"The Last Minute" Is Officially Here! For your last minute Christmas shopping...Flowers!

 

If, like me, you are paralyzed when it comes to deciding what to do for the famously "hard-to-shop-for" people on your list, allow me to make a suggestion: How about "Flowers for a Month?" Or better still, "Flowers for a Year?" Have your friends, your great love, your family know what it is like to always have fresh flowers in their home. 

For the monthly program, Tiger Lily will create 4 superbly designed (OK, all modesty is out the window...) floral arrangements in consultation with you or your recipient and deliver it to their home each week of the month on the day of your choosing. Or, send 12 arrangements, one per month for the entire year. These programs are deeply discounted and include free delivery. We use only organic flowers and Fair Trade certified roses.Call us soon so that we can make the first delivery for you in time for Christmas. There's still time! But not much...

The Botany of Desire

 Having run through most of the Netflix catalogue of films that I have either seen or dismissed, I was recently piqued by a documentary first released by PBS entitled, "The Botany of Desire," based on the book of the same name by Michael Pollan. In short, this brilliant doc elegantly demonstrates how four plant species have manipulated human beings to serve their evolutionary ends. "Little Shop of Horrors'" Audrey II turns out to be more terrestrial in origin. Not so blood-thirsty, either, but from a plant's point of view, just as greedy and self-serving. The apple, the tulip, the potato and cannabis are all thriving species by having developed strategies to disperse their genes by appealing to our species' aesthetic, gustatory, economic, and hedonistic desires. (Wiley lil' devils...)
The film is so well done, you'll forget you're watching a documentary (or PBS), and you'll come away with some great trivia about such things as 1. Where did apples originate? (Answer: Not the Garden of Eden.) 2. What caused the world's first capitalistic speculative bubble? (Answer: The Tulip, 1634.) 3. What plant changed human history more than any other? (Answer: The Potato. Providing enough calories in a half acre to sustain a family for an entire year.) 4. What research has been profoundly advanced by pot? (Answer: The neurophysiology of memory.)
I confess, it is the first time that I have thought about being manipulated by a plant. And I'm a florist.

You will really enjoy this film.
View "The Botany of Desire" online...

Don't be a Christmas cactus assassin...

Tiger Lily's Guide to Care for Your Christmas Cactus

This is one of Tiger Lily's favorite plant specimens at this (or any) time of year. The blossoming of Schlumbergera bridesii or Zygocactus is a much anticipated event in many households where their owners have learned to care for them. In other, sad homes, they sometimes don't last the winter. We're including some information here so that you don't join the cohort of Christmas cactus assassins. 

The first thing you need to know is that this plant is a succulent native to the South American jungles. Christmas cacti are quite different from other cacti and succulents – they are tropicals, not desert plants. They require more water and don't adapt well to drought conditions. Other differences are their preference for mixed rather than direct sunlight and relatively cooler temperatures.  It is therefore best to keep these plants away from heaters, fireplaces, radiators, furnace ducts, and other heat sources. Place the cactus in a sunny location while indoors and if outdoors during the summer, find a place that has a sun/shade mix to prevent the plant from getting burned. Watering this type of cactus is sometimes a problem because folks tend to treat them the same as they would a regular desert cactus. Underwatering in this way will stress the plant if it doesn’t kill it outright. Others make the opposite mistake and overwater, causing the plant to rot at the roots. If your plant came to you as a gift and it is still in a lined basket, replant it immediately in a garden pot with a drainage hole.

The best way to be sure your plant is getting just the right amount of water is to wait until the soil is dry on the top and still a bit moist toward the bottom. Then water the plant until the soil is saturated. Drain off any excess water that accumulates on the bottom. Never leave this plant in standing water or with runoff sitting in the overflow tray. Don’t water again until the top half of the soil feels dry to the touch. Well-drained soil is very important. You should purchase potting soil that is designed specifically for cacti. If you can't find cactus potting soil, you can mix two parts regular potting soil with one part sand.

Wholesale growers usually time these cacti’s blooming cycles to peak just before the holidays. To ensure that your cactus will bloom in time for Christmas, you will need to give the cactus a 3 – 4-month rest period. You will want to cut back on the watering, leaving only the top of the soil moist. Stop watering the plant beginning in October, and then begin watering again (don’t saturate) in November. To stimulate the budding process, relocate the plant so that it is in darkness at night and relatively cool temperatures for at least 14 hours per day. The new location should be totally dark for at least 12 hours – no artificial light. Once the buds form, they can take from 10 to 12 weeks to fully bloom. Also make sure the air has enough humidity so the buds don't dry up and fall off.

After the cactus blossoms out and the blooms fall off, you can prune your cactus so that it bushes out instead of becoming vine-like and unmanageable. You'll also find that the cactus will bloom better the following year. As new growth appears in the spring, put a diluted solution of liquid houseplant fertilizer 2 to 3 weeks after the start of the new growth. The cactus should be repotted every 2 to 3 years depending on how depleted the soil is. Repotting should be done in the spring, but if the plant is at risk of dying because of its potting condition, then repotting can be done anytime of the year as needed. 

With the proper care, the annual blooming of the Christmas cactus can be a spectacular event at your home, too. 

Tiger Lily/Fair Trade vs. Contextual advertising!

While preparing a pdf version of an otherwise helpful article about Tiger Lily Flowers and other local Fair Trade shops in The Record yesterday ("Fair Trade stores growing in cachet in North Jersey,"), I noticed that on the final page, directly beneath my quote that answered the reporter's question  about consumer preferences, northjersey.com's contextual advertising algorithm had positioned an ad for a major online floral order taker/delivery business flacking their $19.99 design-it-yourself flowers-in-a-box. Writing this I realize that I don't dare write the name of the business, or I'll only be creating dynamic back-linkages to boost their site.  Don't you love the way the system works? 

Tiger Lily Flowers and Fair Trade in the News

 Tiger Lily Flowers and Fair Trade:
We be makin' da news. Again. Be sure to check out this article by Jim Beckerman of The Record:
 Fair Trade stores growing in cachet in North Jersey

Kudos to Teaneck, NJ for becoming the US's 21st Fair Trade Town!

Season's Greetings, Y'all

Greetings from the Shameless Commerce Division of Tiger Lily! The subject of today's post: how to advertise without being part of the seasonal inundation of toxic advertising? Just finished a mass email trying to let folks know what we have in the shop that's new, and I'm feeling sideways guilty about it. What's really a drag is when people you know in other social contexts write back to you with the dreaded UNSUBSCRIBE in the message header.

I would like to thank American Express, the proud sponsors of Small Business Saturday (if you missed it, it was the day after Black Friday, two days before Cyber-Monday). We had our slowest Saturday in months. Was this an anti-Amex backlash?

This capitalism thing can be a conundrum. So, any ideas about how to advertise the Tiger Lily lifestyle without actually advertising?

I'll think of something to send to the best answer. It'll be cool, I swear.