn't like that in our day!'......it certainly wasn't! This week we've been making lots of buttonholes and corsages for School Proms. All of which have been taking place in the fanciest hotels in town, the pupils arriving by limo, wearing expensive tuxedos, kilts and dresses, and according to one mum, she even had to pay for a hip flask for her son to take along! We also created flower arrangements to adorn the tables of one Schools prom at The George Hotel earlier in the week, and it wasn't a small budget! I remember having an end of school 'prom', but it was more of a dodgy disco with a few sarnies and a sneaked in bottle of something cheap and nasty ! Ach, we're just jealous!

It's Fathers Day tomorrow, and we have had a few people ordering flowers for their dads. I don't think it'll ever reach Mother Day proportions though, I think a bottle of whisky somehow tends to win the hearts of most dads! Happy Fathers Day to all you dads anyway...hic.....

Long Live The Independent Florist!

2010-06-07T12:27:00.001+01:00

We are excited to start watching the new series of 'Mary Queen of Shops' which starts tonight on BBC1. This series Mary Portas is looking at our local shops such as greengrocers and bakers who are facing increasing competition from the ubiquitous supermarket. Not sure if the humble florist is featured or not, but our profession is definitely one which has been hit hard by supermarkets over the years.

While we can pretty much never compete on price with the Tescos and Marks and Spencer of this world, (we simply don't have the buying power), we here at Pollination like to think we offer something a bit more unique, interesting and original than the generic bunches that are often offered by the supermarkets. We have seen some really lovely bouquets though, and a good range of flowers from the simple rose to the more exotic orchids and proteas. Although the fact that the supermarkets have moved on from just plain old carnations and chrysanths always worries us slightly! On the plus side, it does educate people who may not go into their local florist on the huge range of stunning blooms that are available to us now.

Supermarkets don't generally give the same care to their flowers though, whilst your local florist will prep every individual flower and cut, feed and generally treat them with respect, many bunches from the supermarket will be pulled out and stuffed half in half out of water, stems crushed by customers. They are often positioned at the front of the store, which from a marketing point of view is clever, but at the same time they are then treated to every blast of cold wind each time a customer enters, and are left wilting in the sun when it's a hot day. Nor does the supermarket allow you to pick individual blooms to create a tailored made bouquet or arrangement, or offer specialised services such as wedding bouquets (although Asda are selling 'good vaue' wedding dresses, so give them time!). They produce mass bunches for the masses, rather than original bouquets tailored to the individual.

The supermarkets, along with the recession, are good reasons to keep on top of our game, to keep our shops looking fab, and to keep producing good quality gorgeous bouquets. We find it encouraging that we receive orders from throughout Britain and the rest of the world to send our bouquets through the UK, and that we have a regular local customer base as well as new customers all the time, who have been recommended to us, have seen our website or maybe have received a bouquet themselves. But we never get complacent. It is a constant challenge to survive in the highly competitive retail world.

The more local independent shops that close down as they struggle to compete with the supermarket giants, the more our local high streets turn into streets of To Let signs and smashed windows, the more our local communities suffer and the less specialised, original independent businesses will be available, and what a dull place that would be.

Windy Weddings!

2010-05-28T15:12:00.000+01:00

What happened to summer?? The sky is looking a tad dark out there, and the wind is blowing all our lovely plants about. Leona is running outside as I write to grab another price ticket that has blown away down the street, and she just rescued a large white peony plant from the 'summer breeze'!!!

Unusually for a weekend we don't have any weddings to prepare flowers for, as we are actually going to a wedding ourselves tomorrow. Our friends Nik and Anna are doing the do up in Aboyne, near Aberdeen, and it should be a great day (even if the weather is looking a bit dodgy!). We first met Nik many years ago when we used to do flower classes in the shop. He was the only male that signed up for them which we were quite excited about, and we bonded over the flowers and too much wine! A few years later at a Hogmanay party, Nik met the lovely Anna (who bonded over wine...and beer....) and the rest is history.

There must be lots of weddings on this bank holiday weekend though as tomorrows box if full of orders for corsages and buttonholes. We can't quite decide if we are going to adorn a flower ourselves or not. I'm sure as florists we are supposed to be showing off our wares, but we didn't even have flowers at our own wedding!

