Home / Sun Valley
Showing posts with label Sun Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sun Valley. Show all posts

Nov 17, 2011

I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas





It starts with a few carols chiming from department stores at the mall in October. By mid-November, it infiltrates every fifth song or so on your favorite radio station. Soon you find yourself decked out in a reindeer sweater, drinking eggnog and wholeheartedly belting out "Let it Snow!" with your great aunt and third cousins while your sister plays harmony on the piano. The Christmas season is nearly here, and it always seems that music is the first indicator that it's on its way.

Unless, of course, you work in the floral industry.

For us flower folks, Christmas planning starts way back in July. (Click here for my "Christmas in July" post.) While kids do cannonballs off the high dive and their parents cook entire meals on the grill, flower professionals thumb through Christmas planners in trade publications and begin selecting their greens for the coming holiday. At Sun Valley, Debbie the Greens Guru takes prebooks and begins prepping her picking team. It takes a lot of planning on every end of the floral industry for a holiday of this magnitude!

Now that Christmas music is starting to work its way into daily radio rotations, what is happening in the Sun Valley world of Christmas greens?

Debbie gave me some hands-on experience to help me understand...


Debbie demonstrates the proper way to trim Pine








I give it a go...








Scales in each work station measure two pound bunches of entirely
usable greens - these are a great value!








My finished bunches (I think the guy next to me had twice as many!)










Some two pound tips bunches end up in 12 pack assorted boxes like
 this one, which Debbie calls a "Splash of Christmas." This box includes
Noble, Silver and Douglas Fir, Princess Pine, Juniper and Cedar.















There is a whole section of our Arcata farm Warehouse devoted to processing holiday greens. I'd argue that there are not many places as delightfully aromatic as this department (except for maybe near the Willow Creek rose bushes in the summer)! This is where team members create two pound greens bunches, assemble boxed bales and bulk bales, and prepare greens for other departments to use in Christmas Greens Enhanced Bunches.

This is one thing that truly sets Sun Valley's Christmas greens department apart from others - the ability to pair our flowers and/or berries (like Ilex) with the greens in house. These enhanced bunches truly evoke the feeling of Christmas, but don't take my word for it. See for yourself!


One of our "Fill Your Buckets" ads, featuring Tulips with Cedar and Orientals with Fir!
 While Debbie showed me the tricks and trades of the greens department, she shared a little more insight into the greens industry as well. This season has been a particularly tough one for the whole industry, as a lack of labor force has made it difficult to get product.

Despite the shortage, Sun Valley is stocked with plenty of the three core Christmas greens, which Debbie called the "backbone" of Christmas (you might remember them from my first post): Cedar, Douglas Fir and Pine. To complete Christmas, as Debbie put it, we also have rarer greens like Silver Fir, Noble Fir and Juniper on hand. And those who didn't spend their summers planning out their Christmas lists (or those who didn't plan for enough) will be pleased to find that Debbie's greens team will still be able to fill those just in time, last minute greens orders.

Shortage schmortage!
 
Clockwise from upper left: Port Orford Cedar, Douglas Fir and Princess Pine
Next time you hear "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" crooning over the radio, perhaps you'll remember to book your Christmas greens so all your customers' Christmases will be green.

Make sure you check out our resource pages to learn more about our Christmas Greens Enhanced bunches by clicking here. http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_HolidayTulipsECB.pdf

Nov 12, 2011

Thank You

Today, I want to keep this simple and say THANK YOU to all of our U.S. Veterans for your service, on behalf of the entire Sun Valley Team. You're true American heroes.


A C-130 cargo plane from my previous unit (Illinois Air National Guard)
takes off for Afghanistan.

Also, please check out J Schwanke's blog. Today it features a great guest post from J's Dad, a U.S. Marine during WWII. Here is the link: http://networkedblogs.com/pP9pS

Nov 5, 2011

The light at the end of the tunnel

This week has been a bit darker than most. Consider the course of events:

Halloween


Folks dressed as witches, ghosts and goblins (or a sports fan if you were me - hey, I thought it was scary), haunted houses on every block, punch served out of skulls. A dark holiday indeed.

