Flowers make memorable moments. The heavy smell of roses can take us to a memory of a special birthday or an awkward date. Flowers can also make ordinary moments memorable as well.
The Daily Flower on Georgia Avenue in the Volunteer Building is a place where no special occasion is needed to pick up a grab-and-go selection of fresh and bright flowers or to go a la carte in picking just a few buds for a table arrangement.
The Daily Flower is an extension of Humphrey’s Flow-ers, and is set up like a European style flower market. In this tradition of open-air flower markets, they offer a variety of flowers by the stem or bouquets at direct-to-consumer flower market prices. This means that The Daily Flower purchases directly from farms and sells to customers, thereby cutting out the middleman.
The Daily Flower also offers a chance to get hands-on with the flowers in the form of their flower arranging classes. Although it may seem simple to place flowers in a vase, these classes show that there’s an art to getting an arrangement right and for the right occasion.
The manager of The Daily Flower, Amy Azar, teaches these classes, and helps beginners with tips on the levels flower stems should be cut to and which flower should be beside which. Although there are no “rules” to flower arranging, there are suggestions, and Azar encourages class participants to go with the flow and trust their instincts.
She also says to be daring, and not be afraid to put things you like together. The chances are that if you think it will look good together, then it probably does. The overall presentation of the flowers doesn’t depend on the size of the arrangement either. Even a single stem in a bud vase, vintage bottle or even a teacup can speak just as loudly, Azar says.
Before getting started in making an arrangement, be sure to have a sharp pair of scissors or a knife. With cleaner cuts to the stem, the water will enter the stem easily. Also, trim up the leaves on the stems. Leaves encourage bacteria, growth in the water and can send your flowers south faster.
During the class, Azar offered recipes to make homemade flower food to keep the flowers fresh. Mixing together half water and half Sprite soda will do the trick as well as mixing half sugar, half water and a little bit of vinegar.
As we started on our arrangement, the recipe for the mix of flowers we were putting together included: one lily, three gerber daisies, two buttons, two Monte casinos, two alstroemeria, two snap dragons, two green tricks and one limonium. To those who aren’t familiar with all these different kinds of flowers, they all have light and bright spring colors and complimented each other.
I mixed in purple, yellow and red daisies with pink and white lilies and pushed and prodded the green buttons and furry green tricks to opposite ends of my vase. The snapdragons served as the longer pieces above the rest of the buds, and I stuck the tiny limonium flowers in between the gaps. For a first attempt, I was remarkably pleased with the results of an hour spent hovering over a table of flowers with a garden shear.
Azar and her assistant Amy Goff moved around the table where we were all stationed and offered friendly advice on if a stem should be cut more or if moving a flower to the other end of the vase would help the arrangement. I got a little “cutting happy” at the end with the limonium and tested putting my newly chopped and oddly shaped piece in the arrangement center before Azar reminded us that looking at the arrangement and knowing when it is done is a fine art as well.
During the class, snacks were offered and everyone had been encouraged to bring their own wine or other drinks to add to the party-esque atmosphere of the class.
The Daily Flower offers different classes for different seasons and occasions as well. For spring, they will have a themed class of more bright and wonderful smelling buds that will be placed in a mason jar, which will be included in the price of the class.
This class will start at the end of March and run through April. Upcoming, they also have a St. Patrick’s Day class that will bring out the green thumb in
the attendees.
To try something new and bring home a mini-masterpiece, visit The Daily Flower at their Georgia Street location to find out more about their one-hour midday and night classes. Visit them online at www.dailyflowershop.com or call at 423-266-5643 and arrange a date.
Email Erica Tuggle at reporter@hamiltoncountyherald.com