Change is Good: A Letter to our Customers

Great changes at Ben White Florist

Ben White Florist is undergoing some big changes that we are excited to share with you!

To better assist with your virtual ordering process, we have launched a new website complete with a brand new design. Rest assured, we still offer the same trusted service and products, just in a new package. With this update, please be advised that if you previously had a WEBSITE account, you will be asked to participate in a ONE TIME setup on your first visit. This information will not have to be repeated in future visits and is a security measure that we put in place during the website/data transfer to ensure that private and secure information stay protected.

Another quality improvement we have made is a faster, Windows-based Point of Sale system allowing for the same exceptional customer service in a more efficient manner. After initial set up, we will have the ability to archive all of your floral orders for future reference. Gone will be the days of trying to remember what you sent for last year’s anniversary!

Lastly, with the current advancements in technology, the unnecessary expense extended to the customer, and uncertainty of product quality, we will no longer offer out-of-town delivery services. If assistance is needed, we will happily perform a Google search for a name and contact phone number of a florist in the desired delivery area at no charge.

We truly appreciate your continued business and look forward to working with you in the future.

For questions or concerns please contact us at:

Ben White Florist

3200 S. Congress Ave

Austin, Tx 78704

512-447-3577

www.benwhiteflorist.com

benwhiteflorist@gmail.com

Red Light. Greenlights.

Recently, in mid-October, I had the privilege of designing and arranging thirty-some arrangements for the 10th Anniversary of Greenlights, an organization that prides itself on strengthening other nonprofits by providing resources that aid in the development of nonprofit success. In case you were wondering how the event went via Greenlights, a blog on the event can be found here with various photos of the event (look for green flower arrangements!) here. As for my part, I just wanted to share a few photos of the arrangements in hopes that you will enjoy.

the finished products.

the table setting.

more table view.

they even auctioned off the flower arrangements at the end of the evening.

the brochure.

While it was quite a bit of time, energy, and work putting together all of the arrangements, I will freely admit that it was enjoyable being able to stretch my mind's (and hand) muscle. Once the flowers were unloaded, it was nice to meet with everyone in charge and hear how much they enjoyed the flowers. Another great job with Ben White Florist!

Yardwork is Fun!

The yard of Ben White Florist has undergone an intense makeover. I'm not talking about the lame kind where you get a new outfit and put on some makeup and bibbity bobbity boo, you're made over. I'm talking about the kind where they give you chemical peels, plastic surgery, a new wardrobe, and basically get rid of all your old clothes because you are just too fabulous to be wearing those grungy old sweatpants. The yard of Ben White Florist used to be a pair of those old sweatpants; comfortable, yet sad with neglect and laziness.

The photos you are about to feast upon are only after shots. I did not think about turning this into a blog entry until after all the work had been done and I thought to myself, "Wow, the yard looks fantastic, I should blog it!" Keep in mind we are in the worst drought ever, so while I think the yard looks great, you might think I'm crazy because of how dead it looks. Well, let me tell you, it looked worse before the makeover. Grungy. Old. Sweatpants.

The side/front of BWF. Please ignore the dead grass.

Check out the beautiful landscaped walkway!

Each tree/plant is landscaped.

Walkway looking into backyard.

Looking into front yard/Congress Ave.

More walkway.

Awesome. By the way, the entire length of that purple wall used to be covered in a crazy amount of sad, unusable, wild-looking plants. So nice and clean now!

Event of Greenness.

A few weeks ago, I really had to access that part of my brain that wants to be creative. You would think working in a creative field, that perhaps that part of my brain would be active all the time, but it isn't. Certain arrangements require that you follow a recipe, while a smaller percentage are designer's choice. It's much easier to follow a recipe, but it is very liberating (and sometimes scary) to make something with very few guidelines or rules. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and have to start over. It also helps to be in a good mood. Happiness is much more conducive to making happy arrangements. I believe I was happy the day I made these because I worked with Molly and Mallory, or as I called us that day, the dream team (cheesy hashbrowns, fruit salad, and yummy orange juice also helped).

The color scheme for this upcoming event is green and gray with a lot of texture. Most likely it will include mixing and matching the various green arrangements. Keep an eye out for the final products in October!

Enjoy.

ball of green trick dianthus, kermits, a few succulents, and hanging green amaranthus.

two small cubes of horsetail, one larger vase of green carnations, dianthus, spiders, amranthus, etc.

zen-inspired.

Plants vs. Zombies!