Nice Day For A Hot Wedding

2010-05-22T14:30:00.001+01:00

Phewwie, its hotter in Edinburgh today than it is in Ibiza apparently - how the great British weather can change in a week!

The down side to the glorious sun shine is having to work in the shop! The upside though, is that today's lucky bride is able to get married outside. We delivered the flowers this morning and it was at least 20 degrees then! Here's a photo of the ceremony table adorned with a large vase of gorgeous white lilies, tulips and delphiniums.

We have some amazing passion flower plants in the shop, they have got to be one of the maddest flowers, we love em.

Another wedding tomorrow at Balbirnie House Hotel in Fife. It's a beautiful venue, with gorgeous gardens that I'm sure tomorrow will be filled with merry 'sun kissed' (ie burnt) wedding guests. If the weather holds, we will head up to Elie on the east coast which has a fabulous beach and very nice pubs (with beer garden!). So we'll deliver the flowers for the wedding, then chase our dog into the sea, whilst licking our melting ice creams - HOO RAH for the sun!

Lily Watch

2010-05-17T10:09:00.001+01:00

Monday morning, and yay the sun is actually out ;o))) Well it's not exactly tropical and the ash has closed airports throughout the country again, but the sun is definitely poking through the clouds which is a good start to the week!

We are on Lily watch this week - one of the weddings we have at the weekend taking place at Keavil House, Dunfermline is predominately white lilies. Lilies, along with a few other flowers such as peonies, can often prove a bit of a challenge for the florist.

They arrive directly from Holland lovely and fresh and tight, so judging how many days in advance to buy them in order for them to be open in time for the brides big day can be like playing russian roulette! Too open and the petals might just start to turn or look bruised. Not open enough and they don't look full or colourful enough for the bouquets/vases etc. Its not unknown on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning for florists to be phoning each other desperately searching for open blooms!

The many tubs of lilies we have in our back shop this morning are looking just right (eek, are we tempting fate here!) They haven't opened yet but the buds are looking nice and full and white....everything crossed!

Wedding Flowers and Sunny Flowers

2010-05-14T10:33:00.000+01:00

Well its Friday, which normally means getting busy with the weekends weddings. Tomorrow we have one in Humbie, East Lothian. Mavis Hall Park have a fabulous traditional big farm barn there, and even a wee loch where knots can be tied if the weather is behaving. For the real canivores out there they can provide a large spit with whole pigs to roast for the occasion too.

We have done a fair few weddings at Humbie , the first one we did we were even guests at. As wedding venues go, it's one of our favourites. Its always fun to walk by the chickens and hens when setting up the flowers.

We have had lots of online orders this week, and mainly for our new set seasonal bouquet. Its so nice to see the sunflowers back in the shop, even though summer hasn't quite arrived (yes there was snow on the hills yesterday, and yes it is MAY), it's so nice to see their happy smiling faces giving us more hope than the met office does!

Flowers for an unusual occasion...

2010-05-12T16:08:00.001+01:00

Today we were providing flowers for the University of Edinburgh School of Biomedical Sciences.

Every year they hold a remembrance service to honor the many people who donate their bodies to science and medicine after their death.

If it wasn't for this generous act many lives would not have been saved and many innovations never brought to light.

The service allows the medical staff to give their thanks and for the surviving families to remember their loved ones.

Blue & Yellow - a winning combination?

2010-05-12T09:38:00.000+01:00

Well, following on from our last post regarding the choices for what was turning out to be of a 'hung bouquet', the flowers have spoken to us. The red flowers were just not going to work in the end, they had been in abundance over the last while, but seasons change and so do peoples taste in flowers.

In the end, we opted for blues with some yellow mixed in to lighten the mood of the bouquet. Who knows if this will work and only time will tell how much money we might make or lose out of it, but we'll live with it for a while and see how the public react.

A hung bouquet.....

2010-05-10T15:39:00.000+01:00

We are having a dilema here at Pollination, we have done since Friday.

It all started out straight forward enough, all we had to do was create a bouquet everyone in the country would love, or at least be happy with. Firstly we had to decide on the colours for our design. Would we go for a right old mix of shades of blue, a liberal selection of yellows, or use whatever red flowers we had left in the shop?

