Mother’s Day Pop-up Shop

image courtesy Sierra Selections

Sharpen your pencils and get out your phones: Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12.

If this means you will be on the market for flowers or plants, please stop by the Sage Flowers pop up shop at 2312 Princess Street in the west end.

Lakeshore School has generously offered me a temporary space on Saturday May 11 and Sunday May 12 from 9:00 am -6:00 pm.*

You can pick up your order**, or choose a fresh flower arrangement or dish garden. If you have a few minutes to spare, I can wrap up a custom bouquet for you on the spot.

Don’t worry if you can’t make it out; we’re still offering our friendly delivery service.

I’ve got Ontario forsythia, delphinium and snapdragons on the way, and I CANNOT WAIT to unpack my pincushion protea from Resendiz Brothers Farms in sunny California.

image courtesy Sierra Selections

Come say hello, take a peek at this beautiful historical building, and bank your good-kid points for the year.

There will be non-stop coffee, and I’ll sweet talk someone into bringing us cookies and cake.

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks. Happy Tuesday!

*Friday evening pickups available by appointment- call 613-545-9229 or email info@sageflowers.ca
** Lakeshore School is only providing the space- contact me to discuss your flowers!

Carnations- for science!

I don’t usually carry carnations. I haven’t found an Ontario grower yet, and I don’t use them frequently… but I spied a bunch of white carnations on the truck last week and just had to pick them up for the preschool class at Lakeshore school.

They were doing the classic experiment of white carnations in water dyed with food colouring- I was pretty charmed by the results:

Here’s a bright pink monstrosity from a grocery store bunch I picked up the other week:

Now compare that to the subtle little stripes on the pre-k fleurs:

I love the little zig zags, I was surprised at where the colour showed the most in that top third of the petal-sometimes I forget to really appreciate the biology and processes behind these beautiful materials I work with.

PS. Lakeshore has generously offered me space for a Mother’s Day pop up shop. We will still be offering our delivery service, but for customers who wish to pick up their orders, or stop by for cash and carry, the school offers a central location and parking lot. Come take a peek at the building, pick up a bunch of flowers for mom, say hello- there will probably be coffee, maybe even cake. More details coming soon.

Happy Tuesday!

A little something-something

I was finishing up an order of small hand-tied bouquets for a corporate client* when I realised one of her bouquets was going to the hospital, where they do not allow flowers without a container.

One tiny upcycled blue vase and two crazy-bright orange gerberas to the rescue!

The dark-green bit of vine is grape ivy, my new favourite go-to foliage.

Bud vases usually bore me. This one made me take pictures. And possibly make squealy noises and talk to myself.

This working from home thing, I tell ya. I should just go out and buy eighteen cats and a set of old-school hair curlers and get it over with.

But, on the plus side- bright blue and orange!

Happy Tuesday.

*the lovely, always smiling, BILINGUAL mortgage broker, Raquel Welch, of Mortage Professionals East Side, should you require help with that sort of a thing.

April in Paris

This time last year we were setting out on a trip to London and York in the UK, with a few days in Paris via the Eurostar.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom around Notre Dame, a brass band played under the bridge by the Seine, the metro was distinctly more punkrock and less restrained than the tube back in London (we called it the party train.) And it poured rain and HAILED almost every day.

Nothing a glass of bourgogne and a plate of escargots on Rue Mouffetard couldn’t fix, but still, as the trip-organiser of the duo, I had real bouts of misery, feeling guilty and somehow responsible (yes, even for the weather) when things weren’t picture-postcard-perfect. Which of course, they always are for everyone else, at all times.

The lows really accentuated the high points, though- and our theme was high and low, from the 2nd etage of the Eiffel Tower (CHEAP TICKETS FOR THE STAIRS, helllaaaaa) to the catacombs.

We climbed up to Montmatre and the Lapin Agile, we ran the gauntlet down through a weird group of scammers/muggers who mark their marks with a bracelet. Try the sex museum (I blushed more than I expected), the Arc de Triomphe and the film museum. Sit out cloudbursts in a cafe, or on the free ground floor tour of Notre Dame. Screw the overcrowded Louvre, and head straight for the laid-back Musee D’Orsee. Why try to get a peek at the Mona Lisa over a busload of cranky tourists, when you can stand two feet away and see all the layers and brush hairs on a Van Gogh?

Rainy wine and cheese and baguette picnics in the park…one-euro cafes if you stand up at the bar instead of sit-down service. They charge about six euros for a cup of tea in all the tourist hotspots- I like to think it’s a dig at the English. Oh, and cider is cheapest of all.

I ditched some of my clothes to fit more foie gras and cheese and wine bottles into my backpack on the way home. London Underground tip of the day: carry around a bag full of stank cheese on your way home. You’ll even get a seat during rush hour. Liz Lemon was right.

Took refuge in what turned out to be an ancient Roman amphitheatre when we were caught by yet more hail at the market. Accidentally wandered through the Jardin des Plantes while trying to find our hotel without using the touriste map- As you do, n’est ce pas?

Beautiful accidents.

Cold and rainy and full of promise and green shoots, if not actual perfect blooms.

Happy April. xo