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Author: Neal

It takes us a whole year of planning to be ready for the holiday season

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The image shows workers crafting holiday arrangements in Royer's central design department.
Central design workers will handcraft 15,000 holiday arrangements and decorate 3,000 poinsettias and dish gardens.

Royer’s Flowers & Gifts begins to decorate its stores for the holidays right after Halloween.

From installing heavy bell arches and larger-than-life toy soldiers, string lights and Santa’s sleigh, the process consumes more than a week across 16 stores in seven counties. But that’s just what the public sees.

The truth is that for Royer’s, one of the largest florists in the United States, Christmastime is all the time, even if much of the work takes place behind the scenes.

“We actually start prepping for Christmas in January,” said Geoff Royer, vice president of production and product development. “So once we go through the Christmas season, we have a review of what worked, what didn’t work. It’s a year-round thing for us.”

January will take Royer’s buyers to a major trade show in Atlanta, for instance, where they order holiday giftware that will arrive in stores some 10 months later.

Orchestrating everything requires varying amounts of attention at points throughout the year. It reaches a crescendo in December when dozens of Royer’s employees, creating their version of Santa’s workshop, gather in teams in the company’s central design department in Lebanon.

Combined, they handcraft 15,000 holiday arrangements (centerpieces most of all) and decorate 3,000 poinsettias and dish gardens for distribution to the 16 stores.

Royer’s reaches far and near to source its products.

Flowers are grown in South America. Most of the greens come from the West Coast. Poinsettias, although native to Mexico, hail from greenhouses in Ephrata, Lancaster County, and near Philadelphia.

“But we also get white pine straight from out of the Poconos,” Geoff said. “We have a guy who goes out and cuts bundles for us. And he’s right here in Pennsylvania.”

Just as Royer’s works on the holiday season the whole year long, some customers might like it if holiday arrangements were available all 365 days.

“People will send them for get-wells, they’ll send them for birthdays,” Geoff noted. “So just because it’s a Christmas arrangement doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate for all occasions.”

Royer’s Flowers donates $8,300 to three area nonprofits from sale of Admiration arrangement

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  • rom left, and Josh Hemmann, director of marketing and e-commerce, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts.
  • rom left, David Carl, senior development manager, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, and Josh Hemmann, director of marketing and e-commerce, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts.
  • From left, Angela Linton, associate director of community fundraising, Children’s Miracle Network, Penn State Health Children’s Hospital, and Josh director of marketing and e-commerce, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts.

Royer’s Flowers & Gifts has donated $8,300 to three area nonprofits.

The recipients and their awards:

  • Central Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition, $1,300
  • Children’s Miracle Network at Penn State Children’s Hospital, $2,000
  • Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, $5,000

Family-owned Royer’s earmarks $10 from every purchase of its Admiration arrangement for charitable donations. The arrangement has generated more than $61,000 in donations since 2015.

Admiration features two roses, bells of Ireland, carnations, football mums, cushion poms, charmelia alstroemeria, hypericum and silver dollar eucalyptus. 

“We are grateful for the support of our customers and these recipient organizations for the wonderful work they do to improve lives in our communities and beyond,” said Tom Royer, president and CEO of Royer’s.

We can’t promise eternity, but these steps will make your Christmas wreath last longer

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A circle has no end, which is one of the reasons why a Christmas wreath is a symbol of eternity.

One made from natural evergreen won’t last forever, of course, but you can take some simple steps to get the most out of it.

Make a noble gesture: Just as not all Christmas trees are created equal, the same holds true for wreaths. They have different characteristics, one of which has to do with needle retention.

Balsam wreaths are among the most fragrant, but they have a reputation for shedding needles. It has to do with where they are grown: Canada, northeastern states, the upper Great Lakes and Pennsylvania.

Noble fir wreaths, on the other hand, hail from the Pacific Northwest, where they are tested by high altitude, heavy rain and frost, and high winds. That makes them hearty in the face of what the holiday season throws at them.                          

The noble’s blue-green needles are rounded, giving them a fluffier look than the flatter balsam branches.

While noble fir might cost more than balsam because of growing time and shipping costs, it more than makes up for in longevity and construction.

Soak it: Any plant is on borrowed time once it is cut; however, keeping it moist will delay the inevitable. You can soak it in a bathtub or utility sink filled with room-temperature water for 24 hours to give it a deep hydration before you hang it.

Spray it with hairspray: You can seal in the wreath’s moisture with hairspray, which acts like glue and holds the needles on. To avoid a mess, it’s best to spray outdoors before hanging the wreath on a door, window or wall.