Dia de los Muertos

Skeletons on parade, celebrations in graveyards, the living emulating the dead. Although it makes light of death (and makes very good use of flores), I would still call this a dark celebration.

And then, the light at the end of the tunnel....

This "tunnel" is the  pathway through on of our coolers!


Daylight Savings Time! 

Some groan at the thought of darkness coming earlier in the night, but I bask in the impending sensation of waking up to a little sunlight! Hardly the morning person, I've been impatiently awaiting this moment since we had our first near-frost at the farm.

If you're like me and love that first whole week's feeling of "sleeping in," then I'd say you're already aware of the perks of Daylight Savings Falling Back. But who, if anyone, appreciates it at the farm?

As it turns out, there are a few people at Sun Valley who love DST almost as I do. For one, our Greenhouse picking crews, who start the day early, enjoy that extra hour of natural sunlight in the Greenhouse. Picking flowers in the Greenhouse or anywhere is a lot easier when you can see them!

Speaking of the Greenhouses, there's one major perk that I'm reminded of when we Fall Back on our clocks: Once that NorCal winter weather starts coming in - ahem, rain - our team has rows upon rows of balmy Greenhouses to stroll through in order to escape the torrential downpours. We had a few readers over the past couple weeks say they'd love a job that allows them to walk through our beautiful farms (inspired in part by these posts: click here and here). Well, when it's raining, you'd certainly love our Greenhouses!

To illustrate what I'm talking about, these are a few images I took today whilst walking the Arcata farm...
 
Since it was sunny and didn't quite capture the "torrential downpours"
that I wrote about, I thought I'd show you a picture of one of the many
puddles that remind us of yesterday's rain. Look closely, you can see
a reflection of the Greenhouses in the puddle!

A row of Greenhouses

Seedlings that will become the rich burgundy Sumatra Lilies


Orientals nearly ready for harvest


Tulip pickers


A full load of Tulips ready to be graded

Freshly steamed soil. Because we reuse our soil, we steam it in
order to remove unwanted pathogens and weed seeds. 
Aside from the picking team, there are a few others who get an extra pep in their step from the time change: 1) The Farmers. Although they have to be somewhat hardened to the elements, I'm sure our farmers enjoy the extra warmth from the sun first thing in the morning. 2) The Sales Team. Your helpful Sales reps are here dark and early each day so they can help you out, whether you're down the street or on the other side of the country. After Sunday, that'll be bright and early! 3) Anyone else with an early morning start. You get the idea.

I could go on more about why Daylight Savings Time is great, but I have a feeling I'd start talking in circles. Enjoy that extra hour of sleep on Monday!

If you've got anything to add to my one-sided conversation on DST, please share it in the comments below!


Oct 7, 2011

Sun Valley's Top 3 Fall Colors


As the air gets a bit crisper, leaves crunch under our feet, and (up here in Humboldt) rain pours on our heads, we can all truly feel fall setting in. You can even smell it, with scents like wood-burning stoves and apple crisp wafting through the air. But what does fall look like?

Around the Sun Valley farm, it's colorful! Although, not in a "spring colorful" sort of way - it's a bit more rustic. I guess it's just how you'd imagine fall looking!

Here are the Top 3 fall colors I've been seeing around the farm lately:

Fresh purple Cotinus
1. Deep Purple
As green foliage naturally starts to fade away with the warm weather, rich purple comes in the form of Cotinus (which I've mentioned once or twice before - click here and here to read more about it). Cotinus leaves are truly a treat for the eyes, with their tricky hints of dark green and even reddish-pink. The dark coloring of Cotinus makes it the perfect compliment to any type of fall arrangement, be it classic, contemporary or spooky!

2. Marbled!
Another crop you might have heard me mention lately is Antique Hydrangeas. (Click here for the latest Hydrangea post.) These huge mop tops are full of burgundies, greens, blues, purples and several other colors when you look up close. I suppose Antique Hydrangea is exactly what I meant by "rustic."

A bunch of marbled Antique Hydrangeas
3. Orange
Think pumpkin patches, falling leaves, candy corn... Orange is the unofficial color of the season. Naturally, we have plenty of Tulips, Love and Royal Lilies, and crops just coming in, like Ilex and Chinese Lanterns, that help put the Orange in your cornucopia!

