Temperatures go from warm to cool, green leaves turn gold, red, orange.
And just as fall is the season of change in the natural world, it can be in the digital realm, too.
At Royer’s, this fall coincides with the launch of our new website. It’s still at royers.com, of course, but it has a fresh, crisp new look and functionality that should make the shopping experience even more fulfilling. (This look also is evident in our e-blasts and printed fall catalog.)
Among the improvements, both functionally and aesthetically:
The website now features “responsive” design, which means that it adjusts to the size of the browser in which it is viewed. We realize that customers shop online from different-sized screens, from desktop to laptop, tablet to smart phone.
Additional filters help shoppers more readily find what they’re looking for. For instance, instead of just searching by price across all products, it’s now possible to narrow that search by categories. Soon you’ll be able to filter by flower and color, too.
Arrangements are shown bigger and scale according to screen size.
Text is set against transparent colors, allowing more of the background flower images to shine through.
If the curvy page designs have a familiar feel, it’s because they are macro-views of actual flower shapes. The size, color and placement of the shapes are not determined by templates but rather are unique to each layout. This allows the layouts to remain fresh and change with the seasons.
What do you think of our new website? We’d like to hear from you. Please share your comments below, or let us know the next time you visit one of our stores.
Being a professional interior designer, Kristin Iwancio said entering Royer’s name-the-arrangement contest was “totally in my wheelhouse.”
Indeed, it was.
Iwancio, of Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County, submitted the winning name – Farmhouse Sunset – among 639 total contest entries.
“I love sunsets, so why not go with that? I’m never up early enough for sunrises,” she quipped.
The new arrangement includes two short-stemmed orange roses, a mini green hydrangea, a hot pink spray rose and purple statice.
It measures 13 inches high and nine inches wide.
Although Farmhouse Sunset won’t be available to the public until fall, Iwancio received one early.
It was her prize for naming the arrangement.
Royer’s representatives, from left, Erica Bixby, Woody Felty, Geoff Royer.
Vendor showroom
AmericasMart comprises 7 million square feet
Vendor showroom
We don’t procrastinate when it comes to holiday shopping. In fact, no sooner is one Christmas in the rearview mirror than we start planning for the next one.
It’s not that we’re eager for the passage of time. Rather, we’re beckoned by AmericasMart in Atlanta, which describes itself as the nation’s leading gift, home furnishings and area rug wholesale marketplace.
In Atlanta, we might purchase containers bearing a Christmas decoration, or snowflake or snowman stick-ins to complement an arrangement. We source Christmas décor at AmericasMart but also gifts that customers will give at the holidays, such as a picture frame.
A half-dozen Royer’s representatives visit AmericasMart’s three-building, 7 million-square-foot complex every January, buying gifts and arrangement accents for the next Christmas season, and again in July, when the focus will be on the next spring.
Focus on larger gifts
Jenni Eberly, Royer’s market manager, has made six trips to Atlanta, so she’s a veteran now. But as a first-time visitor, she found the experience daunting.
“It’s overwhelming,” she said, “looking at all that merchandise set out in the displays. Because then you have to take these huge displays and then pick out what you’re going to buy.”
As vast as AmericasMart is, Royer’s spends most of its time on five floral and holiday floors. In July, the group arrived in Atlanta on a Wednesday and worked through Friday. The pace is constant, and even lunch and dinner conversation turns to what each of them has seen from vendors.
Geoff Royer, whose great-grandparents started Royer’s, coordinates the Atlanta trips. He sets up meetings with specific vendors. He also arms each member of the Royer’s delegation with a folder that identifies, by holiday, items on their shopping list.
The needs range from broad to specific. In January, some of the focus was on larger gifts, such as clocks, afghans and pillows that are relatively new for Royer’s. In July, one of the goals was to find new versions of a heart stick-in and accent ribbon to give a new look to an existing arrangement.
Erica Bixby, Royer’s store manager in Lebanon, has been to Atlanta three times. With experience, she has learned to think beyond the initial appeal of new products to identify how they will work in Royer’s stores.
How will they complement other items, and will they work given the price at which they will have to sell, including once freight costs are factored in?
Something might look nice, Erica suggested, “but you can’t really sell it for $50.”
Moments of inspiration
Technology has made it easier to document the trips. Photos taken with a tablet or smart phone are invaluable for jogging memories. After all, Christmas giftware purchased in January won’t arrive until summer or fall.
Photos also capture moments of inspiration.
“I have a bunch of things that I liked for silks,” Erica said, with an eye toward Royer’s crafting similar arrangements in-house rather than buying them already made.
