Homage to our founder, Herman Encke.

Circa 1910, Bogota, New Jersey. The original H. Encke greenhouses on East Fort Lee Road. Standing in foreground: Herman Encke and son, Albert. Herman, a German immigrant, established his business in 1906, growing chrysanthemums and other flowers for the Flower District markets in New York City. He transported his flowers by horse-drawn carriage, taking a ferry to Manhattan from Fort Lee. Encke Flowers is believed to be the oldest continuing retail flower business in New Jersey.

Let us give thanks. Let the flowers be cool....

We think of flowers the way sculptors do.
We can create floral artwork for your feast.

Let us know what we can make for you: a centerpiece for your holiday table, an entry piece to greet your guests or one of designed-to-order organic hand-tied bouquets to thank your hosts for their hospitality.

Special pieces deserve a little time, so please call us in advance to reserve your floral work for next week.

If you have holiday shopping to do, we encourage you to consider shopping local, and shopping Fair Trade. We have a lot of new Fair Trade certified gifts, jewelry and sports balls in stock at our Cedar Lane store.

Encke Flowers and Tiger Lily by Encke are both a part of the growing Fair Trade movement, featuring Fair Trade certified gifts and varieties of cut flowers. Fair Trade certification means that the flowers or crafts were produced in an environmentally and economically sustainable fashion – that is, it is good for the earth and for the people who do the work. Encke and Tiger Lily are currently the only retail florists in the NY/NJ metropolitan area who sell Fair Trade flowers. For more information about Fair Trade and Fair Trade certification, visit http://www.transfairusa.org/.
 
Happy Holidays!

New homepage for forthcoming wedding website

Here is the new look for our forthcoming wedding website. Whatcha think?

Set photos from "Billy Bishop Goes to War"

Here are some images of our set design for Garage Theatre Group's recent production of "Billy Bishop Goes to War". The show closed yesterday. The director is scouting theaters in NYC for another run.

Tiger Lily does theater, too...

You might not have guessed it, but we've got a bit of a background in theater. We just completed a set design for new production by the Garage Theatre Group, based at the Becton Theater on the Teaneck Metropolitan Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. We invite you to see "Billy Bishop Goes to War" opening this Thursday, October 29 at 8:00 p.m. This journey follows an otherwise ordinary guy from a small town Canadian town - kind of a screw-up, actually - who became the British Empire's most illustrious flying ace during World War I. His journey takes him from the back woods, down in the trenches, up to the skies, through the halls of Buckingham Palace, and inside the human spirit as he attempts to reconcile his love of flying with the horrors of war. This one-man drama with live musical accompaniment is one of the most successful plays in Canadian history.

Our set includes a replica WWI biplane suspended from the ceiling. (No, it is not made out of carnations.) Pictures to follow!
October 29 - November 15 (Thursday - Saturday, 8:00 p.m.; Sunday matinee at 3:00 p.m.)
Billy Bishop Goes to War
by John Gray with Eric Peterson
directed by Michael Bias
featuring Ryan D. Scott
You can order tickets online at Garage Theatre Group or buy them at the door.
Adults: $37
Seniors/students: $32
We hope to see you there!

Old Timey Flower Shop Blues

Before a packed stadium ...

In front of a cheering multitude....
... an adoring crowd ....

Along with some good friends, our troubador buddy Steve Kelman helped us celebrate the arrival of fall at Encke Flowers in Teaneck last Saturday. Accompanying himself on guitar, mandolin and strumstick, Steve ran through a couple of sets that included some old time blues, bluegrass tunes, his own arrangements of some jazz standards and two of his own compositions. The rest of us grabbed up some of the Fair Trade frame drums and rhythm instruments lying around the shop to accompany him. We couldn't resist.

We started doing these "salon concerts" a couple of years ago when our son was home, studying piano. We still have his upright piano in our shop, and we're keeping the concert tradition going. We hope you get a chance to stop by sometime. If you ever get a chance, be sure to catch Steve Kelman, too. Make sure he plays the strumstick for you.

Drum Circle Welcomes the Fall at Tiger Lily

Rich Reiter led about 20 of us in welcoming the arrival of fall last night at Tiger Lily. We had a terrific time with a variety of djembes, shekeres, doumbeks, tablas, and percussion instruments I've never seen or heard before. When we ran out of chairs, we used upside-down water buckets from the back, and they became drums as well.

Folks just wandered in off the street and grabbed a drum. Nice to put little Teaneck in an uproar. You could hear the polyrhythms up and down Cedar Lane.

On top of it all, we managed to raise some money for All for Africa's "Palm Out Poverty" campaign to promote sustainable agriculture projects across the continent. Very cool.