“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, author
Indeed, June is National Rose Month, which coincides conveniently with the fact that roses are abundant this time of year.
That abundance explains why Royer’s has its rose sale every June.
As everyone knows, roses, especially red ones, are in great demand at Valentine’s Day. Hence, prices go up for florists and customers alike. Even then, however, the law of supply and demand comes into play.
There’s considerably less demand for yellow and orange and white roses, which become more affordable for us and, in turn, for our customers. This Valentine’s Day, we offered a “rainbow” mixed-rose (colors other than red) arrangement with babies breath, valued at $59.99, for $39.99.
A rose farm typically harvests its crop every six to eight weeks. Conveniently after the Valentine’s Day harvest comes the one for Mother’s Day. But while there’s another big crop of roses in late spring, there is not a corresponding holiday to absorb all of those flowers.
So we created our annual rose sale, which this year started May 17 and runs through June 22. We discount rose arrangements by $10 for one dozen and by $20 for two dozen, among other offers.
Yes, in June the world smells of roses.
There’s also the whiff of our annual rose sale in the air.
Coming up Rosie: costumed flower returns
If you passed our Lebanon store on May 8 or 11 (Mother’s Day), you might have seen something that no one has seen in a long time.
Our costumed rose, aka Rosie, made a couple of appearances, soaking up some sun (after a decade spent mostly in storage) and waving to passersby on South 12th Street. The costume dates at least to the 1990s.
Greg M. Royer, the store’s assistant manager, remembered the costume from a corporate meeting.
“And then it just kind of came to me,” he said, “maybe it would be a good way to get people in the door.”
Shannon Fink, the store manager, located the box containing the costume in the basement of one of the buildings within Royer’s corporate complex.
“Nobody wanted to volunteer to be Rosie at first,” Shannon said, quipping, “so somebody was forced to.”
That somebody was Greg, who’s giving the thumbs-up in the photo above. The costume also comes with a leotard, gloves and shoe coverings.
“I was hoping that somebody else would want to do it,” he said.
But the Royer family is nothing if not hands on when it comes to the flower business, so it should come as no surprise that Greg’s grandfather, Ken Royer, and uncle, Tom Royer, donned the costume in the past.
Greg, the great-grandson of the company’s founders, Hannah and Lester Royer, is the fourth generation of the family to work for Royer’s.
He’s the third generation to play Rosie.
We’ll walk down the aisle with you on your wedding day
Talk about a night at the museum. Instead of historical figures coming to life, this is a story about a would-be florist providing flowers for a wedding at a museum.
She left the flowers overnight in the museum’s old refrigerator – and they were frozen solid the morning of the wedding.
Not only are we familiar with this story, we lived it. At least the part where the woman came to us in a panic, and we made all-new bouquets, corsages and boutonnières in time for the nuptials.
It certainly wasn’t the first time we repaired or made new bouquets on short notice for a bride who bought her flowers elsewhere and was disappointed. Nor is it the only way that we can help to make a wedding day a little more special.
Wedding packages
We’ve been fortunate to provide flowers to many big weddings, but the typical expenditure for wedding flowers is between $400 and $1,000. We also offer affordable wedding packages.
Typically, we deliver two hours before a wedding to make sure that everything is where it should be.
Wedding service
We also offer a wedding service – for a fee, in some cases – that arrives an hour prior to the exchange of vows and stays until the bride has walked through the door and down the aisle.
A trained wedding consultant helps everyone with their flowers – and brings along a toolbox to help with just about any other need that might arise:
• Such as the time that the flower girl gave an enthusiastic hug to the bride, who was left with a nice bright lipstick stain in the middle of the gown. No problem. Our consultant pulled out her stain stick and removed the blemish.
• Or the time that the bride’s gown zipper ripped just before the wedding. Our consultant reached for her needle and thread.
• And the icing on the cake with all of this? It was the time that our consultant helped to ice the wedding cake moments before the reception.
Royer’s delivers Mother’s Day flower and plant tips to Fox 43
Barry Spengler, Royer’s vice president of operations, has a simple message when it comes to Mother’s Day.
