Petite Roses

These charming flowers are treasured for their perfect replication of the standard rose in a petite package. ProFlowers’ Petite Roses are grown on the high plateaus of Central America. Warm tropical temperatures make the roses mature quickly which keeps their stem lengths and head size smaller.Let your Petite Roses drink water for 8-12 hours to perk up. With proper care, your roses will bloom over the next few days.

1) Remove the outside guard petals. These rugged outer petals were left on to protect your roses during shipment.

2) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

3) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

4) Re-cut stems, change waterand add second packet of flower food on day 3.

5) For the longest life, keep your roses away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

Roses

The fertile plateaus high in the mountains of Ecuador and Colombia produce ProFlowers’ gorgeous roses. The constant mild temperature slows the plant’s growth producing large blossoms and long elegant stems. ProFlowers’ research on varieties allows us to consistently produce beautiful, radiant roses that last.

Your roses are thirsty and need to drink water for 8-12 hours to perk up. With proper care, your roses will bloom over the next few days.

1) Remove the outside guard petals. These rugged outer petals were left on to protect your roses during shipment.

2) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

3) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

4) Re-cut stems, change water and add second packet of flower food on day 3.

5) For the longest life, keep your roses away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms). The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing (fusion of sperm and eggs from different individuals in a population) or allow selfing (fusion of sperm and egg from the same flower). Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization (parthenocarpy). Flowers contain sporangia and are the site where gametophytes develop. Flowers give rise to fruit and seeds. Many flowers have evolved to be attractive to animals, so as to cause them to be vectors for the transfer of pollen.

In addition to facilitating the reproduction of flowering plants, flowers have long been admired and used by humans to beautify their environment, and also as objects of romance, ritual, religion, medicine and as a source of food.

Lilies

ProFlowers’ Peruvian Lilies are grown in the high mountain valleys of the Andes in South America. The rich soil and year-round warm temperatures produce showy lilies with long straight stems and an abundance of blooms.

Peruvian Lilies are long-lasting, but dehydrate easily and may look thirsty upon arrival. Let your lilies drink water for about 8-12 hours to perk up.

1) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

2) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

3) Re-cut stems, change water and add second packet of flower food on day 3.

4) Keep your Peruvian Lilies away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

5) Remove spent leaves to keep bouquet looking fresh longer.

Tulips

The perfect maritime climate and rich, moist soil that allow tulips to thrive in Holland can also be found in coastal Northern California. Our tulips are grown and shipped from both locations.

Tulips continue growing after being cut and naturally bend toward sources of light. Your tulips may already have a gentle arc and tendency to cascade over the edge of the vase.

1) For straighter stems, leave the sleeve on for 8-12 hours to provide support to the stem while the flowers drink water.

2) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove the leaves below the water line.

3) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

4) Re-cut stems, change water and add second packet of flower food on day 3.

5) Keep tulips out of sunlight and away from drafts and heat

Sunflowers

Sunflowers just can’t get enough sun. Their heads follow the direction of the sun throughout the day. So, ProFlowers’ Sunflowers are grown in Baja and Southern California, where the warm sun shines year-round producing big, showy sunflowers.

Sunflowers have naturally arched necks and look best in a tall narrow vase. Cut the flowers so there’s only a fewinches of stem that shows above the rim of the vase.

1) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

2) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

3) Re-cut stems, change waterand add second packet of flower food on day 3.

4) Keep your Sunflowers away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

5) Remove spent leaves to keep bouquet looking fresh longer.

Gerbera

Grown in the rich, fertile soil of coastal California, the ProFlowers’ Gerbera Daisy is prized for its long wavy stems and big, bold blooms. Our Gerbera Daisies are shipped fresh from the growers to your doorstep, so you can enjoy their beauty and elegance longer.

1) Remove the plastic cups but leave the straws on the stems for a longer vase life. Allow them to drink for 8-12 hours to perk up.

2) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

3) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

4) Re-cut stems, change water and add second packet of flower food on day 3.

5) Daisies are sensitive to dirty water, which can cause bent necks. If this happens, re-cut stems and place in fresh water.

6) Keep your daisies away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

Iris

Picked when the bloom is just starting to show color and shipped from the farms of coastal California, the ProFlowers’ Iris arrive in the magical ready-to-bloom stage. Watch them gracefully unfold to reveal their inner beauty.

Your Iris will blossom over the next 1-2 days.

