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A Trip to 28th Street
Yesterday was a perfect day to wake up painfully early and visit the Flower Market in Chelsea!
With the change of the seasons, we’ve been looking for an infusion of energy and creative inspiration. Visiting the tulip farms outside Amsterdam isn’t an option this year, so we went to New Amsterdam to find the new flowers we crave.
First of all, why can’t we find Tuberose anywhere in Westchester but we can buy them at any Dean & Deluca in the city? Every single flower dealer on 28th St. sells them! We bought two bunches (the second dealer we visited had the healthiest selection) and are patiently waiting for them to open and release their fragrance. Polianthes tuberosa, of the asparagus family, is a night-bloomer native to Mexico.
If you’ve never smelled a tuberose in bloom, it is worth your while to stop in and sniff them. It gets the oxytocin going.
Stopping in at Caribbean Cuts, we met with Tom and talked about drying lotus flowers, heliconia, and how much we loved their sprouting coconuts. We walked away with one of them, and he gave us his tips on how to care for our new Sprout! You can see he’s in our window.
Below you can see some of our favorite things from our trip: baby Pineapples, budding fuschia Magnolia branches, giant Thistle, and miniature Carnations that are the size of a dime. You might even see some of this unique gorgeousness in our corsages and boutonnières for Jr Prom this Saturday!
Buying Local Flowers
When it comes to buying flowers, you can order online at a reseller, go to a supermarket, or order from a local florist. We understand that you have choices, and that sometimes one is a better choice than another.
At an online reseller, your flowers choices are limited to what’s on the screen. Look at the photos and you will see that each floral design can be broken down into a very specific recipe to allow it to be cheaply and easily re-created. If the vendor belongs to a wire service, each layer of service provider (POS, florist, delivery, etc) takes a percentage of your money. The hard-earned, post-income, pre-sales tax $100 that you spent has dissolved into $75 worth of flowers. And after commercial shipping, they look rather worse for wear.
At a supermarket, your money buys a lot of cut stems. These flowers are standard varieties and grown in the cheapest conditions. The design and care given to these flowers are minimal, and that’s all we really need to say.
Some local florists belong to wire services, and for this they pay fees every month. As above, your flowers are compromised by the percentage slices claimed by this marketing chain.
Upper Village Blooms takes orders only from our customers. Therefore, we do not pay wire services to bring in volume business.
We drive ourselves to the flower wholesale markets twice weekly to hand-select the freshest flowers available. The flowers we choose are above-market and are not available to supermarkets and wire services. When we return to the shop, we typically spend 3-6 hours cleaning, trimming and preparing them. We give them another quality check, and only then do they go into custom arrangements or are available for you to choose as a single bloom.
When we sell you flowers, we expect to see you again. Either because we’re neighbors or our kids are in the same school, or perhaps because our flowers are extraordinary. We care for them tremendously, it is what we do. We also sneak more flowers into our arrangements and bouquets because it is another way to show how much we love our flowers!
We are a small retail shop in an amazing Rivertown with foot traffic, wheelchair accessibility and parking. When we say we are proud to be a part of our community, we mean it —we do not charge a standard delivery fee within 10520.
Come visit us and see how the Upper Village is Blooming!
Getting ready for Valentine's Day Part 2
Oh the flowers!
We cleaned over 600 roses alone and it was worth every scratch and heavy bucket. We’re not sure if we can trust anyone who doesn’t like dogs or roses.
No, it’s not too late to call to order flowers for pick up or delivery tomorrow!