Fresh orange Tulips, ready to ship
4. Don't forget about... I know this is a Top 3 list, but I certainly don't want to sell the rest of the fall colors short. I won't list them off, but I'll put it this way: if you can imagine a color, I'm sure we've got a flower for that.

Now you tell me: Did I leave anything out? What colors do you think should have made the top 3 list?

Sep 28, 2011

Fall is here! Shhh... don't tell the Tulips

Kees Nelis Tulip, in season now

Whether or not you're ready to put your flip flops and beach towels into storage, Fall is officially upon us. It's time to rake leaves, visit apple orchards, dress in layers, watch football, carve pumpkins, stuff turkeys... and harvest Fall Tulips, if you're part of the Sun Valley team. And it's time to write about them if you're me.

Remember when I told you about Ice Tulips a few months ago? Well, store that away with the zinc oxide. Fall Tulips are a totally different story.

Fall Tulip sprouts planted in soil,
growing in the greenhouse, Sept 28
The Fall Tulips tale is more like that of those Easter and Mother's Day favorites - Spring Tulips - just on opposite schedules. We buy the bulbs around six months before we intend to grow them, plant them in soil and store them at wintery temperatures in our coolers. When their growing season starts, we put the crates full of Tulips in soil right into the Greenhouse week by week, which allows us to do two things: control the color mix and provide a continuous supply of Tulips throughout the season. All the same as Spring Tulips.

Q: So what makes Fall Tulips different from Spring Tulips?

A: Their bulb origin.

Abba Tulips, a Fall variety
As you may already know, our Spring Tulip bulbs come from Holland. Our Fall Tulip bulbs, on the other hand, come from the opposite end of earth - New Zealand. (As it turns out, the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy isn't the only great gift the Kiwis have given us.) Using southern hemisphere bulbs allows us to grow Tulips during the North American Tulip downtime. Looking at the bigger picture, this allows us to do one of the things we do best at Sun Valley - grow Tulips year-round.


Bulbs from the Netherlands in the Northern Hemisphere (top arrow)
and New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere (bottom arrow)
allow us to grow Tulips year-round 

So, even though Fall is here with in all its crisp, fallen leaves glory, the Tulips we're growing are convinced it's Springtime.

Let's not tell 'em.


Check out the Fall Tulips we have in season now by clicking here! 

Sep 20, 2011

Lily's Fun Facts about Fall Crops

My boots didn't travel too far over the past week, so today I'm going to share a couple Fun Facts about our Fall crops (one that's educational and another that's downright cool) that I learned right here in the office.

Fun Fact #1: Did you know that the "petals" we see on the surface of Hydrangea aren't actually the blooms?

Don't let these bloom-like flowers fool you...

Hydrangea's surface flowers are actually petal-like sepal structures. The real blooms are below the flowers. If you look closely in the photo below, you can see the pistil and stamen. This is the true Hydrangea bloom.


Spreading apart Hydrangea's surface "petals," or sepals,
reveals the pistil and stamen below.

A close-up of the real Hydrangea blooms

Fun Fact #2: During certain times of the day, you might smell Maple syrup wafting through the air at Sun Valley. Unfortunately, no one's serving up pancakes around here (that I'm aware of). The scent actually comes from one of our Willow Creek Fall Crops, Cotinus, which smells strikingly similar to Maple syrup when it's cut! One of my team members discovered that one day when she cut Cotinus at her home. Talk about a pleasant surprise!


Cut some of this Cotinus, and this is what you'll smell...

Who's hungry?

So, these are the fun facts that I learned this week. The education never ends around here! Now don't go trying to put Cotinus leaves on your pancakes...


Keep following Flower Talk for more information on our Fall crops. Also, if you ever have questions or topics you'd like to learn more about, let me know in the Comments. I'm always happy to investigate new topics and share my findings!  

Sep 13, 2011

Lily's Boots: Willow Creek Part 2 - A Rosehip by any other name...


