Autumn's Eye Candy

Autumn's Eye Candy

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The days are getting shorter, Halloween is around the corner, and my heater kicks on every morning--yes, I think it's safe to say that Fall has arrived.  And with its arrival, so comes new and brilliant floral eye candy.  So as it gets cold, let's take a look at what’s hot in the world of flowers.  

Orange Art Tango Lilies

Color-wise, Fall 2015 is looking lush and radiant.  Traditional autumnal colors of orange, yellow, rust, and gold are always favored, and fire-hued blooms are…well… on fire. My favorite is the vivid coloration of  “flame” zantedeschia.  

Flame Calla bouquet with Protea (photo from Tucker and Marks Design)

Orange and yellow parrot tulips with red ilex (The Best of Flowersand Fall 2015)

The Pantone color-of-the-year, Marsala, is also fully coming into its own this autumn. Its "robust and earthly shade of wine-red" resonates with the naturally changing ambiance.  Many Sun Valley flowers achieve this rich color--Sumatra lilies, Royal Lilies, wine dahlias, mahogany sunflowers, and deep red rosehips are just a few that we offer.  And don't forget the burgundy-hued Royal Purple Cotinus, whose dark color provides a great backdrop while also pairing perfectly with warmer autumnal shades.   

Royal Sunset lilies, cotinus, and montbretia pods

 

Rosehips, Cotinus, and Roses make for an elegant look (Fiori by Lynn)

 This year has also seen the rise of super bright, fresh green hues to evoke the fall season—think green trick dianthus, bright green hypericum, and flowering kale.  

Hypericum, dianthus, limes, and artichokes come together for a fashionably green centerpiece (Flowersand)

For advice on what textural pieces are hot this autumn, we asked our friend and floral expert, J Schwanke of uBloom.  “Anything Lacinated!” was his reply.  The “shredded” appearance of lacinated petals adds focal interest, color, and is a perfect Halloween flower. Some prime examples are dahlias, gerbera daisies, spider mums, and the super-trendy protea—look for these in interesting autumn colors, such as flame, lime green, bronze, and marsala.  

Dahlia and hypericum centerpiece (image found at The Flower Shoppe)

Marsala-hued and lacinated bouquets by MarthaStewart.com

 An element that most of these fall arrangements share are pops of color provided by hypericum berries, rosehips, and ilex.  These focal points are tried-and-true seasonal favorites which come in a variety of colors to add just the touch you need.

Iconic sunflowers rest on a bed of autumn leaves and rosehips. (photo courtesy of flowersand) 

Charming fall bouquet featuring green hypericum and mini yellow gerberas (photo courtesy of Loyalist Flowers).

If you incorporate pumpkins into your fall designs this year, J recommends that you look beyond the typical orange pumpkin—use white, grey, taupe, and lavender.  And the wartier the better! Stacking pumpkins on your front porch or yard is also very hip, and lends a look that is rustic, bucolic, and classy.
 

Stacked Cinderella Pumpkin by LLH Designs

Ornamental Kale and Cinderella pumpkin centerpiece (photo from Kirby and Kraut)

In closing, look for outstanding texture in the form of berries, lacinated petals, mossy dianthus, and specialty branches.  For pivotal color, try fire-hued blooms, bright green accents, and the color-of-the-year, Marsala, and you will be ready for Fall 2015.

Rosehips: Autumn's Darling

Rosehips: Autumn's Darling

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Rosehips: the plant of a million uses.  Well, maybe not a million, but its reputation as a great source of Vitamin C precedes it by centuries with ancient and modern use in tinctures, jellies, wine, and more.  Take a walk down your local grocery tea aisle and you'll be sure to find some herbal rosehip tea.  

However, rosehips are not just for flavoring foods, they are also for spicing up bouquets.  And in the world of Sun Valley, rosehips are through and through a fall specialty branch!   

 
So what exactly is a rosehip? Is it a rose or isn't it?  Scientifically speaking, the rosehip is the swollen ovary that contains the rose seeds.  It is the "fruit" of the rose.  If you cut open a rosehip you will find it is full of reproductive seeds.  
 

Rosehip bloom being pollinated

Rosehips develop on wild roses as the petals drop off.   These wild roses may not look like the "traditional" roses you are accustomed to, but they are indeed classified as roses (and aren't they pretty?).  The species of Rosa we use are specifically bred to create big, beautiful hips, which is why the regular rosebushes in your neighborhood will not produce anything quite like them. 





We grow these plants at our inland Willow Creek Farm, which is located 45-minutes away from coastal Arcata.  This canyon in the hills provides an ideal climate of early springs, hot summers, and an extended autumn which gives rosehips plenty of time to mature.