We tried the blue flowers first, as we had more of them than anything else, but it just didn't seem to be enough. Then we went for the reds, but there just wasn't as many as there used to be in the shop. We had expected a larger delivery of yellow flowers but were let down at the last minute - seems our suppliers had decided the red and blues were the safer bets to stock up on.

As there wasn't enough yellow stems to do anything substantial with, we first decided to go crazy and mix them up with the blue flowers. This worked on a few levels but the contrast was maybe just too great. Perhaps this would be more to European taste, who knows.

So we thought about the reds mixed up with some yellow, as on paper it would seem like a more natural combination. In reality though some of the red flowers looked a little old and tired and may be past their best...

We are still undecided how we are going to put the bouquet together, perhaps we should go for broke and just proportionally represent all three colours. We don't want to get too hung up about the bouquet, but we will let you know how it turns out.

And the winner is....

2010-04-03T15:10:00.000+01:00

Well, actually there are 2 winners! Tom aged 5 and Emily aged 4 both guessed 260 eggs, which was the nearest guess to the correct answer of 262!

So they both win a nice large choccie egg to munch on and a bouquet of flowers each (which they may like to keep to make their bedrooms look pretty, or they could be well brought up kids, and donate them to someone they love ;o))

Finn aged 4 came very close with 265, so he has been awarded a wee choccie egg goodie bag.

So well done guys, you are obviously all destined for University having such mathematical skill!

We are closing the shop on Monday so we can recover from eating too many eggs. Hopefully the 'spring snow' will stay away next week unlike earlier on this week, and maybe the sun will shine ...hmm....

Happy Easter to you all!

Eggs Win Prizes!

2010-03-23T16:06:00.000Z

Another young mind is baffled whilst trying to count how many eggs are in our window!

Count all the eggs, submit your answer and the winning correct entry will win a BIG chocolate egg and a lovely bunch of spring flowers.

So far we've had jostling, shouting and general mischief as the 'young uns' try to psyche each other out and mess up their counts whilst crowding the window and adding up all the eggs.

These kids play hard ball, but it is a BIG egg they've all got their eyes on.

The winner will be announced at 1pm on Friday 2nd of April.

Recession? What recession?!?

2010-03-15T11:56:00.000Z

Just a quick post to say a huge thank you to the many lovely customers, old and new, that ordered flowers over the weekend.

We had our busiest ever day on Saturday and had a bigger Mothers Day this year than we did the year before.

I know it's hurting a lot of people but we're gratefull that people were still happy to share some of their limited funds with us.

Hope all your Mums had a great day and will be enjoying their flowers for a long time to come.

Banksy it Aint!

2010-03-09T15:02:00.000Z

We had painted a sandwich board with blackboard paint for a bit of Mothers Day marketing.

It had been out on the street drying for no more than a couple of hours when some dubious prankster christened it.

In the words of Rolf...."Can you tell what it is yet?" (the last word is _oaby)

Answers on a postcard please.

Mothers Day Flowers

2010-03-05T15:49:00.000Z

It's been a while since our last update, which is bad, but we have been exceptionally busy both in and out of work!

On the horizon next is Mothers Day, the big one, the busiest single weekend of our year. And to be honest, probably my favourite of the big 3. Christmas is good but tends to involve lots of warm colours and cold weather. Valentines is great but has a huge emphasis on roses. Mothers day is fairly non specific in regard to the flowers we send out.

Some opt for fresh spring bouquets full of tulips, hyacinth, rannunculus and freesia. Others like contemporary and unusual creations with orchids, anthuriums, birds of paradise and proteas. Many prefer a more classic bouquets with lisianthus, roses, lilies and veronicas.

The picture here is our 'The one thats for Mum' bouquet from the website. It ranges in price from £30-60 and is available to order now.

Theres plenty more coming along after Sunday 14th but we'll just try to keep our minds on that date for now.

Bye.

Cupid, draw back your bow.....

2010-02-03T09:31:00.001Z

It's February, and there's a wee man by the name of cupid hovering about getting ready to fire his bow any minute now! - well 11 days from now to be exact. Yes it's Valentines Day soon, and the shop is once again to be filled with an array of reds and pinks and all things lovely.

