What’s happening with the Flower Industry right now…?

Hi everyone, we hope you are all staying happy and healthy during this crazy time! We miss having our shop doors open and can’t wait to open them back up soon. We were praying the with the ease of restrictions we’d be able to open up, however the flower industry had a different option.

Something the news hasn’t touched much on is the problems we are facing at the moment, currently there are tough restrictions in place making it hard for us down here in Melbourne to have access to imported varieties, with it currently going into Winter it makes it 10 times hard to have in stock the usual abundance of flowers we usually have.

Because of this we are heavily relying on the few Victorian growers; these guys are our heroes at the moment and are what is keeping us being able to supply you with gorgeous things. However with Mothers day this meant that the supply and demand levels crazy! Our growers all sold out, yay for them! But stress city for us. We now need to wait for our supply to grow, there are restrictions on how much we can get (exactly like the toilet paper debacle), because of that we have had to put on hold our ‘re-opening’ date, until we can supply our lovely customers and followers with as much variety as we can and usually would.

We would like to thank our lovely support system of customers and followers for sticking with us during this tough and crazy time, we will certainly be updating everyone on when we re open, stay tuned!

-Your Favourite Florist.

COVID-19… are we still operating?

This is a funny time of the year, Australia has been hit with bush fires, a shortage of toilet paper, Holden no longer manufacturing and now a common cold strong enough to wipe out a nation.

As you would have heard (it’s almost hard to escape the hourly update) this deadly disease is rampaging through the world. What started as a bat bite in china has now escalated to a world wide pandemic! This has caused many distributions in your daily life and many workplaces, with a lot of hospitality and tourism businesses going under and having to let go staff. It is truely a terrible time in our world, which is why we all need to band together to get out of this on top. It is all too easy to let it overcome you, stay at home, hind and isolate from the world until it is gone; using it as an excuse to become lazy and ‘take a holiday’. In this time, it is the time to rise above it, do what you can to help out, stay on top of things, further yourself as much as you can.

Support your favourite local businesses, help out your elderly neighbour (provided you aren’t infected), if you’re stuck at home use it as an opportunity to clean you house (thoroughly) the thing you’ve been meaning to do for multiple months, spending time with your family and loved ones, focus on what your future will entail; are you going to work on your CV so when it has finally all blown over you can find a new job, are you going to focus on pushing your side hustle, work on a better you? The possibilities are endless, and if it has taught us anything, it is that this is a time for reflection. You know have the time to think about what life really means to you, and how you can make yourself a better person.

Petal and Sage are in the fortunate position to still be able to operate! We still have access to fresh local flowers, phone lines and an internet connection. Until told otherwise by the government (who are doing a banging job considering the circumstances) we will still have our doors open, and welcome everyone in with a happy smile (and some hand sanitiser). In the unfortunate event of having to close our doors, we will still be available for delivery’s via our website or phone orders. This means you can still send flowers to your loved ones for sympathy, miss you, congratulations, get well soon, love you, thinking of you… honestly the list could go on forever. Or even send them to yourself to brighten up your day in such a grim time.

The Petal and Sage team hope you are staying happy and healthy, and if there is anything we can do to help during this stressful time don’t hesitate to get in contact with us, either online or via our socials!

Flowers in the heat?

The best way to protect and prolong the life span of your beautiful blooms.

Honestly I am not going to lie, summer is my favourite season of the year. I mean name one good reason why it sucks and I’ll buy you lunch (and because it’s too hot is not a reason). Not only do I love summer but Blooms do as well, they are out in full swing soaking up those rays, without a worry in the world.

However, once cut from their origin Flowers need cool and water to stay vibrant and to prolong their life.

How do I do that? You ask.

Well I am here to tell you, free of charge.

Once you receive your beautiful blooms the first thing you should do (other than taking a photo and tagging us @petalandsagesandringham) is to cut the ends about a cm shorter and on a 45 degree angle if you can. This allows more surface area for the stems to soak up the water. Place them into fresh clean water and place them in an area that will not get direct harsh sunlight for old mate up there. Then every 1 to 2 days re-cut them another cm shorter, on that angle I talked about before, and replace the water. This should help your blooms stay lovely for 1 to 2 weeks, even longer depending on the variety.