“The key,” he told Fox 43’s Heather Warner, “just don’t forget Mom. That’s bad.”
Barry offered a number of options, from one or two roses wrapped up to a mixed bouquet in a vase to porch plants such as gerbera daisies or calla lilies.
Potted plants want to be outside, he said, and require a lot of water.
“People under-water these,” he said. “They need a lot of water. I get a gallon jug, fill it all the way up. And I usually dump most of the gallon a day on it. All of the excess will run out. …
“And every once a week, I usually add the fertilizer to the jug and fill it.”
You can view the entire segment below.
Annual plants add beauty: 3 tips for taking care of them
Colorful flowering annual baskets and pots provide an easy and inexpensive way to increase the beauty and enjoyment of outside living areas.
Annual plants are available in a wide range of colors and varieties, offering something for everyone.
Care is simple. Just keep these things in mind:
• Choose plants suited to the light levels they’re growing in:
- Sunny spots require plants that thrive in the sun, such as geraniums, petunias, marigolds, salvia, ageratum, alyssum and portulaca.
- Plants that do better with partial shade are begonias, impatiens, fuchsia and coleus.
• Container plants drink lots of water. Check them daily.
• To keep the blooms coming all season, add a water-soluble fertilizer a couple of times each week when watering. Plants also can be encouraged to bloom and stay “bushy” by pinching off the spent blooms.
M is for Mother’s Day and the many arrangements we’re making
Royer’s team members will create nearly 14,000 floral arrangements for Mother’s Day, most of them in our central design department in Lebanon. You can see some of that activity below.
Don’t let ‘DOGs’ take a bite out of your Mother’s Day order
Our Google search for “flowers hershey, pa” returned several sponsored links from what appear to be local florists.
On one website, there’s this message: “Hershey, Pennsylvania Flower Delivery by our local florist to Hershey TODAY!”
The owner of that website is in Michigan.
On the home page of another of the websites is this: “Best Hershey, PA Same Day Flower Delivery!” The page lists Hershey-area hotels, schools, funeral homes. It even includes a Hershey weather forecast.
The company behind that website is out of New Jersey.
‘Deceptive order gatherer’
Each of the companies is what is known in the floral industry as an “order gatherer,” or sometimes derided as a “deceptive order gatherer,” or DOG, as described in a recent story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
They take orders and then broker them to local florists or even ship the flowers (unarranged, of course) via UPS or FedEx. These DOGs, which operate year-round, are hunting for your Mother’s Day order. And if they get it, they’ll likely take a bite out of your wallet that will exceed what you would have paid by working with your local florist to place the order.
The order gatherer will entice you with deals that look great but, upon closer inspection, probably aren’t.
In almost all cases, the order gatherers present their flowers at discounted prices. A tulip bouquet valued at $81.99 is shown as marked down to $44.99, for instance. They also tend to upsell, so that when you select a standard or regular arrangement it defaults to a “deluxe” (read: more expensive) version.
Costly commissions and fees
On one order gather’s website, the home page featured a “best seller” arrangement of lilies, roses and alstroemeria valued at $34.99 but discounted to $27.99. When we clicked on it, our selection instead chose the deluxe version: valued at $44.99 but with a “Google discount” of $9 that put the total at $35.99.
At checkout, there was a $2.99 charge for same-day delivery – and a service/handling fee of $14.99. Our total was $53.97 even with the so-called Google discount.
Order gatherers typically deduct a 20 percent commission and other fees from orders, according to the Inquirer article. So if a flower order is valued at $44.99, that leaves less than $36 for the local florist, who then must deduct his delivery fee. Pretty soon, that $44.99 worth of flowers is maybe only a $28 value or less to the customer.
“It’s a no-win situation,” the Inquirer noted of this practice. The florist “can either fill the full order and lose money, or substitute a cheaper arrangement and risk consumer outrage.”
Let your local florist help
Either way, it might not be a risk worth taking when it comes to the impression you wish to make on the recipient. If you have a strong and trusting relationship with your local florist, then why not let them help you with an out-of-town flower delivery?
Reputable florists will make sure you get the value and quality that you deserve on your long-distance orders. After all, they want to be treated fairly when they are on the receiving end of orders.