Rosehip blooms in summer

We prune our rosehip bushes down to the ground every winter, and then we wait.  As the weather begins to warm in late winter/early spring, they begin to grow back  and by summer, the flowers are blooming and the bees are buzzing.  We maintain bee boxes from a local keeper on the farm, so the bees are happy and our rose hips are happy!

Bee Box with protective wires to keep the bears out!

Once the flowers are pollinated, the pink bloom falls off and the seed pod (the hip!) begins to form. 
 
We harvest rosehips as early as August and as late as Christmas, and the month of harvest determines the color of the berry. Early in the season, they start out green; as they progress, they begin to resemble Fuji apples--partially green with reddish swirls; then they develop a beautiful reddish-orange hue and finally, a saturated cherry red. It's almost as if they know what colors are fashionable per season and act accordingly!   

Rosehips in Autumn

We have been growing and testing rosehips for many years, and have found that one variety in particular, called Amazing Fantasy, produces the strongest berry in our climate. Once cut, Amazing Fantasy Rosehips can keep their color, shape and luminosity for several weeks.

Our strong rosehip program is bolstered by the fact that agricultural restrictions forbid the importation of fresh rosehips into the United States.  We are proud to be one of the few producers of this truly American Grown crop,  and you too can feel good when you support this important agricultural movement.

Design wise, rosehips are extremely versatile and fit into the fall and winter color palette perfectly.  Check out the dramatically beautiful autumnal arrangement created by floral designer,  Pieter Landman.  You can see how they add texture and a punch of focal color.

The "Dress This Nest" blog also featured our rosehips in a great DIY-tutorial in flower arranging.  Once you get started, you'll see that perhaps there ARE a million uses for rosehips!

The Magic Behind Sun Pacific Bouquet

The Magic Behind Sun Pacific Bouquet

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Autumn began to reveal its colorful head a couple weeks ago, and now, after the official Fall Equinox, complete with a Blood Moon Eclipse, I think it is safe to say that the change in season is now in full swing!

To talk about how Sun Pacific Bouquet (aka Sun Pac) is answering the call of Autumn, I picked the brain of Rodi Groot, the head of our Sun Pac Division.  Located in Southern California at our Oxnard Farm, Sun Pac designs hand-crafted, farm-fresh bouquets, and Rodi was able to tell me a little bit about the creative process for their Fall Bouquet Collection.

Fall Sensation #3

First, they start with what is in-season, agronomically speaking, and then they explore what is in-season in the fashion world.  For this, he has assembled the Sun Pac dream team-- Melina, the designer du joor, Jennifer, their fashion and marketing expert, and Pam Smith, a strategy consultant with 30+ years in the floral industry.

Melina photographing new bouquets

 In their new office space, these folks are the creative force behind Sun Pac.  They begin by creating a "mood board" with a specific theme.  They then research the theme; collecting pictures, colors, and trends in order to create the "mood" they want the bouquets to reflect.  These boards will become a collage of inspired ideas--color palettes, fashion trends, printouts, patterns, flower combinations, and more.  These mood boards are very in-the-moment, very seasonal, and very trendy.

A Sun Pac Mood Board

For example, with the arrival of October, the Sun Pac team has created different mood boards for Oktoberfest, Halloween, Dias de los Muertos, Thanksgiving, among others.  The "feel" from these boards directly translates into what they use to build their seasonal bouquets.

Bouquet of the Month October

 This process is quite exciting! Where Sun Pac used to "market from the dirt," they now have the power to use what flowers they have in the ground in tandem with what the market wants.  The resulting products are original, super fresh, sense-filled bouquet arrangements.

Bouquet of the Month November

Not only that, Sun Pac also allows for specially made custom bouquets.  They invite wholesale and resale florists into the process, opening up the discussion for what their specific clientele likes and wants to see.  The process is the same, but personally tailored to the customer's taste, and highly targeted for their intended audience.  Both the standard and custom-tailored programs provide bouquets which are sleeved, bar-coded, and ready to go.

Fall Sensation #2

 As for the future of Sun Pac? This year they moved into a larger office, and Rodi hopes they continue to grow.  Since the Sun Pac Division is part of the greater Sun Valley family, they have a huge flower basket from which to pull, and they will always be distinguished by Sun Valley's high standards in quality, freshness and varieties.
 

So if you are looking for grower's choice or seasonal shorts, Sun Pac is the bouquet provider of choice.  Why not eat from the most colorful cornucopia you can find?

American-grown Hypericum

American-grown Hypericum

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Sun Valley is growing the versatile and oft-used botanical, Hypericum. Before my humble beginnings here on the farm, I had never heard of this plant, much less seen it out and about.  But now that I've grown wise to the ways of the flower, I see the unique berries of this plant EVERYWHERE.