Mist it: Every day or every other day, lightly mist the wreath to keep it moist. To avoid getting walls wet or creating streaks on glass, remove the wreath from where it’s hanging while doing this.

Keep it shady and cool: Avoid direct sunlight and hang it on the outside of a door; otherwise, it can get cooked behind glass if hung between a main door and a storm door. The space between the doors suffers from reduced airflow, lower moisture and heat.

These steps will keep your Christmas wreath delivering joy throughout the holiday season.

Royer’s presents Red Cross with more than 3,000 holiday cards for area military veterans

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Laura Burke, executive director of the American Red Cross’ central Pennsylvania chapter,
and Amber Charnoff, marketing manager, Royer’s Flowers & Gifts.

From Oct. 14 through Nov. 16, all Royer’s Flowers & Gifts stores collected holiday cards and coloring pages from generous members of the public for area military veterans.

It’s a favorite annual tradition for Royer’s, which has a decade-plus affiliation with the American Red Cross “Holidays for Heroes” program.

In fact, Royer’s is the largest contributor among a list that also includes a senior-living center in Centre County, other corporate partners and school districts, said Laura Burke, executive director of the Red Cross’ central Pennsylvania chapter.

Amber Charnoff, Royer’s marketing manager, presented more than 3,000 cards and coloring pages to Burke on Nov. 20.

Next, Red Cross volunteers will review and sort the cards. They will be placed into totes destined for Veterans Administration hospitals, veteran homes and senior-living facilities within the 11-county chapter, which stretches from Centre in the north to Adams in the south.

Burke will be among the people making the deliveries in early December.

“I like to see how they’re received,” Burke said, “and it’s always met with gratitude and thanks. For people to just get a bundle of cards that have some personalized message in them, thanking them for their service, hoping they have a great holiday season, is always a meaningful thing.”

Burke said there’s a through line of support for service members and veterans from the Red Cross’ origin in 1881, in the aftermath of the Civil War, to Holidays for Heroes.

“Supporting our military community is a core of what we do as the Red Cross,” Burke said. “That carries through case work and helping veterans in distress and helping our active military on bases overseas. And also through supporting our veterans in giving them goodwill and well wishes during the holiday season. So it is a core of our mission.”

Christmas is a cold-weather holiday, but poinsettias like it warm

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Poinsettias are America’s No. 1 potted plant, with red being the most popular color.

Christmas is celebrated around the world, but it clearly leans into cold weather.Red poinsettias are the most popular color.

Santa lives at the North Pole, after all. Among the most common holiday imagery are snow-covered evergreens, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose.

But it doesn’t take a lot of sleuthing on the Internet to find a stock image of Santa unwinding after a globe-trotting Christmas Eve. He’s lounging in a beach chair, his red pant legs rolled up, his bare feet in sand. Often, there’s a colorful drink in his hand, a turquoise-blue body of water nearby.

It is the season of believing, after all. But if a sun-soaking Santa seems far-fetched to you, here’s a warm weather connection to Christmas that you don’t have to take on faith.

It’s a fact that the poinsettia – the official plant of Christmas – is native to Mexico. It’s a tropical plant that finds its comfort zone between 65 to 70 degrees during the day.

Despite having only a six-week selling season, poinsettias are America’s No. 1 potted plant, racking up sales of $250 million each year, according to the Future Farmers of America organization.

The plant takes its name from Joel Roberts Poinsett, a native of South Carolina who is credited with bringing the poinsettia to the United States while he was serving as the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Red poinsettias remain the most popular, but they come in more than 100 varieties, “including shades of white, cream, pink, purple, orange and yellow,” FFA noted. We source our poinsettias from Pennsylvania, but they are grown in all 50 states.

The colorful part of the plant is a modified leaf called a bract, which often is mistaken as the flower. You must look in the center of the bracts for the small yellow flowers, known as cyathium.

No matter the size or the color of your poinsettia, you’ll want to take these steps to make it last long.

  • Average room temperature is fine. Poinsettias can’t tolerate cold (including icy water) and can suffer from droopy leaves (a condition known as epinasty) if exposed to cold temperatures.
  • Epinasty also can result from a build-up of ethylene gas. Big-box retailers are notorious for leaving poinsettias in plastic sleeves, which trap ethylene and essentially ruin the plant.
  • Bright, ample light is best for the plant, mimicking conditions in Mexico.
  • Keep the plant moist but not sitting in water. Like people, poinsettias don’t like wet feet. The frequency and amount of water will vary depending upon the amount of sunlight, humidity and pot size to which the plant is exposed.
  • Poinsettias are sensitive plants, so you want to avoid banging them into things as they can bruise easily.