Red roses have long been a traditional favourite and synonymous with Valentines, and who are we to argue. We will be stocking the sumptuous and velvety deep red Grand Prix roses which are featured on our web sites online shop as 'The Barry White' (half dozen), 'The Mr Darcy' (a dozen) and for the uber romantics (or uber generous!), 'The George Clooney' (2 dozen of the gorgeous blooms).

For those who prefer to go for something different and equally as stunning we have the 'No Roses in Sight (above)', especially for Valentines, as well as other set bouquets or the 'Create Your Own' option. We will be delivering in Edinburgh Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th, and elsewhere in the UK Friday 12th. So let cupid flex his love muscles and get ordering now to make your special someone smile!

2010, a fine year for flowers

2010-01-16T13:22:00.000Z

Happy New Year to all our lovely customers!

We had a really amazing Christmas period in the shop, so a big thank you to all that helped make that happen. We've been back after a short break for almost 2 weeks now so it's pretty much business as usual at pollination.

On Monday we celebrated 12 years in business! That seems like a crazy long time to us although not quite long enough to justify having an olde worldy 'Est 1900andoatcake' sign on our shop front.

The risky business of selling chocolate in the shop is paying off - we are amazingly selling more than we are eating! After being asked many times by some of our regular customers to stock chocolate, we have at last sourced a fab company called 'The Chocolate Library' who not only make the chocolate in Scotland and are based in Edinburgh, but the choc tastes yummer too! With slick packaging with messages such as 'This is a Bribe'! and 'Yummy Mummy', its going down a storm, and is proving to be the perfect accompaniment to our flowers.

On the flower front there is a definite move from all the reds of Christmas (well for a few weeks till Valentines Day that is!), to lime greens, deep pinks, and an array of spring flowers - yip despite this mad winter weather, spring is on the horizon! Not that we haven't been enjoying the snow, we've been having great fun endlessly lobing snowballs for our dog, and watching snowmen, igloos and even a snow Loch Ness monster pop up in the local park(see pic above). But please can we have some milder, dry weather again!

6 more sleeps to go!!!

2009-12-19T14:01:00.000Z

It's getting super close now and we're feeling the pace in the shop.

The orders are coming in faster than the snowstorms and we're already wondering where it's all going to go. Speaking of which, it just got mighty white outside. See picture above for a live action shot of 'Sunny' Shandon!!

Still, not much for it but to keep our heads down and our hands working!

Our first big xmas delivery comes in later today, assuming they make it up the road, so the shop wil be packed out with Ilex, Amaryllis and all flowers red, white and green. As quick as they are turned into bouquets, table flowers and mantlepeice displays the next delivery will be coming in. And as we look at the mountain of flowers and think (once again) 'We've bought too much!', the phone will start ringing, the door will start opening and pretty soon we'll be wondering (once again) 'Why didn't we buy more!'

Such is xmas in a florists, gogogo, eateateat, stressstressstress, sleepsleepsleep...repeat. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

3 weeks and counting!

2009-12-04T14:49:00.001Z

It's the first week of December and we have been furiously creating Christmas table arrangements in a range of black or red glass round and square bowls. From gold, cones and slices of orange, to Cinnamon sticks, silver skeleton leafs and limes.

Outside the shop is adorned with holly and pine wreaths - natural ones, sparkling ones and cool fruit and berry based ones. One customer bought 4 yesterday!

We've been out installing Christmas flower arrangements in some bars and hotels too in the last few days, and the orders for Christmas deliveries are becoming more frequent.

All we need now is to buy a new Christmas CD and get those tunes blasting......

Walking in a Winter Window Land!

2009-11-28T11:44:00.000Z

In goes the christmas window, simple and stunning...or so we like to think!

The orders are coming in now and we've got wreaths up on the walls. All we need now is 'thats what I call christmas vol 788' to be dropped into the cd player. I've got mistletoe and wine in my head already, I guess thats one of the reasons that people hate this time of year ;)

Edinburgh is cold cold cold today, but thankfully dry and not too breezy. The shop is busy and lunch is almost cooked.

We'll be back with pics of the wreaths next week!

20% discount on christmas flowers at pollination!