“Or I take pictures of displays that I’d like to duplicate in the stores,” Jenni added.
On her phone, Jenni pulled up a photo showing how one vendor used eye hooks and ropes to display pillows.
“It’s up, it’s still in the display, but it’s out of the way,” Jenni said, noting that pillows are vulnerable in a flower shop, where the need to water plants is constant.
One week after returning from the July trip, Erica and Jenni were in Royer’s central design department in Lebanon. Looking around them, at tables filled with arrangements being created or revamped for fall debuts, they estimated that 30 percent of the items were from Atlanta.
“That container, that container, that container,” Jenni said, pointing at specific arrangements. “That vase. Those deer [figures]. Those are all things that we picked up in January.”
One of our new arrangements, debuting this fall, has all kinds of color, thanks to two short-stemmed orange roses, a mini green hydrangea, a hot pink rose spray and purple statice.
But what the arrangement doesn’t have is a name. This is where you come in.
Royer’s is holding an online name-the-arrangement contest, with the winner receiving one of the arrangements as his or her prize.
The deadline for entries is July 31. Limit one entry daily per email address. Click here to enter.
Good luck!
No plant says Christmas quite like the poinsettia. But nary a holiday season goes by without poinsettias being negatively associated with pet health.
Yet the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says poinsettias “may be the most misrepresented plant when it comes to toxicity. Since 1919 poinsettias have been called lethal if ingested by pets. However, many animal studies have shown that it is just not true.”
Relatively few plant and flower species are dangerous to pets, and the effects can range widely.
As the ASPCA notes, poinsettias and other holiday plants are not good for pets to ingest, potentially irritating the mouth and stomach and sometimes causing vomiting, but generally are “over-rated in toxicity.”
The same can’t be said about lilies and cats. Eating just a couple of leaves or licking a few pollen grains off their fur can quickly cause kidney failure, according to CBS News.
“A cat that’s eaten part of a lily will vomit soon afterwards, but this may gradually lessen after two to four hours. Within 12 to 24 hours, the cat may start to urinate frequently. Urination may then stop if kidney failure occurs. If untreated, a cat will die within four to seven days after eating a lily.”
This is the case for any true lily — belonging to the plant genus Lilium — including Easter lily, tiger lily, rubrum lily, Japanese show lily and certain species of daylily.
In contrast, the calla lily, peace lily, lily of the valley and Peruvian lily (alstroemeria) are not true lilies and won’t cause kidney failure in cats although they have other toxic principles, according to the Pet Poison Helpline.
If you love plants and pets, then it’s a good idea to consider which ones are the best fit for your home. Here are several resources: The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center offersan exhaustive, sortable list of plants that are toxic or non-toxic to dogs and cats. The list focuses on plants “that have been reported as having systemic effects on animals and/or intense effects on the gastrointestinal tract,” according to the ASPCA, which cautions that the list is not meant to be all-inclusive.
If you think your animal is ill or may have ingested a poisonous substance, the ASPCA suggests contacting your veterinarian or its 24-hour emergency poison hotline at 1-888-426-4435. The Humane Society offers an informative — and highly alliterative — list of “plants potentially poisonous to pets.” The Pet Poison Helpline offers its Top 10 Plants Poisonous to Pets.
Of course, as the Pet Poison Helpline notes:
“While there are thousands of species of plants and flowers, only a small percentage of plants are truly dangerous and poisonous to your pet.”
Even when handled with great care, the heads of your beautiful roses could drop over within a few days of receiving a bouquet.
It’s not that the flowers are old. Rather, it’s likely that an air bubble got stuck in the stem, preventing water from getting in.
With these easy steps, you can bring the roses back to a robust state:
1. Fill a sink with 2 inches of water;
2. Remove the roses from their vase and submerge the stems in water;
3. While they are submerged, cut the stems (scissors are fine) approximately 2 inches from the bottom. A diagonal cut is best as it provides the most surface area for water to get in;
4. Allow the stems to soak in the water for an hour.
When you place the roses back in the vase, they should be in good shape once again. Be sure to add the plant food that your florist should have provided.
Carnation from Bogota, Colombia; gypsophilia from Quito, Ecuador
Tulips from Holland
Hydrangeas from Medellin, Colombia
Alstromeria from Bogota, Colombia
North America to South America. Europe, Africa and Asia.
Oh, the places we’ll go to procure high-quality flowers.
We’ve previously told you about our regular trips to Bogota, Colombia, which has an ideal climate for growing roses, for instance.