1) Cut 1 inch off the stems and remove leaves that fall below the water line.

2) Fill vase with water and add 1 packet of flower food.

3) Re-cut stems, change water and add second packet offlower food on day 3.

4) Keep your Iris away from direct sunlight, heat and drafts.

MAGNOLIA, Magnolia Soulangean

THE book name of this splendid subject is Magnolia conspicua, var. Soulangeana, which gives a proper clue to its place in classification. It is a variety of one of the best known and most valued of hardy flowering trees, its chief distinction from the species being the beautiful tinge of purple on the outside of the petals. Magnolia conspicua is well named, for in the dawn of summer, ere the trees are fully in leaf, and when this particular tree is but showing that it intends to have leaves, the great cup-shaped flowers appear, usually of an ivory-white colour, but subject to be tinged with pink or purple, as local circumstances may affect the growth. Seedling plants develop in various degrees the tendency to this pink or purple colouring, and some twenty or more that have been selected, named, and established as garden varieties, attest the power of the colouring principle to give special characters to flowers which, so far as we know, are normally colourless. The mere occurrence of varieties, as the result of raising seedlings, belongs to the region of the merest commonplace. Any one who will observe critically the horse-chestnuts at Bushey in the season of their flowering will have no difficulty in determining fifty or more distinct varieties, differing very considerably both in leaf and flower. The reason we do not select, name, and establish these is because, as varieties, we do not value them. Were magnolias as plentiful and as easily multiplied as horse-chestnuts, probably we should not have recognised as "a very fine variety" the beautiful subject here figured. It is a delicate problem how far our knowledge and our opinions of the methods of Nature are influenced by our superficial notions of the beautiful, for often we are arrested, and it may be rebuked, by the exceeding beauty of things we commonly and unconcernedly tread beneath our feet.

This deciduous magnolia was introduced from China in the year 1789, and soon after a few of its varieties were obtained from the same productive country. When growing freely it is a lumpy-headed, large-leaved tree, that may be properly associated with the catalpa and the paulownia, although it is not directly related to either. But they agree in their round-headed, leafy character, their exceeding attractiveness when in flower, and their need of shelter from the northern and eastern blasts that so often damage the exotic vegetation of our parks and gardens.

The best known of this group of trees is the magnificent Magnolia grandiflora, a bold evergreen, that in the later days of summer produces magnificent white flowers. Although this, the noblest of our evergreen garden trees, will not bear more than fifteen to twenty degrees of frost, yet by its power of renewal from below it is often seen in fine condition in places which are really too cold for it. One reason of its frequent survival is that a well-drained border next a comforting wall is usually provided for it; and thus, when times of trial come, it often escapes injury, because its circumstances are the best possible for the district. But thriving standard trees of this glorious magnolia are not uncommon even near London, more especially in the Valley of the Thames. A particularly fine example may be seen in a private garden in the narrow passage that connects Kew Green with the river; and in the Royal Gardens there is a standard, but not a good one, for it was once a wall tree, and has not acquired the free form proper to its present isolated position. In Devon, Cornwall, and Dorset, standard magnolias are often to be seen, bearing immense crops of huge lily-like flowers.

The grandest of the species is probably the Indian Magnolia Campbelli, which, unfortunately, is not hardy enough for this country. In many places it has been planted, and has passed through severe winters with but little harm; but it manifests its unhappiness by refusing to flower.

A note on a few hardy trees that are endowed with fine qualities may be useful here, and we will begin with the rose acacia (Robinia hispida), which makes a delightful display of rosy-purple flowers in the month of May. A near relation is the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum), which becomes a tree of fair size when aged, but grows slowly, and may be kept within the limits of a bush. The panicled bird-flower (Koelreuteria paniculata) has pinnated leaves and large panicles of flowers, which are brightly coloured yellow and red. For leaf effects chiefly, the flowers being of less consequence, may be named the richly-coloured Japan maple (Acer polymorphum), of which there are many varieties; the weeping Japan bean (Sophora Japonica pendula); the tree of heaven (Ailanthus glandulosus); the maidenhair tree (Salisburia adiantifolia); and the weeping walnut (Juglans regia pendula), a glorious tree for a spacious lawn.

