Happy Birthday Pia!

Yesterday, Pia was The Flower Pot's Birthday Girl, and we celebrated with an amazing chocolate coconut cake! It's not the same cake that we ate, but this one looks sooo good, I just had to share it with you.

The Honest Cooking Food Magazine says, "there is something dark and mysterious about this cake, and the coconut blends perfectly to create a symphony of taste." Sounds great, right? Get the recipe here!

 If you're vegan, we haven't forgotten you: some of us here at The Flower Pot are vegan too. Here's great blog post with a lovely recipe for vegan chocolate coconut cake at the end.

Any dieters in our midst? Here's an idea for you. The Flower Pot has a gorgeous cake made of flowers that would make a great birthday centerpiece. For extra excitement, you can get one that includes sparklers.

Now that you have a recipe for a perfectly chocolatey and gooey birthday cake, we've got a couple birthday gifts you might want to grab for your own birthday girl or boy.

Daisy the flower poodle will definitely draw smiles all around or a custom birthday mug for, girls, boys, or both might be what you're looking for. Add a personal message to make it really special.

If you have already purchased a gift but are hoping to add something more, we are still offering six beautiful red roses for $19.95.

As always, your friendly neighborhood Montreal florist is here for every occasion. Stop by our Griffintown flower shop at 1340 Notre Dame Ouest to check out our gift options, visit our website to order online, or call us at 514-938-1234 so we can give you more gift ideas!

Sing to your flowers

For a while there has been some debate as to what type of music should be playing in our store. We've been listening to some lovely classical music, but Herbert is looking to update the cliché flower shop music.

There's a reason florists play classical sounds for their flowers. According to a 1973 research project described on ehow.com,  plants get sick and tiny when exposed to rock music, but plants that listen to classical or jazz music grow well and turn toward the music as they would turn to sunlight.

According to that same study, there's also a link between the amount of music listened and the health of the plant. Those that are exposed to music for three hours every day grow better than those that aren't. The ones for which music is played during eight hours a day died within two weeks!

Given that jazz is also a viable option that will make our plants flourish, here is an online radio station that play other equally soothing musical styles.

Fip Radio is a French radio station that plays tons of jazz, some soul, some funk, some folk rock, and chansons françaises.

We think the diversity is good for us and for the plants. Who doesn't need a little shaking up now and then?

 

Stop by our store at 1340 Notre Dame Ouest to listen with us, visit our website, or call 514-938-1234 so we can help you find a musically enhanced flower for yourself or someone else.

Love is in the air

If you think romance is only for Valentine's Day, you're wrong. Your lady-love or prince charming will always enjoy a little show of appreciation and affection, no matter what time of year it is.

The Flower Pot is here for you now as always! This week we have the quintessential love flower: ROSES, ROSES, ROSES. The muse of artists from Pierre-Joseph Redouté to Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Six stunning and fragrant red roses for $19.95. Can't stomach that much drama at this time of the year? Your friendly Montreal florist located in Griffintown has other quirky and cute gifts that could be just what you're looking for.

Stop by our store at 1340 Notre Dame Ouest, visit our website, or call 514-938-1234 so we can help you out!

Flower Power DIY

Times have been hard for some people for the past couple of years. One of our favourite things here at The Flower Pot is to find neat DIY projects that are fun and could save you money. Of course, if there are flowers in the creative process, we like it even better!

This summer the bugs have been biting incessantly so we found you a lovely DIY beeswax bug repellant candle project. The environment is on everyone's mind nowadays and it's important to monitor our carbon footprint. Beeswax is a renewable source of energy and has a high burning temperature and therefore burns more slowly. In using beeswax instead of spray bug repellant you're doing your share to protect the flowers and plants in the world.

Make this a recurring project: get cheap bowls, measuring cups, and pots from Dollarama. Using separate tools will also help to make cleanup less of an issue.

While the environment is up there in our list of worries, our own health is too. It's hard to know what exactly goes into your food, or any of the products you use for that matter. Organic products are also much more expensive than normal ones. There's no way to win! Or is there?

The Flower Pot has found various DIY soap recipes. This one shows the different processes by which you can make soap. This way you can chose the one that suits you best. We told you we think it's best when there are flowers in the creative process: this page talks about the Calendula flower or Pot Marigold which apparently is the only flower that keeps its colour through the soap making process.

Marigolds aren't ideal for pretty bouquets or vases like the ones we offer, but according to herbwisdom.com it has many medicinal uses which would make it a good addition to any soap.  Traditionally, it has been used to treat conjunctivitis, blepharitis, eczema, gastritis, minor burns including sunburns, warts, and minor injuries such as sprains and wounds. Apparently, Calendula contains chemicals, which have been shown in animal studies to speed up wound-healing by several actions that include increasing blood flow to the affected area and promoting the production of collagen proteins. Calendula also possesses anti-septic and anti-inflammatory effects due to its flavonoid content.

Why not kill two bugs with the same stone? Just like the citronella in the candles, marigolds are great for repelling insects. Add some citronella essential oil to your marigold soap to give it extra mosquito repelling power for those hot summer nights!

We don't have to tell you that any one of these DIY projects would make an excellent gift. But if you're out of time, The Flower Pot can definitely help you out! Come by your friendly Montreal Florist store located in Griffintown, visit our website, or call us 514-938-1234 for some awesome gift ideas.

Wedding Flowers Part 5: Something (out of) the Blue

On a Thursday afternoon a young couple walked into the store out of the blue. They had found us online and were looking for flowers for a wedding … in two days! Usually our florists book a consultation anywhere from six months to a year in advance of the wedding date. Two days in advance? Most unusual. Were we up for it? Of course.

Our head florist sat down with the couple, Jing Yu Wang and Peng Fei Wu, and the groom’s parents and asked some basic questions to get the ball rolling. What is the dress like? Who is in the wedding party? The dress was to be short and “poufy” and the gathering was to be small and simple: just a few close friends and relatives.

To find out more about the Jing’s taste, we offered her a book with some sample bouquets and went to look at some ideas from the wedding section of The Flower Pot’s website. While the bride liked what she saw, we were still waiting for that “a-ha moment” – the moment when she would see the flowers that just felt right. For inspiration, we decided to go behind the scenes and brought the bride back to the work area to see what flowers were in stock. In the fridge we had some beautiful miniature pink calla lilies. As soon as she saw them, Jing knew that she had found her wedding bouquet.

The natural choice for Peng’s boutonnière was a coordinating calla lily. The groom’s mother wanted a colourful corsage, so we found a Cézanne rose with bursts of red and white, along with some decorative statis, which everyone agreed was just the thing. The red then worked into the red roses chosen for the best man’s boutonnière and a cousin’s corsage. And for the maid of honour’s corsage they went with a large cymbidium orchid wristlet.
The flowers were booked that Thursday afternoon and delivered early Saturday for the ceremony. It was surely a whirlwind, but then again, we like to be kept on our toes.