Not only are poinsettias a prominent part of Christmas, but they are the subject of their own holiday.

National Poinsettia Day, celebrated on Dec. 12, marks the anniversary of the day that Joel Roberts Poinsett died in 1851.

Royer’s Flowers celebrating veterans with free red, white and blue bouquets on Nov. 11

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This is an image of red and white carnations and an American flags on the occasion of Veterans Day.

Royer’s Flowers & Gifts will salute military veterans on Nov. 11 with free red, white and blue bouquets.

The Veterans Day bouquets – featuring a red carnation, a white carnation and a blue bow – will be available in-store only at each of Royer’s 16 locations in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties.

“Honoring the men and women who protect our freedom has become a favorite tradition in our stores,” said Tom Royer, president and CEO of family-owned Royer’s. “We are forever thankful for the dedication and sacrifice that our veterans and their families have made for all of us in our great country.”

Non-veterans may purchase the bouquets for $2.20 each.

Store addresses and hours can be found here.

Catalogs usher in new season for our brand

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Royer's Flowers & Gifts Fall 2024 Catalog
Royer's Flowers & Gifts Year-Round Catalog, issued in Fall 2024

When you’re a fourth-generation family-owned business nearing its 90th year in operation, you cherish your company history.

But a hallmark of Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ enduring legacy is honoring its past while still being willing and able to change course when circumstances dictate.

That agility has made Royer’s one of the most successful florists in the United States.

Sometimes change is thrust upon you suddenly, as it was during the coronavirus pandemic, an existential threat that forced Royer’s to rethink many of the ways it functioned. At other times, Royer’s has had to respond to structural developments in society, which brings us to our latest rebranding effort.

The first glimpse of that new look and feel began arriving in customers’ mailboxes this fall in the form of our year-round and fall catalogs.

Increasingly digital world

Go Welsh, our long-time design agency in Lancaster, is leading the rebranding.

“Whatever we do and propose,” said agency owner Craig Welsh, “it has to live in digital, but it can’t feel digital.”

At its heart, the rebranding addresses the challenge of promoting the organic feeling of flowers in an increasingly digital world.

More than half of our sales now occur online. All those swipes, clicks and taps come at a faster pace than the turning of a printed page, making it harder to capture the public’s attention.

The new catalogs feature a reworking of our logo, distilled from the long-stemmed flower it has been for decades into a clean, contained round icon that’s more recognizable across media.

On social media, Craig noted, an “icon becomes much more prominent in the expectation” among users. And with increased awareness, that icon can become the brand’s primary mark, lending itself to many more uses.

Mid-century modern

The icon makes for a “much cleaner brand presence visually,” Craig said, but the flip side is that the mathematical representation of shapes, lines and curves in the digital realm can overpower the organic world.

That’s why Go Welsh seized on the idea of bringing organic into the mix through inks made from flower petals and stems. Jenna Flickinger, a Go Welsh designer, keeps vials of ink at her desk, with labels such as lily, lavender and pansy, and clematis.

She boils the petals herself, adding salt (to release color) and gum arabic (a stabilizer) to create ink. She brushes the ink onto watercolor paper and then scans the washes into her computer.

Some of the colors and textures have been incorporated into the new catalogs, but the learning process continues. From vial to dried paper, the ink colors aren’t always predictable.

“Even though this was a pink carnation,” Jenna said of one example, “it still [dried as] this yellow color.”

Craig described the rebranding as a “mid-century modern aesthetic,” invoking a design style known for sleek lines connected to nature and a timeless essence.

“We’re trying to find a place where we can combine this organic sensibility with the vector, screen-based digital stuff, so we started looking at mid-century modern sensibilities,” Craig said.

It starts with the new catalogs, but you can expect to see many more representations in the year ahead.

‘Holidays for Heroes’ cards for service members and veterans being accepted Oct. 14-Nov. 16

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The image shows a sample of holiday cards and coloring pages that Royer's has received from the public in support of the American Red Cross program "Holidays for Heroes." The cards and coloring pages are given to service members and veterans.

One of our favorite annual traditions is returning Oct. 14 through Nov. 16.

During that period, all Royer’s stores will collect holiday cards and coloring pages for service members and veterans.

Royer’s has partnered with the American Red Cross “Holidays for Heroes” program for more than a decade.

Cards and coloring pages may be dropped off at any Royer’s store during normal business hours. Free coloring pages can be downloaded at royers.com/heroes.

