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...