I first mentioned my trip to Willow Creek with Lane a couple months ago, when I talked about giant Cotinus (which is coming in strong right now). Today I'm ready to move on to another Willow Creek crop - Rosehips, not to be mistaken for roses (the flowers). Rosehips are the fruit produced by rose bushes - lovely berries that change colors throughout the season. The Rosehip experience proved to be another eye-opening part of my day in Willow Creek. Let me start by saying - and this will sound pretty naive - I didn't know that Rosehips came from rose bushes. Okay, laugh all you want. I'm trying to be honest here. So imagine my surprise when I first encountered that wonderful rose fragrance on that lovely day in July. Also, imagine how much I stood to learn about this crop from Lane!


Lane walks through the Willow Creek fields, with Mae Mae and Pearl close behind

The pictures above illustrate what the "Rosehips" looked like when I saw them in July - no berries at all! This was when it first dawned on me that Rosehips come from rose bushes. Now that I was on the right page, I was ready to really learn something!

The Jetsons
 As I've already mentioned, the crop smelled incredible, and it was simply delightful to be near it. It seems I wasn't the only one who thought so. Apparently, bees love this crop. So much, in fact, that Lane called the rose bushes "bee hogs." He had me stand still next to the crop and said, "If you stop and really pay attention, you can hear thousands of bees buzzing and see them flying right over the crops. It's like a freeway!" He was absolutely right. It was like watching bees re-enact the opening credits to The Jetsons.

The bees are not the only creatures who love the rose bushes, although they're probably some of the only ones who benefit them. Last year, deer ate the top growth off of a bunch of our Amazing Fantasy rose bushes. (I'm not even sure how that factored into the crop recovery rate.) I had never really considered deer a pest before that day, but I suppose that's precisely what they are when you're growing a fragrant crop. Luckily, they've left plenty of Rosehips for us this year!

Apparently, the bees and deer aren't the only woodland mountain creatures enticed by our Willow Creek crops...

 
Yes, these are bear droppings.

Bears are also occasional visitors to the farm. However, they are mostly enamoured with the berries and grapes that grow nearby, leaving Rosehips for the aforementioned species. That being said, it's always a good idea to bring Man's Best Friend along on a trip to the farm in case of a possible bear encounter. According to Sun Valley folklore, Grizzly (the pomeranian) actually chased a bear away once. Anyway, I digress....

Just a minute ago, I mentioned the Amazing Fanstasy variety of rose bushes. A very large percentage of the Rosehips we grow are Amazing Fantasy (despite the deer's affinity for it) because it tends to produce the strongest berry out of the varieties Lane has tested at Willow Creek. Once cut, Amazing Fantasy Rosehips can keep their color, shape and luminosity for several weeks.

Our Rosehips are harvested as early as August and as late as Christmas, depending on the progression of the crop and market demand. The month of harvest determines the color of the berry. Early in the season, they start out green; as they mature, they start to resemble Fuji apples - partially green with reddish swirls; finally, they become orange, reddish orange and cherry red at the end of the season. It's as if the Rosehips are aware of the most fashionable colors per season and act accordingly!

Lane leaves himself a production message on his work voicemail
while strolling through a young Amazing Fantasy crop.

It was interesting to see one of our crops looking so very different from what it would become by the time it was ready to be harvested (and to learn where Rosehips come from!). Now I'm just starting to see what they look like off the bush, ready for an arrangement.


Close-up of a rose bush in July

"Fuji Apple" Rosehips off the bush in August

When you are putting Rosehips in a vase, here's what you should know: Handle with care! As you know, every rose has its thorn. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Rosehips have 'em, too. Like most flowers, cut the end of the stems and place in cool water - no floral solution needed. Because they can last for a few weeks, feel free to mix up your Rosehip arrangements when other flowers fade!

Now I've told you about giant Cotinus and plump, multi-colored Rosehips. I still need to fill you in on other Willow Creek Crops like Chinese Lanterns, Ilex and Viburnum. (Funny, just one day in Willow Creek with Lane provided me several days' worth of blog material!) Look for more Willow Creek posts in the near-ish future!


As ever, you can learn more about our Rosehips by visiting our Flower resource page:  http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_Rosehips.pdf
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)