The Red Cross offers these guidelines for preparing cards:

  • Use generic salutations: “Dear Service Member” or “Dear Veteran”
  • Be thoughtful with messages, expressing reasons why you are thankful for the service members/veterans; if you have a personal connection, such as a family member who served, consider adding that
  • Try not to be overtly religious, but messages such as “Merry Christmas” or “God Bless You” are acceptable
  • Do not include inserts such as glitter, photos, business cards
  • Do not include personal information such as telephone number, address or email
  • Sign your name

The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.

‘Mom’ Royer honored as part of new ‘Women’s History of Lebanon County’ exhibit

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This is the Hannah "Mom" Royer portion of the "Women's History of Lebanon County" exhibit running from October 2024 through March 2025 at the Lebanon County Historical Society.
After growing African violets on the windowsill of her Lebanon home,
Hannah “Mom” Royer founded Royer’s Flowers in 1937 with her husband, Lester.

“Mom” Royer and “Granny” Forney lived in different centuries, but their inspiring stories of business success have converged in the new “Women’s History of Lebanon County” exhibit at the Lebanon County Historical Society.

They are among 41 women honored individually in the exhibit, which runs from October through March.

Hannah “Mom” Royer, a native of Myerstown, founded our company with her husband, Lester, in 1937. The exhibit notes that Mom started selling African violets grown on the windowsill of her Lebanon home during the Depression.

The plants helped turn the Royers’ summer produce business into a year-round enterprise and, ultimately, one of the most successful flower retailers in the United States.

Royer’s contributed a silk floral arrangement and a yard stick bearing the name South Side Flower Shop, as the original store was known, to Mom’s part of the exhibit.

Hannah Royer’s tribute shares a shelf in a glass case with that of Forney, who as a divorced mother in the 1800s supported her family working for her neighbors by day and, at night, making cake and beer to sell. Her Annville shop, according to the exhibit, “became a community center where people met to talk and young couples courted.”

The idea for the exhibit – comprising two rooms of a converted house dating to 1786 – originated with the Lebanon County Commission for Women. The commission presented the historical society with a long list of names for consideration.

‘In the discussion early on’

Shane Keenan, the historical society’s archivist, worked with board of trustees members Sherie Strohman and Barbara Gaffney to compile the final list.

Mom Royer, Keenan said, “was definitely in the discussion early on. I think as soon as we determined that we were going to have a section on business and workplace, her name came up, I think right away.”

Other women featured in the exhibit come from the areas of sports, arts, medicine, politics, education, military, philanthropy.

One of the intents of the exhibit is to offer a glimpse into how local women participated in national events, including the battle over women’s suffrage, or the right for women to vote.

Doris Long came to the county from New York, to teach English at Lebanon Valley College. As president of the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, Long spoke at an event in 1915 when a statewide tour of the Women’s Liberty Bell stopped in Lebanon.

A replica of the Liberty Bell minus the crack, the Women’s Liberty Bell didn’t ring (a chain kept its clapper from moving) until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Long is featured in the exhibit along with one of her local foes, Deborah Norris Coleman Brock, who was president of the Pennsylvania Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Brock was born into the Coleman family iron dynasty and used her wealth for philanthropic endeavors, including helping to start Good Samaritan Hospital.

The historical society recognizes that the exhibit reflects only a portion of the contributions made by women to the county’s development. Cards will be provided for visitors to suggest other women who should be recognized.

Meanwhile, you can learn more about Mom Royer on our blog.

IF YOU GO

This is a photo of the exterior of the Lebanon County Historical Society, 924 Cumberland St., Lebanon, Pa.

The “Women’s History of Lebanon County” exhibit runs through March, which is Women’s History Month, at the Lebanon County Historical Society, 924 Cumberland St., Lebanon.

Admission to the women’s exhibit is free. The historical society is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Name-the-arrangement contest sparkles with ‘Merriment,’ chosen for new holiday design

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Participants in Royer's Flowers name-the-arrangement contest in 2024 are asked to give a name to this holiday design. It features carnations, poms and a rose with noble fir and boxwood, ribbon and berries, all in a silver and red tin.

By day, Jennifer Davis of Lebanon is an engineer, writing test plans for satellites.

At night she comes back to earth with what she called her “email wind-down routine,” which is how Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ name-the-arrangement contest came into her orbit.

She submitted a couple entries, winning with “Merriment,” which put a figurative bow on a new holiday design. The arrangement features carnations, poms and a rose with noble fir and boxwood, ribbon and berries, all in a silver and red tin.

The contest runner-up was Joanne Beasy with “Berries & Boughs.” Beasy, of Grove City, Ohio, entered the contest through Royer’s sister company Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts, which has three stores in the Columbus, Ohio, area.

Davis and Beasy each will receive a Merriment arrangement as their prize.