"Midnight Glow" hypericum growing in the field

This ornamental superstar features colorful berries on a compact shrub.  The plant itself is a perennial botanical, sprouting golden blooms in the spring, which fall off to reveal elliptical berries come late summer.  We plant hypericum outdoors in fields of dark, rich soil, and let the long, warm days of summer coax it to maturity.  In Arcata,  it is very much a seasonal crop--we harvest the stems at the end of summer and fall, pruning while we pick, allowing the plant to rest and re-gather nutrients for the following season.

However, at our Oxnard location, we harvest hypericum throughout the year.  The Southern California climate, with its consistently longer and warmer days, creates the ideal growing conditions for year-round hypericum cultivation.   

Butter-yellow hypericum flowers and their resulting berries

The "classic hypericum" look has always been a leafy branch with dark-hued berries.  Now, after years of breeding, it's available in many other colors ranging from pale green to dark red.  We currently offer several of these colors, such as deep crimson Midnight Glow, mahogany-hued Universe, luminous Pumpkin, bright Lemon, and the magical red Triumph.

Some of our hypericum varieties, clockwise from upper left: Lemon, Triumph, Midnight Glow, and Pumpkin

Hypericum berries are long-lasting, retaining their color for weeks, which make them ideal additions to a wide range of floral arrangements.  And, as you can see in the photos,  the plant has multiple berries per stem, which makes it a great accent botanical as well as a bright focal piece in your autumn decorating palette.  The smooth and shiny berries provide an interesting and modern textural contrast, which has shown to be highly desirable.

Here, hypericum berries are mixed with sunflowers to create an iconic fall bouquet.

And here, another beautiful use of hypericum mixed with "flame" Calla Lilies

More and more designers are finding that it adds a festive and lively feeling for any occasion and plenty of opportunities for creative exploration.  Take a look at the beautiful and innovative ideas our friends with Flowersand have cooked up below:

Above, peach-colored hypericum berries are strung together to create a whimsical and elegant addition to bridal bouquets and a centerpiece.  Below, red hypericum berries are kept bunched and added to warm floral hues (images found in the September 2015 issue of Flowersand).

The majority of hypericum is grown abroad in South America and Africa, leaving us as one of the few producers on United States soil.  With its growing popularity, we are proud to be one of the largest providers of American-Grown Hypericum, (especially since it's looking so gorgeous)!

Field to Table Flowers

Field to Table Flowers

Debra Prinzing fall arrangements field to fork Field to table field to vase local flowers

"Know your food, know your farmers, and know your kitchen"
                                                                                        -Joel Salatin

Do you know where your vegetables came from? Do you know who brewed your beer or made your wine? These days the answer is typically “yes.”  In a world where it often seems we are racing to mediocrity, I am thrilled to watch the “farm to table” and “field to fork” food movements continue to grow.

Field to Fork, with flowers!

According to the USDA, there are currently 8,268 Framers Markets in the United States, up from 3,706 in 2004. People are demanding access to fresh, seasonal and local foods; and retailers, farmers and all sorts of individuals are responding.

Right next to the produce section in the grocery store, and the most colorful booth at the farmers market is the flower section.  The same trend effecting fruits and vegetables is finally coming to flowers. It might surprise you to learn that 80% of the flowers sold in the United States are grown in far flung places like Columbia and Ecuador. The top three biggest sellers; roses, carnations and alstroemeria, are grown almost exclusively in South America.

Fall Flower Bouquets

This trend is changing as flower lovers “think outside the rose box” and explore the vast array of flowers grown domestically.  Just like with your food; once you start to look for flowers grown closer to home, you find a deeply rooted subculture of flower connoisseurs. These folks know where to find sunflowers from a farm stand on the edge of town or lilies from an artisanal greenhouse grower a few exits up the freeway. They know soil grown tulips are better than hydroponic, they know the heirloom varieties, as well as, the flashy new hybrids.

Classic iris and mason jar arrangement

Whether you live in the city or in the country, fresh flowers grown in America are becoming “a thing.” Author Debra Prinzing found that many people want to buy local flowers, but didn’t know where to find the blooms.  So she started a website called, Slow Flowers, which is basically a vast data base of small, regional and national flower farms. Just put in your zip code and learn about a flower farm near you. This is sort of like the secret hand shake to get in the local flower club.

Hold onto summer, with this early fall arrangement.

The movement has been dubbed “field to vase” and one of the most vibrant and beautiful blogs about finding local flowers goes by the same name.  CAUTION: this blog will make you want to quit your day job, and become a flower farmer!

Even though Sun Valley is a pretty big operation, we are proud to be a part of the field to table movement.