Each month, Yvonne gets together with some of her flower friends for our Mornings with Mayesh show to discuss the world of flowers. From general flower availability and flower care to marketing for your flower business and everything in between, you don’t want to miss this replay!
This month, Jenn Sanchez of Jenn Sanchez Design, joined us to share with you about finding your creative voice, color & texture, social media for your biz and so much more!
Keep scrolling for the show notes that contains all of the questions, answers, and resources for your reference!
SHOW NOTES
FLOWER QUESTIONS
WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD OF FLOWERS?:
- http://www.mayesh.com/flower-411-october/
- Fall is in full bloom! So many beautiful colors and textures becoming available so I’ll just pick a few of my faves…
- Ornamental Peppers on the stem: These fun flower fashionistas come in shades of green fading to red, orange & yellow… they can even turn to shades of aubergine to black. Although they look tempting, it is not advisable to eat ornamental peppers.
- Pumpkin tree is here! Its genus is Solanum Aethiopicum and it is actually a type of ornamental eggplant and is a related to the potato & tomato family of nightshade.
- Rose hips are coming in steadily. These are the fruit of the rose plant and are high in vitamin C for you outdoor survivalists.
- Sedum has started its color transition from pink to a bronze color, perfect for your fall arrangements. It is in the crassula family and is a relative to kalanchoes and other succulent plants.
- Check out our blog for the complete list and as always, talk to your sales rep about all the cool seasonal stuff available now!
- Melinda: Is there a good source for a year-round availability table on seasonal product??
- During last month’s show, Sylvia asked what are we importing from Chile?
- Because of Chile’s diverse geography both tropical and mountainous, they are able to produce an array of fresh seasonal flowers. They are known for their mass production of Carnations, chrysanthemums & alstroemeria. But, they also produce high end and novelty flowers. For instance, peonies are available from October through February, ranunculus and anemones are available from August through October and these are just a few examples of the on-trend flowers produced there when they are not available domestically. They are also known for beautiful tropical foliages such as calathea, ti leaf & palm leaves as well as tropical flowers like anthurium, heliconia & ginger.
- Lee: Begonia Leaves - how do I prep them to keep them fresh? I love their look but they wilt so easily! Thanks!
- Heather Cook from our purchasing department just started procuring these from an Oregon grower for us. She says the key is that they are stabilized immediately when cut by the grower. They do best in plain water with no floral food. The sugar in floral food can actually clog the stems. There are literally thousands of varieties of begonias. But, the ones harvested for foliage are usually the rhizomatous or cane stemmed varieties and are very sensitive to water sitting on the leaf surface. They are usually covered in small hairs that hold water and can cause botrytis to form. Iron cross begonia pictured below is one of the truly unique begonia foliages that we carry. Begonia foliage comes in a stunning array of colors and patterns perfect for fall.
FLOWER BUSINESS
- Courtney: When buying a floral refrigerator for the first time, what do you recommend? Looking for something not crazy expensive but something big enough for at least the personals for a wedding to be refrigerated. Is there anywhere else to look beside craigslist and eBay? do you recommend buying something new so you can get a warranty? It's hard to know what to buy since they are all pricey. I guess just wondering if there are any other options before buying it.
- First I’d check with your local Mayesh branch, we hear a lot of inside info from our clients and most locations have an information board for clients to leave help wanted and for sale flyers etcetera. You could also try Facebook marketplace https://apps.facebook.com/marketplace or any number of online shopping websites. Google search could be your next best friend!
- Coolbot (https://www.storeitcold.com/)
FLOWER DESIGN
- Question from Courtney: I was wondering what the best mechanics are when using bigger and heavier items like Pampas grass to go around an arch or Chuppah (all the way around.) Basically heavier things that you can't really use oasis with. If there's an easier way than attaching each stem individually that would be amazing. We've been seeing a lot of the pampas grass going all the way around arches and with a lot of pampas grass (super wide taking up a lot of space.) Curious how to get that to stay on and how to have it fan out by using multiple stems to cover a lot of space.
- Paddle wire, zip ties or even duct tape will work! You can tube stems of more fragile flowers if need be. Just remember to finish your work by covering your mechanics with flowers, foliage or moss.
- Eco Fresh Bouquet wraps: http://ecofreshbouquet.com/
- Question from Courtney: How to get signage decor like with garlands or just greenery and some flowers to stay on acrylic signs, wooden signs (i hear people staple them,) and other materials would be interesting to know how to get it to stay and look droopy (like they all do on Pinterest.)