Unfortunately, we do not sell zombies, but sometimes we employ them. Some of us are obsessed with them. Sometimes, I am one. What we do have for sale are plants, plants, and more plants! About once every two weeks (maybe more, maybe less), Mari orders plants from our local greenhouse, Vickery Greenhouse. Either we will have them delivered to our shop, or Chance, our morning delivery driver, will go pick them up (and quite possibly buy plants for his own home while he's there).

It's usually a pretty chaotic day when the plants arrive, especially if we order a lot. The floors of the design area become covered with lovely growing green things, which we have to try and not run into as we answer the phones:

love that hisbiscus bloom.

Plant day usually ends up taking up an entire morning (or afternoon), with at least two people working on getting the plants ready to go out for sale. The day this shipment came in, Mari made some lovely mixed plant boxes with this crazy mess:

random 4 inch plants.

a very messy design table.

Mari turned all of those plants into this:

Mixed Plant Box.

If you like the look of the Mixed Plant Box, you better get it while we still have it. We are very close to being out of those patina containers. No, this is not a sales gimmick, we are seriously going to be out of that container forever (finally!). In case you were wondering, you can find all of the plants we currently have for sale here, and just to answer your question: Yes, we only sell house plants (so please, do not plant these outside). The grass here is sad and dead, the least you can do is try and bring a little life back into your life, and a little green into your kitchen.

Make Your Romance Gentle.

Ever wonder what actually goes into making a floral arrangement? I hope your answer is "yes," otherwise the rest of this post is going to bore you (and I don't want that)! The majority of my day is spent arranging and designing wonderful flower arrangements. This usually means standing in the corner at a table for 8 hours a day, walking in and out of the cooler multiple times an hour, or pausing a moment to tweet a photo of a floral arrangement I just created, until I'm finally lucky enough to take a break in the office to write a blog about how awesome Ben White Florist is. This is obviously one of those times.

Gentle Romance is one of the first custom arrangements Mari ever created for our website. Mini green hydrangea, stargazer lilies, and an assortment of greenery make up an arrangement anyone would love! In an effort to be more of a custom, local-products only kind of shop, we have been making tons of custom arrangements for sale on our website over the last several years. This is how we do it (this is how we do it, it's Friday night...yea).

To begin: Get your supplies ready! Vase, water, clippers, knife, greens; all necessary tools in the realm of floral design.

knife, clippers, vase, greens.

The next step is to green the vase using a variety of greenery. If you're a pro, this should take about 30 seconds:

Viola! Lemon leaf, myrtle, seeded eucalyptus.

Wow, that was fast! Now comes the trickier part: arranging the flowers in the vase you just greened. Because this is a BWF-created design, it actually has a recipe in our amazing Ben White Florist recipe book. It's a cookbook for flowers. In this case, I am using three mini green hydrangea and three stargazer lilies.

Gentle Romance!

Lovely.

Chill Your Sweat (It's Cooler Time!)

We all know that it is hot outside, but it is really really hot outside. The AC can barely keep up with the demands of the intense Texas sun and the massive high pressure system that will just not leave the state! Seriously, I was a little embarrassed at my electric bill this month. Anytime I walk into an air-conditioned space these days, it's like the long-forgotten chilled air washes away any haunting memories I have of this, the 40th something day of triple digit heat. Then, I open the door that leads me back into reality and I remember: the humidity of drought once again fills my lungs and I no longer breathe a sigh of relief.

But then I get to work and my spirits are lifted because she is there, in all her cold glory, this little (big) baby:

the entrance to the air (and flowers) of your dreams.

The walk-in cooler here at Ben White Florist is pretty awesome. She doesn't have a name, but I'm inclined to call her Big Bertha. Bertha was my van's name, and she was big, too (however, the cooler runs much better than my van ever did). She was installed several years ago during one fateful Valentine's Day week as I am told, and has really changed how a customer (that's you) gets to pick out his/her flowers. Instead of keeping the majority of our flowers in the back (like the olden days), out of sight, out of reach, we keep all of our flowers in the front cooler for everyone to see (and touch and smell and play).

A chill, 43 degrees of awesome.

An insider's view.

This cooler is the only cooler I have ever known, but I can only imagine (from stories and my brain) how it used to be, because it is still how many florists are. A small cooler with a few arrangements here or there, but not quite as customer-friendly. Perhaps a little something like this:

Having such a large cooler allows our customers to walk in, look around, and physically grab whatever flowers they want, with or without our help. It's definitely a more hands-on experience, which I think is pretty cool (and hopefully our customers do, too). Plus, it's 43 degrees inside, which is excellent in the summer and quite a relief for anyone who has just come in from the 100+ degree outside world. So, come visit us, if only to chill out in our cooler and buy a single stem of something or another. You'll be happy you did. She (the cooler) will thank you for it.