Here’s a sampling of other flowers and the couuntries from which we source them:
Carnations/alstromeria: Bogota, Colombia
Dendrobium: Thailand
Gerbera daisies: Canada
Gypsophilia: Quito, Ecuador
Hydrangeas/pompons: Medellin, Colombia
Hypericum: Ethiopia
Iris/tulips: Holland
Sunflowers: United States
Sweetheart roses: Holland
Among the thousands of Valentine’s Day arrangements we’ll be making this year is one called Thoughts of You, which this team was handcrafting in our central design department in Lebanon.
This arrangement features shades of pink comprising a rose, alstroemeria, carnations and mini carnations, as well as lavender button poms and stems of bupleurum, all contained in a 5.5-inch pink mason jar.
To send one to someone you love, click here.
Tom Royer shining a light into boxes of roses to look at cut points.
Sorting slides for grading roses.
Roses for Valentine’s Day arrangements.
Day 3 found Tom Royer and Geoff Royer again in Bogota, again inspecting Valentine’s Day roses, this time at the Multiflora farm.
“The quality was very good from what we saw,” Geoff said. “It’s impossible to look at every bunch we get, but we make sure we go through the process with them about the cut point, again.” As noted in our Day 2 entry, cut point is crucial. It’s the stage in a flower’s life when it is cut from the plant. The cut point has to be just right to ensure that our customers get the best quality and most value from their flowers.
Multiflora has invested in its processes to make them more accurate and efficient. Workers used to grade flowers in the field, so it was not as accurate as it could be, Geoff said.
Now the only thing they do in the field is sort the roses, long-stem vs. short stem. Now there’s a post-harvest building where the roses are graded more accurately, prepped and packed in boxes for shipping to customers such as Royer’s.
Multiflora now cools its loading dock, so there is no break in the “cold chain” between the post-harvest building, the loading dock, and the refrigerated trucks that will transport the roses to the airport.
“The better that flowers can be kept cold, the longer they will last throughout the process and for our customers,” Geoff said.
Multiflora is switching to a hydroponic growing system, so the plants are growing in raised beds rather than directly in the ground. This gives the farm more control over the nutrients the plants receive — and increases the yield by 50 percent.
Headed for home
Tom and Geoff also visited the Hossa farm, which provides us with spray roses (multiple small blooms per stem). But the focus of this stop was Hossa’s lilies.
Hossa has developed new varieties that produce more blooms per stem. And like Multiflora, Hossa has improved its processes, namely packing.
“They tightened the lilies into the boxes better so during transport they don’t shift,” Geoff said. “If the lilies shift in the boxes, it damages the buds and leaves bruising and creasing once the flowers open up.”
Their farm tours completed, Tom and Geoff are going their separate ways. Tom will fly to Miami for another inspection of the Valentine’s Day shipments, ensuring the highest quality before the flowers are packed on our truck for delivery to our Lebanon distribution center.
Geoff is headed back to Pennsylvania, arriving in Lebanon in time for the start of Valentine’s Day production Saturday in our central design department.
There, teams of Royer’s employees will handcraft thousands of holiday arrangements using the roses, carnations and other Colombian-grown flowers that Geoff and Tom saw firsthand only days earlier.
We started Tom Royer and nephew Geoff Royer’s trip to Colombia, South America, in the city of Medellin. Day 2 found them some 335 miles southwest in Bogota, the nation’s capital.
Bogota sits in the center of Colombia, on a high-altitude plateau that provides year-round steady temperatures that help make it one of the world’s great flower-growing regions.
Tom and Geoff visited two more farms. The first was Elite, one of the largest growers in Bogota and our source mainly for roses and alstroemeria (lilies).
“Today was an inspection day,” Geoff said. “We examined some of our roses and discussed the cut point of the flowers.”
The cut point is, as the term suggests, the stage in the flower’s life cycle at which it is cut from the plant. There is an art to this, as we have to factor in the amount of time from farm, through customs in Miami, to our distribution center, to our stores and, finally, to our customers.
“Roses cut too open will blow open more quickly and not last as long,” Geoff said. “Roses cut too tight may not open at all. We are very critical of this part of the process and work with the growers to ensure that they have our cut points correct so we can provide the best possible product to our customers.”
While Elite has machines to help newer employees with grading the roses for head size and length, all of Royer’s roses are hand-graded by Elite’s experienced crews to ensure the best quality.
From Elite, Tom and Geoff visited the Geoflora farm, a carnation grower whose quality, Geoff said, is second to none. Besides inspecting the mini-carnations and carnations that Geoflora is growing for us for Valentine’s Day, they got a glimpse at some of the new products the farm is developing with its breeder.
“They have developed a carnation head size that is almost in a class of its own,” Geoff said.