- Pinterest is an awesome tool for sharing but not always reliable for representing reality. You could try using dried, preserved or “everlasting” florals. The industry is starting to fabricate some real life like replicas and most vendors will ship nationwide. Check out The French Bee, a Phoenix favorite for life-like artificial florals. http://www.thefrenchbee.com/ If you are a purist at heart and only fresh materials will do, choose hardy foliages like lemon leaf or camelia for your base and refresh the florals as needed. Using a “cold glue” like Oasis floral adhesive is the best way to avoid color changes in live products that can occur with hot glue. You could also try Oasis U-glu dashes, a two-sided floral adhesive medium. Oasis products website: https://oasisfloralproducts.com/
- Question from Courtney: A wrist corsage tutorial would be awesome. There are so many ways to make them so it would be great to find the most simple and efficient way.
- Check out these past videos in which our Mayesh Design Stars demonstrate a few easy ways to design write corsages:
- From Carie: HELP! I always use a bouquet holder for my bridal bouquets and cover the handle with stems for a faux hand tied. Do you have any tips for using sunflowers in a bouquet holder???
MARKETING NEWS
- Another question from Courtney: Do people have a lot of luck with Pinterest ad sales? What's the best way to use that?
- First, I am not a Pinterest superuser, but I can definitely help get you started. First things first, you have to get set up on Pinterest and set up a business page. If you are just getting started with Pinterest - here are some great tips from one of my favorite social media sites, Social Media Examiner.
- Having a Business Pinterest page will get you the very important analytics, but it will also allow you to do Promoted Pins and Rich Pins.
- Promoted Pins are easy to set up - let’s hop over to my Pinterest page for Mayesh and I will show you.
- Here is another blog post that will help with promoted pins:
- If you are a business that sells products/floral designs/etc, did you know that you can set up Rich Pins that users can click on to purchase your product?
- Pinterest has a great Business center
- Create social media graphics using Canva: https://www.canva.com/
- Instagram is making changes!
- IG Stories is coming to your desktop - I don’t have it yet, but I cannot wait for this to happen.
- Audio is on autoplay for Instagram videos - you can toggle it on or off during your Instagram session. So it turns it off when you leave the session and you will have to tap on and it will remain on during your session unless you tap off. This does not affect IG Stories. Pretty fun!
- Did you hear that IG is testing a new layout of your grid? As we all know, currently the layout on your profile is 3 pictures across each row, but soon it is possible that we will have 4 images per row. For many creatives that carefully curate or post extra large images with the smaller pictures, this will shift things off a bit.
- The last bit of IG news, is that users are seeing filters for your live videos. Do you have it? Have you used it?
Ok, so I’m very excited for our next guest. Jenn Sanchez is a super talented designer with a background in oil painting having been drawn to Dutch Masters still life vignettes as well as modern conceptual art. She has focused on the art of floral design and loves to recreate natural environments with flowers and foliage. Today, Jenn is going to talk a little bit about her journey, her design philosophy and about how she uses tools like Instagram to grow her business. Welcome, Jenn!
JENN SANCHEZ INTERVIEW
- Welcome, Jenn! First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your floral design business?
- Can you share your philosophy on how to find your creative voice and sticking to it?
- No one knows exactly who they are at all times and what they want, and that’s ok. But you have to know who your brand is. Who your audience is.
- The importance of being authentic, finding and staying true to your vision
- The importance of embracing failure, you cannot succeed until you accept mistakes will happen but the risk is worth the reward. I was always (am still) afraid of failing but more afraid of not even trying.
- The importance of being resilient, not allowing failure, comparison, or harsh critics bring you down.
- How do you use color and texture?
- My aesthetic, why I am so drawn to color. I think any artistic expression should make you feel something and color does that so well.
- Transitioning color by grouping like tones, took me time to realize this (also a sidetone of using those designers that inspire you to educate yourself. If you like a photo on Instagram or a magazine, ask yourself “why”. This is how I learned about color blocking).
- Using interesting texture, challenge yourself. Buy one bunch of something you are nervous to use and see how you like it. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
- Jenn, you have quite the following on Instagram, has this helped your business grow?
- Do you use other social media platforms?
- Other tools: https://www.planoly.com/
- Do you take your own pictures and do you have any pointers for our listeners on how to put their best foot forward with photographs?
- Yvonne: Jenn, tell us where we can find out more about you and what you are up to:
If you think of new questions, you can post them in the comments below.
Be sure to mark your calendar for November 7th at 10 am EST.
Other resources that were mentioned during the show:
Floristas del Mundo is a flower group in Spanish and English: https://www.facebook.com/groups/223198098076057/?ref=br_rs
