Magnetic Boutonniere For Senior Prom In Sonoma County

Hi, I'm Julie Klingaman with Grohe Florists in Rohnert Park, CA. Today I'm going to show you how to make a boutonniere with a magnet. The reason I like magnets so much is because it saves a lot of time, and possibly embarrassment and frustration from trying to pin on a boutonniere. The magnet is really strong and holds a boutonniere up very easily.

What you'll need is the magnet, they're also called boutonniere pin magnets. I still like to use the wire to make the flower secure on there, so you need a 22 or 24-gauge wire. You'll need floral tape, clippers, and then whichever flower you choose to use today. I'm going to use a calla lily and I'm going to use a foliage called Dusty Miller. I'm going to use, as my filler, I'm going to use a hypericum berry.

The first thing that you need to do is to take your magnet and measure your flower. And I like to put the magnet about at the base of the flower. Then I cut my flower stem right at the base of the boutonniere stem too, so they match up. Not everybody still uses a wire, but I like to, just for that extra security.

I put the wire through, and fold it in half, and then I stem tape it. And the stem tape, it's not sticky when it's just like this. So, to make it sticky you have to kind of pull, while you wrap it. So, you're going to pull and spin, all the way, you don't have to go all the way down. I go at least to the bottom of where I cut the flower. So about right there, and just pull it right off. I am going to attach my foliage, my dusty miller, and I'm going to put it on the back of the flower. With calla lilies, it's really easy because you know where the back of the flower is, it's pretty simple to tell. With some flowers it's a little bit harder, so you kind of have to turn it around to find where you think the front of the flower and the back of the flower is. And put your greenery on the back, and maybe off to the side, or whichever greenery you choose, how it looks best. So, I chose to put the dusty miller on the back and then just a little side fringe kind of coming off.

Then I trim that, and I'm going to trim a couple of the berries here. Then I will choose to put a couple berries at the base of my calla lily, like so. You can determine, just as you're doing it. It's a piece of art so you get to choose how much filler, greenery, flowers you want to put on your boutonniere. Then I'm just going to again, pull and wrap all the way down, again. Once you are done with that, you're pretty much done. Now with the magnet, I'm going to attach that, and again, it's just the same as I've been doing with the greenery and the filler. You just make sure that you put the back of the magnet on the back of the flower. Take it and stem wrap it right to the magnet. Now, it's securely attached and I'm going to use my clippers to clip off this excess wire, that I had on the bottom. Kind of push the green tape up along the bottom so it's got a nice, smooth finish.

Okay, so now it is very securely set onto the magnet and it will fit on any type of jacket or lapel. I'm putting this on my vest and see how it sits on here very securely.

I hope this video helps you the next time you're making boutonnieres or corsages for a special event.

Buying Long-Stem Rose Tips: Difference in Length

I'm Julie Klingaman with Grohe Florist. And June is National Rose Month, so I thought what better day than today to tell you about the difference of rose lengths. The typical length of a long-stem rose is 50 centimeter, which is this white rose right here. The next step up is a 60 centimeter rose which is called an "extra-fancy rose." Then there's the 70 centimeter rose which is called an "elite-rose length," Most florists will use a 60 or 70 for the dozen roses that they send out, which is a reason why you pay more when you go to a florist to get your dozen roses.

When you see the 50 centimeter and 40 centimeters tend to be less expensive. The rose heads also tend to be a little bit smaller. Now, this is not necessarily always true, because domestically grown roses don't always have as big of a rose head as some of the imported roses. But you should really think about how you're helping your local economy when you buy a domestic rose over a imported rose.

Another factor to consider when you're purchasing roses is that, just because a rose looks open, doesn't mean that it's necessarily old. Sometimes, the way that they grow roses is for them to give that open show, but they'll hold and last for a long time. So the best thing to do when you're shopping for roses, and if you're really there to be hands on, is to feel the bud and to feel how firm it feels. Make sure that it doesn't squish when you do it. So like you can see on this rose, I don't know if you can see on camera, how when I squeeze it, my thumb kinda imprints in it, this rose is not going to last as long as these three up here, and these three were all a lot more firm.

I hope that this information will help you when you're selecting roses the next time you're shopping at your local florist. Thank you, and have a great day.