LAVENDER, Lacamdula ver

A MERE word will often transport us into flowery fields and restore happy days that have long since fled. To many of the older sort the word lavender is as good as a charm, if it only recalls the old plaintive strain of once familiar street music. This tame-looking, grey-green, stiff, sticky, and immovable shrub holds as much poetry in its wiry arms as would fill a big book; but that is no matter if it has helped to fill a heart with gladness, for the filling of a book is but a piece of mechanical trickery. A most famous plant is the lavender, as may be seen by reference to any of the older herbalists, more especially Parkinson, Gerarde, and Johnson. In a notice of the plant in a popular work occurs-what is very common in "popular works"-a showy but most egregious blunder in respect of one of the "associations" of lavender. It is affirmed by the writer that the plant grows in Syria, and furnished the "ointment of spikenard" with which Mary anointed our Lord in Bethany. Let us suppose the two statements to be correct, and then what becomes of the protest against a supposed act of extravagance-"it might have been sold for three hundred pence"? The produce of a common weed of the country could never have acquired such a value, and the protest necessarily suggests that the ointment of spikenard was the produce of some far-distant land, and obtainable only with cost and difficulty. Such, indeed, is the case. The spikenard of the New Testament and of Canticles i. 12 and iv. 13 was imported into Palestine from the far East, the plant producing it being the Nardostachys Jatamansi of De Candolle, a plant spoken of by Dioscorides as the Nard of the Ganges-the Sumbul or Sunbul hindac of the Arabs to this day. Lavender, indeed, grows in Syria, for the genus Lavandula is essentially Mediterranean, but it was not the spikenard of antiquity. The commonest uses of Lavandula connect it with the lavatory, both words deriving their origin from lavo, to wash; the plant being as much prized in ancient times as now for its refreshing perfume and cleansing properties. Herein is the secret of the commercial importance of lavender, of which immense quantities are grown near London for the purposes of the perfumer. The common lavender (Lavandula vera) is the species grown in the Mitcham and other districts, as the oil yielded by its flowers, although not so large in bulk as that produced by the flowers of Lavandula spica, is of much finer quality, and is alone employed in the manufacture of the finest perfumes. The oil obtained from the last mentioned of the two species is rather green in colour, and is commonly known as spike oil, or foreign oil of lavender. It is chiefly used for painting, but a considerable quantity finds its way every year to the second-class manufactories, where lavender-water and other perfumes, of which the base is the essential oil of lavender, are prepared, and this in its turn is sometimes adulterated with spirits of turpentine. The harvesting of the flowers takes place at the end of July or the beginning of August, according to the season, the proper moment for cutting the spikes being just as the flowers are opening, as they are then more powerfully aromatic, and consequently yield an oil of greater value than when fully expanded. The cutting is done with the sickle, and every care taken to immediately pack and tie up in mats, for when exposed to the rays of the sun for any length of time after cutting, the yield of oil is materially reduced in consequence. The flowers cannot, indeed, be sent to the distillery too quickly after their removal from the plants. Large quantities of lavender flowers are sent to Covent Garden annually, and from thence find their way to the shops and costers' barrows, for there is still a demand for them for filling muslin bags to stow away in drawers and cupboards, notwithstanding the facilities which exist for obtaining the essential oil, and lavender-water, and other perfumes into which it enters. The flowers, it should be remembered, are put into drawers and wardrobes to exclude moths, as well as for imparting an agreeable odour to the articles placed in these receptacles. A few drops of the oil will, however, serve the same purpose; and it has been ascertained by experiment that if a single drop is placed in a small box along with a living insect, the insect will be killed almost immediately. The distillation of the flowers is a business quite distinct from that of their production, and both large and small growers take their crops to the distillery, and pay a certain rate per ton. The quantity of oil extracted from a ton of lavender varies according to the season, a rather dry and hot summer being the most favourable to an abundant production. From 15 lbs. to 16lbs. is considered a fair average, and in some years it reaches 20 lbs., but not often. The distilling commences about the 1st of August, and is continued until the end of September or the middle of October, according to the extent of the crop. In the propagation of a stock of lavender, and in the management of the plantations after their formation, a very simple course of procedure has been found to be the most satisfactory. Propagation is effected by means of cuttings taken in the autumn, October being considered the most suitable month in which to take them. After the shoots selected for cuttings are separated from the old plants, they are left in small heaps on the ground for six weeks, and are then planted. Rooted slips are, as far as possible, taken advantage of for the increase of stock, and when these can be had they are at once planted in the field, at a distance of eighteen inches apart each way.