Around this time of the the year here in southwest Washington a beautiful thing happens-some of the fields and meadows that were flooded during the winter start filling with a delicate bulb flower called camas. It’s a beautiful treat to see a field full of violet when I’m driving my kids to school or on my way to the grocery store. Last weekend I took the opportunity to hike to the Camas Lily Fields near Round Lake in Camas, WA.
A forest meadow filled with camas.
There were other beautiful wildflowers everywhere! It is such a picturesque area.
To me, nothing says “Spring” like tulips. A couple of weekends ago I took a trip to the Holland America tulip farm in Woodland, WA. I loved seeing all the different varieties of this beautiful spring flower.
The show field had so many varieties and colors of tulips
I’ve really been loving orange and peach flowers lately. What a gorgeous parrot tulip! I wish I would have noted the name of it.
The most interesting variety I saw was this green tulip called, “Brooklyn”.
Every year at this time I want do go to Holland to see the acres and acres of tulips among the windmills. Someday. Now that the tulip season is winding down, I’m enjoying seeing the lilacs start to bloom!
Wherever I go I can’t help but take pictures of the flowers around me. This is especially true at Disneyland. They do it up right with their flowers! I few weeks ago my husband and I took a quick trip to our favorite place. Here are the some spring scenes:
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What a beautiful way to be greeted at Disneyland-with some floral artistry!
I love all the flowering trees around Sleeping Beauty's castle
Aren't these hanging basket's gorgeous?
Nothing says, "spring" like tulips!
Then there was the Tiki Room:
Who doesn't like singing orchids?
And harmonizing Birds of Paradise?
Can you guess what my favorite Disneyland ride is? A couple of clues-it’s in Fantasyland and there are big flowers in the ride. . .
Do you recognize the tiger lily?
It’s the Alice in Wonderland ride!
Well, I think I’ve gone off on a tangent. 
I’ll end with saying that I LOVE Disneyland. There’s so much to take in. I’ll be back to showing my floral designs soon. Stay tuned.
Here in the Pacific Northwest we’ve had a mostly rainy and snowy spring so far. The sun did come out for a while the other day long enough for me to get outside and fill my jar with beautiful daffodils from the yard.
Paperwhite narcissus is a bulb flower that is similar to the daffodil. It is a VERY easy bulb to force to bloom indoors. If I can do it, a baboon can do it. It is a popular flower to grow at Christmastime, but I prefer to grow them after Christmas, when all the decorations are down and I’m craving for something clean and crisp in my home. It’s also a good time to find the bulbs on clearance in the Christmas department. I found mine in the Smith and Hawken aisle at Target, but you can find them at any nursery or home center.
All you need to grow paperwhite bulbs is:
-1 shallow container
-some rocks
-bulbs
I got my rocks at Dollar Tree in the craft section. I used three bags to fill my container that I got at Goodwill for $2-3. Am I getting my point across that this can be a cheap project?
Fill your container with the rocks and push the bulbs down into the rocks, but leave the tops of the bulbs exposed. Fill to container with water so the roots are exposed to the water (add water as needed periodically so the roots always have water). Now all you have to do is watch and wait.
Here’s the life span of my paperwhites:
After 4 days
After 7 days
After 16 days
At this point the flowers got so tall that I had to tie them together. After a few days of being tied they still flopped over, so I had to cut them.
After 21 days
As you can see, these pretty little blooms last a long time and are fun to watch. A caution though, they have a strong smell. Here’s an interesting article on how to stunt the growth of your paperwhites so they don’t get so tall and flop over. Maybe next time I’ll try growing them in a taller container for more support. Either way it’s a fun wintertime project. When the paperwhites are blooming, spring can’t be too far away!
I’m enjoying this beautiful vase arrangement today. My hubby remembered that I love bi-color roses and it just happened to come with my favorite filler, waxflower. The kitchen is filling up with the smell of eucalyptus!
Posted in Holidays, Roses
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It’s been quite a while since I last posted. I’ve spent the month of January recovering from pneumonia. Now that I’m better, I’m excited to start flower deliveries again. I’ve also got some fun ideas for tutorials, too. I’ll leave you with a flower delivery that I did in October for one of my son’s school teachers. Believe me, if you are a teacher to this guy you deserve some flowers!
Last week I had the opportunity to attend an evening class at the Floral Design Institute in Portland, OR. I created a Christmas centerpiece with all the wonderful evergreens that are so abundant in this area-fir, pine, cedar and juniper (with a little camelia and holly thrown in). It was fun to see teacher Beth and catch up on what has been going on since I graduated from the advanced design class back in February. The centerpiece is so festive and I love looking at it every evening during dinner!
Things have been quiet here at Chickabloom for the month of December. I decided to take a month off from doing flower deliveries and have been concentrating on decorating for Christmas and spending time with my family. I did try out a new project last week that is very versatile-it’s a flower arrangement that looks like a wrapped gift. It can be used for Christmas, birthdays, or any holiday-just change the color of the ribbon and flowers.
The supplies you’ll need for this arrangement are:
-1 square or rectangular container
-ribbon
-flowers (I used 10 carnations)
-wood picks (optional)
-one piece of wire
First wrap the container with your ribbon, just like you would a gift.
Then create a bow by looping your ribbon on each side about 5 times then secure the bow with a piece of wire. Here’s a good video tutorial on how to make a bow if you don’t know how.
Attach the bow to the ribbon that you’ve tied around your container. I will admit that I had to make a second bow with larger loops that would extend beyond the carnations-this is a picture of the bow with smaller loops.
Next add the flowers and arrange the loops of the bow around the flowers until you are happy with it. My bow looked a little sparse after I added the flowers, so I added a few more loops and just tucked them in. 
You can wire the loops to a wood pick or just staple the ends of the loop and tuck into the flowers. You can also add ribbon tails to your heart’s content.
This arrangement should last a couple of weeks if you’re using carnations. A grouping of these gift arrangements would look great as a centerpiece or bring one as a hostess gift to a Christmas party. It’s easy to make your creativity shine by using different colors of ribbons and flowers. The sky’s the limit!
Here’s another one I did with a more country look.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday and can enjoy the beauty of flowers at your Christmas gatherings!
Last year my family started a new Thanksgiving tradition. We volunteer with the Meals-on-Wheels people to help deliver Thanksgiving dinners to homebound seniors in our area. We delivered 5 meals to 3 homes and got to visit with some sweet ladies. I was glad that we were able to make their holiday less lonely and brighten their homes with some flowers.
If you have a spare couple of hours next Thanksgiving, I would highly recommend helping out the seniors in your area!