2009-11-23T15:03:00.000Z

ding dong merrily on high, the berries are a coming. reds and golds, and christmas tunes we are all a humming.

four more saturdays,
30 more shopping days,

till ole santa brings his cheer

hang the mistletoe and the door wreath

and order all your flowers here!

just been taking pics today of a couple of set bouquets in a lurvely christmas stylee which will be appearing on the website very soon. there's a sneak preview above...oh and we will also be offering all you registered users a 20% discount if you order your christmas bouquets before 14th december, so if you have not signed up to the site yet, now is the perfect time. how to make your festive shopping easy(and cheaper!).

Winter Hues

2009-11-04T12:28:00.000Z

It's that time of year again. After weeks of moaning at other high street shops for bringing out the Tinsel in October we're having to start thinking about the silly season ourselves.

The shop is already filling up with pussy willow, contorted willow, salix and skimmias. Pinks and blues are transforming into deep reds and burnt oranges and Ilex Berry has been spotted on the flower trucks! As much as we hate the cold we love the changing season and the new flowers it brings.

All of us are starting to look a little bulky with extra layers and gloves and even the dog seems reluctant to shed any more hair than she has to - yay!

From Russia With Love

2009-10-13T13:25:00.000+01:00

We were standing in the shop yesterday when a mysterious, dark haired young man swept in through the door. We both stared at each other and raised an eyebrow as he approached the counter.

'My name is Fedulove, Roman Fedulove, and I am from Russia!'

Then the penny dropped, Roman had ordered a couple of bouquets from us before, from Russia, via the website. His fiance lives in Edinburgh and he is a man that understands the value of flowers from afar!

As nice and unexpected as it was to meet him in the flesh, he really outdid himself by presenting us with a couple of lovely gifts from back home.

We hope you have a great stay Roman and enjoy some warmer weather than you'll be getting on your return.

In other news, the lovely Leona is presently on a boat (SHIP!) cruising the Mediterranean and soaking up the sun and sangria. We're just about coping without her and hopefully will not have throttled each other by the time she gets back ;)

Keeping up the foreign theme, we have just returned from 4 nights in lovely Florence, an amazing city that seems to be home to legions of designer clad men and women but very few florists....perhaps there is a gap in the market for us to start selling our gucci gladioli and prada proteas that we've been developing.

That's all for now, we'll try not to leave the next one so long.

Locally Sourced Flowers!

2009-09-05T13:48:00.000+01:00

For a long time we've been asked by our customers if we could find them locally sourced flowers.

Until recently we've always had problems with either price or quality - or both! - and this has left us somewhat disappointed. Thankfully things have changed due to a lady called Anne and her farm near Pathead.

For the past few weeks she has been delivering gorgeous bunches of home grown garden flowers and they have been flying out the door. We took a bunch home the first week to road test them and were very happy with how good they looked and how well they lasted.

In order to spread the word we've dropped an email to the Shandon Food Group, an environmental organisation in the area, that work hard to spread the home grown message and generally do good stuff for the environment.

Today brought us 2 weddings, one at our local church, St Michael's, and the other in nearby Corstorphine.

This is the first Saturday since Lorna, our trusted weekender, has left us. She walked into the shop many years ago and asked if she could come in and work for free! After taking advantage of her good nature for a while we decided to pay her and she has been a regular feature of our Saturday shenanigans since.

Unfortunately her 'proper' job, offered her more hours and money and she decided to reclaim the weekends for herself, leaving us to pick up the slack, sweep the floors and make our own coffees.

On the plus side, we don't need to pay her anymore so Adios Amigo!

Thats it for now, bye.

Festival Frolics and Flowers

2009-08-19T09:48:00.000+01:00

Its raining most days, there are roadworks everywhere, groups of men are sauntering around casually in superhero outfits, women are dragging men along by dog leads... yip, our great city is in the throes of madness that is the Edinburgh Fringe and Festival.

It's at this time of year when we wish we weren't in the flower trade and sold beer, saltire embossed plastic rain ponchos or that tartan flowers existed...we'd make a killing! We have however sent a few bouquets to the thesps and performers from their loved ones and/or supporters, so we've managed to get in on a piece of the action!

Schools are back today too, which is good news as our passing trade side of the business always picks up as the mums have freedom again!

