We’re pretty darn proud of our anemones this spring! The stem length, the flower head size, the assortment of colors, and the vase life! Oh man! The vase life! Can we just talk about that for a second?
When you use locally grown anemones, you can almost guarantee your customers they’ll have a 3+ week vase life. They certainly can hold in the cooler for that long and still be perfectly good to use in any design, which gives you a nice long window for selling them and avoiding that pesky product shrink problem we’ve been talking about recently in the newsletter and on the podcast.
Local anemones also have far less damage than their shipped counterparts. They aren’t smooshed in a box or stuck in a sweaty plastic sleeve. With local, there are no snapped heads and there’s zero mush or mold. You may be able to buy anemones from a big wholesaler for $14-$15/bunch. But if you have to throw away two out of ten stems, you’ve actually paid more per stem than if you shopped with PFG. Anemones are yet another great example of why it pays to buy local!
Here’s a fun anemone-related word for you: nyctinasty. (Hold on to that one for your next Scrabble showdown!) Nyctinasty means that anemone flowers close up at night or even when it’s just cloudy outside or dark in a room. They’ll also close up when they get really cold (like in a flower cooler). This is an evolutionary adaptation that helps the flower protect itself in inclement weather. Anemones are blooming in the very early spring, when temperatures can dip super low at night or when torrential spring rains can come suddenly. By tucking their petals in, anemones are able to protect their “lady parts” (ahem) from damage, allowing them to be more successful at reproducing once the sun comes back out.
Nature is fascinating, right?? But nyctinasty is a bit pesky when you’re a floral designer. We suggest taking your anemones out of the cooler and putting them in a well-lit spot for an hour or two before designing with them so they’ll be wide open while you work. Also, if you’re delivering to an event, particularly an indoor event with low lighting, it would be best to take your arrangements out of the cooler and let them sit in a bright warm spot for a few hours before showtime. Otherwise, you run the risk of the anemones staying “asleep” at the venue.
Another crazy thing about anemones – they keep growing even after they’ve been cut from their mother plant! It’s a mystery how or why they do this, but they do! They extend the flower neck above their frilly collar of green and can grow up to three inches while in the vase! You can tell if the anemone you received from your supplier is freshly harvested or has been held in storage for a while based on how long the neck is above the collar. In the picture above, these have just been harvested and you cannot see any neck at all. That’s what you want for longest vase life. And that’s what you’ll get from PFG!
We’re in peak anemone season right now and will have an abundance of them through the end of April. Try some this coming week!