"Thank you!"

How the Heck do I order flowers?!

Wanting to order flowers in the near future and not quite sure how to do it? It's super easy! With our easy-to-navigate website and super awesome customer service representatives, it should be a no-hassle ordering experience.

Step 1: Take a look at the arrangements on our website and try and find something you like. This makes it easier for you to see what we have in stock while also making it easier for us so we don't have to take a lot of time out of each other's day.

Step 2: Order online. If you choose to order online, your order will come through to our shop and we design and deliver it for you on the specified day! You'll also receive an e-mail delivery confirmation once your order has been delivered.

Step 3 (or another Step 2): Call our shop to place your order at 512.447.3577 (or 1.800.538.3139). If you choose to do this step, there are several things you should have ready or keep in mind before you place your order: the address of the person you are sending this to, what you'd like the card message to say, and an idea of what you'd like to order. Is it for a birthday, anniversary, funeral? We have several categories on our website to look through, and if you can't find something you like we'd be happy to arrange for you a custom design or designer's choice.

Step 4: Relax and let us take care of your floral needs.

Look how easy it is!

For Reals, Yo. University of Texas Inspired Design.

Welcome back! As you may have read earlier, the computer got the best of me yesterday and I (or it, the jury is still out on who is actually responsible) deleted half of my blog posting. The whole "University of Texas Inspired Design" thing that I actually titled the blog was nowhere to be found. No worries, however, because you are about to feast your eyes of some beauties.

Last year, around this time, but more like a month from now, our shop became a little busier with the hustle and bustle of faraway parents ordering flowers for their off-to-college students. It was quite a pleasant surprise, but one that we hadn't really prepared for. After many questions along the lines of, "Do you have any UT arrangements," with us answering, "Um, no, but we could make something in orange and white," we finally decided to get inspired by orange and white and create a few arrangements (something in every price range, of course).

Eyes of Texas, Mallory's first published website creation, hooray!

Longhorn Chic, a classic cube design of bright oranges.

Hook 'em (Horns!), a super cutie.

While those aren't the only orange and white designs we have to offer, they are definitely lovely ones. If you are looking for something not quite so UT-related, we have a wonderful summer collection on our website. However, if you are feeling that Longhorn pride, we also sell these (made by awesome Lammes Candies, a local company):

yummy.

On a side note, my sister bought me flowers once while I was in college. I must say, it was a lovely break from the fits of excitement and crazed panic that typically surround incoming freshman, or fifth-year seniors. Think about that the next time you are helping your student move into their smelly college dorm or apartment and imagine how lovely flowers would look in it!

Lammes Candies!
Love a Longhorn? Buy them flowers!

University of Texas Inspired Design. I Miss Backpacks.

Well, it's not quite that time of year again, but almost. It seems that as soon as the kids are released for summer vacation, it's time to start thinking about back-to-school. As if I would know, I don't even have kids, but I see the commercials already advertising backpacks. I was a kid once. I wore backpacks. Just today, Mallory and I were talking about how awesome it used to be when we went back-to-school shopping, which was just an excuse for new clothes and backpacks. Apparently, she used that excuse until her early 20s, claiming she needed back-to-school clothes for college. Uh-huh. If only I had someone to take me shopping, but alas, we are adults now. If I wasn't an adult, I would so beg for this backpack.

MooOOm, can I have this, please?

Okay, so in a fit of panic to publish the post before I left work today, I apparently deleted half of it. Whoopsie daisies. So, if you are reading this now, you're probably wondering what the heck I was talking about when I titled the post "University of Texas Inspired Design." Don't worry, you'll find out tomorrow and the designs will knock your socks off!

Oh, the Crunchy Grass of Texas.

It's hot. Not hot, HOT. We're talking 100 degree days with no rain in I can't even remember when. Hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of dead grass under your feet, feel the sticky burrs poking your toes, and the stifling breeze of hot air blowing your sweaty hair about. I'm surprised that anything can grow in this heat, especially the beautiful possibilities that we use for everyday floral arrangements. We are currently in a state of intense heat (and drought), the kind that forces one to think twice before stepping outside (and sometimes, you don't even have to think once). When you have flowers at home that are burnt to a crisp if you forget to pour buckets of water on them, it makes you appreciate the lively flowers we receive in our shop throughout the week, especially the ones grown locally. Despite this early onset heat (it's not even summer yet), we have been receiving beautiful Texas-grown flowers from our local growers, Texas Specialty Cuts and Waller Gardens. Beautiful sunflowers, celosia, coxcomb, scabiosa, gomphrena, gerberas, etc. in a lovely array of summertime hues:

 

mini gerberas, gomphrena, scabiosa

mini gerbera daisies in pinks and oranges.

strawberry gomphrena and black knight scabiosa.