The deceptive order gatherers, on the other hand, extract high service and delivery fees – only to hand off the order to someone else.
Another one of the order gatherers we examined offered same-day delivery of a gerbera arrangement valued at $49.99 but discounted to $29.99. Then another offer appeared, lowering the price to $9.99. But a service charge of $19.99 and a handling charge of $10.50 brought the total to $40.48.
The order gatherer won’t earn those fees, and you won’t get what you paid for.
When it comes to flowers, these DOGs aren’t man’s best friend.
A selfish reason for giving flowers or plants on Secretary’s Day: boost productivity
Flowers aren’t just a nice thing to do for your administrative assistant on Secretary’s Day, also known as Administrative Professionals Day.
Research conducted at Texas A&M University found that flowers can help boost workplace productivity.
“Our research shows that a change as simple as adding flowers and plants can be important in the most meaningful way to businesses in the modern economy,” said Roger Ulrich, lead researcher on the project. The increased productivity – in the form of innovation and creative problem-solving – “could mean the difference between mild and great business success.”
The Society of American Florists worked with the researchers, lending expertise in flowers and plants.
In an eight-month study, both women and men demonstrated more-innovative thinking, generating more ideas and original solutions to problems in the office environment that included flowers and plants. Men generated more ideas, while women generated more creative, flexible solutions to problems.
So bosses can give their administrative assistants flowers and plants out of respect and out of self-interest.
How the lily became a symbol of Easter and other floral facts about the holiday
Numerous accounts identify her as Mrs. Thomas Sargent, a resident of Philadelphia who visited Bermuda in the 1880s. Smitten by the lilies she saw there, she brought lily bulbs home with her.
She gave some of them to a local nurseryman named William Harris, “who began growing them, forcing them into spring bloom, and selling to other florists,” writes Leonard Perry, an extension professor at the University of Vermont. “Many began buying this flower for Easter, as they do today, with it symbolizing the Resurrection.”
“Forcing” bulbs – as we described in this post about hyacinths – is the means by which light and temperature can be manipulated in order to control the rate at which a plant grows. In most parts of the United States, lilies naturally would bloom in the summer – weeks after Easter.
Some other facts about Easter lilies:
- Flowering and green houseplants (46 percent) account for the biggest chunk of Easter/Passover floral sales. Lilies (52 percent) account for most flowering houseplant sales. (aboutflowers.com)
- Lilies are considered highly toxic to cats. The Society of American Florists recommends keeping lilies out of the reach of cats as ingesting even small amounts of the plant can cause kidney failure. Lilies do not pose a problem for other pets or humans. (aboutflowers.com)
- In the home, Easter lilies prefer moderately cool temperatures (recommended 60 to 65 degrees during the day, slightly cooler at night). They thrive near a window in bright, indirect natural daylight. (Texas A&M Agrilife Extension)
- Pennsylvania is among the states that produce the most potted Easter lilies. (Texas A&M Agrilife Extension)
Flowers help stem the morning blahs: Harvard study
Maybe it’s the long winter or the still-cold mornings, or just too much work and not enough sleep. There are any number of reasons why it can be tough to get at ’em in the morning.
When it comes to a pick-me-up, caffeine isn’t for all tastes. But everyone can start their days with flowers — and with good reason.
People are happier and more energetic after looking at flowers first thing in the morning, according to a behavioral study conducted by researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital.
“The morning blahs, it turns out, is a real phenomenon, with positive moods — happiness, friendliness and warmth, for example — manifesting much later in the day,” said lead researcher Dr. Nancy Etcoff. “Interestingly, when we placed a small bouquet of flowers into their morning routines, people perked up.”
The final study results demonstrated that flowers affect people emotionally at home, causing them to feel less anxious and more compassionate. They even reported a boost of energy that lasted all day.
“What I find interesting is that by starting the day in a more positive mood, you are likely to transfer those happier feelings to others — it’s what is called mood contagion,” Etcoff said. “And, the kitchen is the place where families tend to gather in the morning — imagine how big a difference a better morning mood can make.”
To learn more about this study and ways to incorporate flowers into your kitchen, click here.