Monday, March 16, 2015

Easter Lilies, Some History From Grohe


Hi, I'm Julie Klingaman with Grohe Florist in Rohnert Park. For many of us, Easter evokes memories of egg decorating, gift baskets, chocolate bunnies, local church services, family gatherings, and the Easter lily. I began wondering how and why the Easter lily is associated with this holiday. I'm going to share with you what I found out about this beautiful trumpet-shaped fragrant blossom.

They symbolize purity, hope, and life, and the spiritual essence of Easter and all the promises of spring. Easter lilies are given along with Easter gifts, and they happen to be one of America's largest potted plant crops, and one of America's favorite blooming plants. The Easter lily is found in history, mythology and art, with stories and images that speak of the beauty and majesty of these elegant white flowers.

They're often called the white-robed apostles of hope. Lilies are said to have been found growing in the garden of Gethsemane after Christ's agony. At Easter time, churches bank their altars and surround their crosses with masses of Easter lilies to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and hope of life everlasting. The pure white lily has long been associated with womanhood too. In early paintings, the Angel Gabriel is depicted extending a branch of pure white lilies to the Virgin Mary announcing that she was chosen to be the mother of the Christ child. In other paintings, saints are pictured bringing vases full of white lilies to Mary and the baby Jesus. Tradition has it that when Eve left the garden of Eden, she shed real tears of repentance, and from those remorseful tears sprung up lilies.

The Easter lily has been a mark of purity and grace throughout the ages. The regal white lily is a fitting symbol of greater meaning of Easter. Gracing millions of homes and churches, the flowers embody joy, hope, and life. Whether given as a gift or to be enjoyed in your own home, the Easter lily serves as a beautiful reminder that Easter is a time for rejoicing and celebrating. So when you give Easter baskets to your family, don't stop with the decorated eggs and chocolate rabbits, include a few Easter lilies.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

How To Make A Centerpiece For Easter


Hi, my name is Julie Klingaman from Grohe Florists in Rohnert Park. Today, I'm going to demonstrate how to make an Easter centerpiece. Whether it's for brunch, lunch, or dinner, this centerpiece will definitely brighten your table.

First, I chose two different size containers. I have a four by four cube and a six by six cube. I chose a cube because they're low and for a centerpiece you want to make sure to keep it low. I also have a small piece of Styrofoam. If you don't have a piece of Styrofoam, you can find something else that will give you a little bit of lift because you want to be able to put your smaller cube within the larger cube and have it close to the lip of the vase, so that your flowers aren't set too deep in there. 'Cause next, what I'm going to do is I got a bag of jelly beans and I'm going to just fill in the jelly beans around my vase. You've got to keep doing it until you get all the way up to the top.

It looks like I'm probably going to need at least three to four bags of jelly beans. Okay, I chose... You can choose really any type of flower that you'd like to do but I chose tulips because they're a good reminder of spring. And most tulips come in bunches of 10, so I have about 20 tulips here right now, and I'm going to put them... I'm going to cut them and I'm going to stick them down into the vase.

With tulips, a good reason to use them is, you don't really have to design them, they kind of just do their own thing. So, all you have to do is kind of measure the height of the vase, and remember that your vase is shorter in here, so you kind of have to keep that in mind. Then I'm just going to use my clippers and trim this, and I'm not even going to peel back very much of the greenery. I'm going to try to leave it 'cause it's going to help keep all the flowers in place. Then all you have to do is place them in your cube and then from there, you can kind of adjust them a little bit. But that's the fun thing about tulips is they are going to look a little wild and tomorrow when you wake up, they're going to be in a different direction, so you don't have to take too much time fussing with them 'cause they're going to do their own thing. There you go, a fun Easter centerpiece.

Now, if you don't like the crazy wildness of tulips, you can do something like hydrangeas, and they'll make a nice round look over it or roses and what you can do with roses is design them first in your hand to make a nice round shape and put a twist tie around them and then just trim down the edges and just like we did with the tulips, and set it right it. Thank you and I hope you enjoy your own Easter centerpiece.