Not only have we been receiving such beauty, but we have also been creating beauty with them also. A couple weeks ago I created several new Texas-grown arrangements for our website, including a few with bright yellow asiatic lilies. Because the flowers from our Texas growers can easily vary from week to week, it can be difficult to have an inventory of various Texas-grown arrangements. Designing new arrangements and figuring out how to better sell our Texas-grown flowers is something we are definitely trying to work on this season because we really want to highlight Texas and sell our locally-grown product! Being season-specific is kind of a new idea for us, but we're starting to be more adept at changing with the seasons, so to speak. Just check out our website, we now have a Summer Collection!

Mellow Yellow: Texas lilies and filler.

Texas Garden Vase

Bright and beautiful! On an end note, we hired a new employee, Lindsay from C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I Cincinnati (Babes in Toyland, anyone?)! Oh, and the ladies of Ben White Florist are finally getting new T-shirts that are very female-friendly (we all remember the shirts of yesteryear and how they fit, or should I say, didn't fit). It's nice when one of the employees knows a freaking cool screenprinter. Hopefully, we will be sporting those beauties by next week. Also, check out out new Meet the Crew section on our website with updated photos and everything. It's pretty great.

Also, Molly was featured in The Austin American Statesman, yay! Isn't she a cutie?

Peonies, Sunflowers, and Springtime Sunshine

Mother's Day came and went and I've neglected this blog far too long. First of all, I cannot believe the end of May is quickly approaching (cliche, I know, but really, what happened to spring?). Secondly, Mother's Day week was great! Once again, better than the previous year (just like Valentine's Day), leaving us all a bit more tired than the year before). It seemed that from Valentine's Day to Mother's Day, we were all working in overdrive with no time to rest between the biggest holidays of the year! Now, it's time to focus on the summer.

Lately, we have been receiving some beautiful shipments of peonies and they have literally been flying out the door! On the day they arrived, Mari and I made three new peony arrangements which turned out beautiful and we sold quite a few of them! They were up for sale on our website the same day we created them, which made us feel pretty awesome (Thanks to Jess and Mari).

Beautiful pink peonies!

Today, we received our first shipment of Texas-grown flowers from Texas Specialty Cuts! Due to the crazy wet (and freezing) weather they had this spring in the Hill Country, the flowers bloomed late. It was pretty exciting today, watching the delivery driver carry in buckets and buckets of colorful, beautiful, locally-grown flowers. If you're in the market for a local arrangement, check out the Texas ones on the website (here).

Clasping Cone Flower from Texas Specialty Cuts.

Mari has spent a considerable amount of time out in our yard growing some beautiful sunflowers that are just beginning to open. They look great in the yard and now we can start using them in arrangements. We did this last year, but not in such an organized fashion. The sunflowers that are blooming look absolutely gorgeous.

Sunflower bed in the yard.

Sunflowers grown in our very own backyard!

(By the way, Mallory was promoted to floral designer after Valentine's Day! We are all so proud of her!)

D-Day V-Day

Exhaustion. An adequate word to describe the complete lack-of-anything feeling after Valentine's Day (or should I say numbness?). I meant to blog about this last week, but alas, my poor nubby fingers were too bent and broken to even fathom of typing anything, and my brain was so delirious, I doubt anything would've made sense. It's even somewhat difficult to retain enough focus to try and be clever enough to keep you interested.

You know it's the dawn of Valentine's pain once you see the massive semi trailer sitting pretty in our parking lot. Yes, we have a refrigerated trailer all week in our parking lot to store flowers and arrangements because our inside coolers simply aren't large enough to handle everything.

inside the V-Day truck

Valentine's Day. The day of all days. The Christmas of florists. I am not quite sure that anyone outside of the floral industry really understands just how much time and energy goes into the magic of what is Valentine's Day. It's not just one day, but at least two weeks (if not more) of constant working, thinking, standing, and if you're lucky, a little bit of crying. However, it takes several months of planning, ordering, discussing, and creating before February even arrives. As soon as the Christmas season is over, we have Valentine's on the mind and luckily for everyone, business was up this year.