But if I cut my flowers stems short, won't that ruin them?

The short answer, NO WAY.

In fact the shorter the stems the fresher your flowers will look, simply because the bloom doesn’t have to do heaps of work to get the water all the way up the stem and it can focus more on making the bloom look INCREDIBLE… thank you nature.

My Story

Here it is, my story, why and how I got to where I am and how it’s just as much about the journey as it is the destination.

It all started back in 2006, I was in year 3 at my primary school and a little bit of an art nerd; you know the ones that bring home those ‘amazing’ paintings and beg their parents to hang another one on the fridge. Yeah, that was me, so one day our school decided to have a competition to help design the new school logo. You can bet your bottom dollar this girl applied. I submitted a drawing which I thought at the time was INCREDIBLE. Looking back now you could for sure tell it was drawn by an 8 year old, but that’s beside the point. A week later in assembly they announced the winners of the new school logo; eagerly sitting there I heard my name called over the microphone, I couldn’t believe it, I had just won the competition for the design of the new school logo. A $20 gift card to Dymocks a new school logo and 9 years later I applied for a degree in Communication Design at Monash University, I got in and studied and learnt about everything from Graphic Design to Advertising. I enjoyed it; even got a scholarship to the Land of Spaghetti (Italy) out of it, but realised it wasn’t exactly what my heart and soul loved.

Since I was a child I knew I wanted my own successful business, it run in the family. My dad, his dad and my 3 uncles all owned their own amazing business’, however I just couldn’t see myself starting a business in Graphic Design or the sort. I started exploring careers I had thought of before finishing year 12 and none of those tickled my fancy either, until one day I was reading a book The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart by Holly Ringland. It was about a young girl who struggled with family identity and used the flowers in her grandmas yard to help bring stability to her life. That’s when it clicked, I had always had a passion for design and flowers but in year 12 we were pushed to go to University, not a Tafe or College; so the idea of floral design never even crossed my mind. But you best believe after I shut that book I was online googling Tafes and Colleges that would teach me everything I needed to know to start my own business in floral designs. Thats when I came across Bloom College, one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I applied got in and learnt the ins and outs of the floristry world from real florists and women who knew their stuff. It really cemented the fact that this is what I wanted to do.

While completing that course I opened my business Petal and Sage, and just worked from home out of the garage (thanks dad) it was great, I had events the pinnacle of floral design. I loved working with the client to create a story board of everything they had ever wanted for that particular event and creating that in flowers for them, it was lovely. Soon after graduating my Course at Bloom College, I started to get too big for the garage at home (and dad wanted his ‘man cave’ back) So I started investigating shops for sale, along with the help of my business savvy grandad/ accountant. After months and months of investigating to my luck we stumbled across Sandringham Flowers, a very established business on Bluff Road. I dragged mum down one day to look at it, and one step into the door I knew it was the place I wanted to be, and the rest is history.

Sprung into Spring

Ahh Spring time; the time of tissues, hay fever and most importantly beautiful smelling blooms! For me Spring is great, it means we are moving out of the hibernation of winter and into the sweet summer days of, well, summer.

Some of the superstars for the months of Spring are:

SEPTEMBER:

Orchids, Anemone, Blossoms, Freesias, Antherium, Cherry Blossom.

Who isn’t obsessed with Cherry Blossom? Its organic leading lines of their dark branches contrast beautifully with the delicate petals of the bright pink blossoms. I know I’d prefer them to stay around all year. It’s also a perfect time of year for Antherium, they are at their straight up best, vibrant colours and fabulous structure.

OCTOBER:

Peonies, Orchids, David Austin Roses, Lissianthus, Blushing Brides.

Now now now, Peonies, gosh the epitomy of wedding season and sophisticated floral design. The only problem we have? It only lasts a couple of weeks… sad face. David Austin Roses however, just as beautiful and last just the little more longer.

NOVEMBER:

Orchids, Stephanotis, Hydrangeas, Gladiolis, Bouvardias, Delphinium.

Hydrangea season, don’t we all love its big cloud like balls of petals? A trick we love to do is fill a trough with water and dunk the whole Hydrangea in there! You might be thinking, is this chick crazy? Well maybe, but not about this. The petals love to soak up all the water, and in turn makes them last way longer.