Walking in a Winter Window Land!

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!

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

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

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!

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

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

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!