Because Valentine's Day fell on a Monday, Ben White Florist was open for two weeks without a weekend break. The bulk of our deliveries fell on Monday (we beat last year's record), but we still had quite a few deliveries to make Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday. It was crazy, and needless to say, we were all exhausted before we even hit the weekend, which was spent chugging down caffeine like crazy lunatics on very little sleep and eating these:

Mallory made these yummy chocolate chip cookie-covered oreos.

Good news this year, though! Because of our awesomeness, we were interviewed by the Austin American-Statesmen and visited by two news stations! The face of our morning delivery driver, Chance, made the newspaper:

 And Molly was interviewed by the local news:

All in all, I think we had a great Valentine's this year. Our team was amazing and everyone worked very well together to create a smooth holiday with no arguments! I'm sure beer/wine helped, but if you were working like crazy in an extreme environment, you might have a frosty beverage, also.

If you'd like to view our news interviews, please visit the following links:
Fox News Austin
YNN News Austin

Parrots Get Freaky, Freaky

If you are like me, then you must be a pretty big tulip fan. Tulips enjoy a great personality. They are playful, flirtatious, crazy, and they have beautiful blooms with stems that grow in funky ways once placed into a vase of fresh water. Every January, the shop gets pretty excited about our weekly shipment of Holland tulips because we only get them for a few months out of the year (January to early May). However, while regular tulips are great, parrot tulips are something a bit more unique. I currently have about two bunches in a large vase at home sitting on my organ bench and they look amazing! The blooms of parrot tulips are about two to three times the size of a regular tulip bloom and unlike the smooth bloom of a regular tulip, parrot tulips are typically classified by feathered, curled, or twisted petals:

this is how we sell parrot tulips: $19.99 a bunch.

orange blooms of parrot tulips.

At first, parrot tulips lure you in with their seductive colors and twisted petals, but the fun really begins to happen once you get them home. As we store all of our tulips in a cooler (measuring around 44 degrees F), tulip blooms do not usually open until they are purchased, taken home, and placed in warm water. With a typical shelf life of about 5-7 days, tulips do all kinds of crazy things once they are placed in water. Not only do their beautiful blooms open, but tulip stems continue to grow even after they have been cut from the fields of Holland. If you are thinking about purchasing parrot tulips and are wondering what they look like as they open, just ask! We typically have some in a vase sitting around the shop for your viewing pleasure:

top view of parrot song.

By the way, if you are interested in buying an arrangement of parrot tulips, Mari created Parrot Song  for your enjoyment and it is very lovely. Don't forget that Valentine's Day is just around the corner...

Give Me Ginger, Keep Your MaryAnn.

It's a new year and things are changing at Ben White Florist in a most excellent and positive direction. We're getting personal. Did I ever tell you about that time [insert life-changing moment here]? Well, perhaps not quite that personal, however, the blog is being revamped into something that is both informative (hooray for knowledge!) and intimate with a portal into the activities of Ben White Florist, the flower shop (complete with photographs). Pictures are fun. Here's one:

Grevillea johnsonii, native to Australia, arrived last week

During the past few weeks, two of our totally awesome designers (Mari and myself) have been working to create a beautiful assortment of new and updated floral arrangements for purchase on our website. Standing at a design table trying to be creative all day is not quite as easy as it sounds. Sometimes it can be an inspiring and joyful experience with your brain and artsy know-how popping out of your fingertips, and sometimes all that comes out of your withered flat nubs is a few sticks of crap in a vase and a big fat mess all over the table. Fortunately, it was mostly the former this time around, although I definitely remember a few crappy arrangements that made me question my sanity. There are plenty of photographs of the winners in our custom designs section on our website (check out the tulips, kale, and ginger, yum). Prepare yourself to be utterly amazed by our genius. (By the way, these photos would never exist if it wasn't for Mari's brilliant photography and editing, and Jessica's amazing descriptions and website work. Of course, if we didn't have such an amazing staff who were willing to work a little harder the days Mari and I spent forever designing, we wouldn't have anything to show for ourselves!)

Not only is this new and improved blog going to be a place to showcase what is going on in the shop, but it will also be a place to show pretty photos of what fun and interesting flowers we are getting in each week and the beautiful arrangements we create with such beauty. Lately, we have been getting in beautiful stems of Red Ginger:

We've included red ginger in two new BWF arrangements: Euphoria and Foxy Ginger.

By the way, if you are wondering who any of the crazy people are that I mention by name, they can be found in our Meet the Crew section on our website. Their awesomeness will probably freak you out.