We are noticing a change in the seasons too, from the slight drop in temperature and the endless rain and the fact its dark again at 5am when our alarm goes off! (I can hear the violins playing in the background..). But we do love the the change in flowers too - more deep rich colours are dominating the flower trucks, and some old favs like amaryllis, chillies and snowberry are making a comeback...(how many weeks till Christmas again....eek!)

Web Site Blues

2009-07-22T08:56:00.000+01:00

We're florists, we deal in organic matter and generally have our feet rooted in the muck of the physical world. If a lily comes in and it looks like it may have been chilled, we can spot that. When flowers need a little TLC we can deal with that. If a bouquet doesn't look just quite right we can tweak it.

These are things we can do.

When our web site starts playing games with us we get a little worried. When our usually super cool web designer throws his hands up in despair we really start to freak out.

Although the job is in hand and there's a bit of a rebuild going on we're still facing a couple of weeks of uncertainty where the very odd customer may face problems when trying to complete their order.

C'est la vie as they say. It will be sorted and we can get back to our plans of world wide web domination.

Outside of our technical hitches, the Flower Council of Holland have come up with a novel gift to celebrate the great British summer. Combining humour, flowers and the dutch love of all things orange they have created a flower print umbrella to keep us dry during the seasonal months. Very thoughtful of them!

Giant Flower Week!

2009-07-14T13:58:00.000+01:00

On our delivery this morning were oversize Celosia and the biggest Dhalia we have ever seen! They dont come cheap but they do make quite a statement we think.

Things are busy as ever with 3 weddings last week and another one this saturday. On top of that there's always a healthy amount of buttonholes and corsages to make up for our customers who are off to weddings of their own.

We created a couple of tribute bouquets for the poor fireman who lost his life on Dalry Road last week. Some flowers you're always happy to make up, others you wish you didn't have to.

On a happier note, our dog, Olive, was up and running in the Pentlands this morning, courtesy of Sarah McLean and Citydogs! She takes Olive and a pack of other hounds out in the wild and lets them be themselves for an hour or two. Then very kindly hosed her down so she flopped into her bed all clean and soft and not honking in the slightest!

In Shandon News, Tom Duffin, our neighbour, of X-Sail fame was on the telly last week, promoting his wind powered land yacht on a beach with no wind....not ideal but they did a pretty good job of selling it all the same - just a shame my gran's dead, she would have loved it! You can check out our local celeb here.

Come Rain or Shine

2009-07-06T12:40:00.000+01:00

Phewwy it is hot round these parts! Not that we are complaining, but we have had to invest in a few fans to try and keep the flowers cool and there's a constant argument as to who gets to take Olive, our puppy for her walks (aka leisurley stroll through the park in the sunshine!).

The rain has not been a stranger either though, which at least has been keeping all the garden plants in good health!

Despite the whole of Shandon being away on holiday since the schools broke up on Friday, we had a busy weekend with 2 weddings, one at The George Hotel, the other at Craighouse. See photo above.

Talking of holidays, a couple of the local businesses are off on their hols too - one of which is Blueberryhill cafe next door, how will we survive?! No baked tatties and giant scones for us this week - boo! So we brought our own lunch in today - Innocent (the smoothie people) do veggies pots now, so just eaten a curry one and feeling very 'fu' and have left the shop with a floral yet spicy aroma!

Monday moan alert though - where are the bloomin bin men???! I am surrounded by bin bags and Olive is in her element ferreting around in them! they didn't turn up at all last Monday, and its looking the same this week...rant rant ;o))

Three weddings this week - a sunflower one, a daisy one and a peony one - all very summery but all with a contemporary twist - should be good, especially if the sun hangs around a bit longer...

Flowers for the Teacher.

2009-06-29T14:35:00.000+01:00

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.

Play it again Sam!

2009-06-22T15:30:00.000+01:00

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.

Birds, times gone by, and faking it the Pollination way

2009-06-16T19:42:00.000+01:00

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.

Florists, Wedding Planners, Barbers and a Beach

2009-06-15T10:02:00.000+01:00

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.

Flowers around Edinburgh

2009-06-10T08:32:00.000+01:00

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!

4 Weddings and a Donut (or 12)

2009-06-06T14:36:00.000+01:00

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!

Pollination gets it's Blog on!

2009-06-04T17:04:00.000+01:00

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....