Valentine’s Day for florists is often a love/ hate affair. We all love it because of the many customers seeking out flowers on one special day, and we all hate it because it involves a marathon of work leading up to that one day. Last year my thermostat went out on my cooler and I lost a good deal of flowers. It was a trial of perseverance, but it all turned out all right. Fortunately, this year was far less dramatic. We did have our flowers arrive a day late due to transportation issues. This required us to pull an all-nighter designing arrangements, but otherwise it went smoothly. I always expect a little loss of sleep during Valentine’s Day, so it was par for the course!

The great thing about this Valentine’s Day was all the beautiful flowers I got to work with. I purchased flowers from California, Amsterdam’s flower market, a sustainable rose farm in Ecuador, and from various Midwest wholesalers. Although I wish Valentine’s Day was in the summer during our own growing season so I could buy from all local growers, my supply was pretty amazing. It takes a lot of effort to seek out flowers from such a variety of sources, but I believe it is part of what makes our flower selection special. Once the flowers arrived, it was such fun working with our team to produce some lovely, nature-inspired designs. There was a wide variety of arrangements, from rustic to modern and everything in between.

To entice men (and women) to stop in Friday after work, we were lucky enough to get Eric Martin of Marto Brewing to offer beer tasting at the shop. It was a great draw, and he had some amazing beer. He will be opening up a brewery in Sioux City soon, so keep your eyes open for that. He has some really special brews and has won many awards. Thank you, Eric, for agreeing to make our evening a special event filled with beer, fun, flowers, and friends.

We strive to take the “cheese” out of Valentine’s Day….we do not sell teddy bears and fake flowers. Instead, we provide artistic, lush floral designs that make people happy to both give and receive our arrangements. We attempt to bring the joy of flowers back to the holiday. We found that so many people have been refreshed giving flowers again for this holiday after years of not wanting to due to old, over-priced, boring options. We found men and women very interested in our product and excited about giving and receiving Honeysuckle Hollow Flowers.

We also had a variety of gifts in the shop from local artisans such as Bloom Wild, Shady Grove Pottery, Ken Peterson woodwork, jewelry from Alyssa Feiges, and handmade sweets from my daughter, Everly and her friend Isobel. It is great to support other local artists, and it makes for great, unique gifts to pair with our flowers.

Our shop is always filled with interesting items, too, like these hanging terrarium globes that I happened to get a decent photo of the other day:

And yes, the store was packed with flowers and arrangements! There was something for everyone. Here are a few pictures from the day.

(We even did a little festive decorating of the shop with some handmade/hand-dyed paper flowers for the wall.)

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to purchase a little beauty! We hope you loved your flowers and will think of us in the coming year for your events and holidays. I so appreciate every person who walks in our door and supports this dream of mine. I had a lot of very happy people who wrote me to say how much they loved their flowers. Reading these notes and looking at the photos they sent out into the world via social media made my Valentine’s Day!

May your lives be touched by love and beauty often in the year to come!

Valentine's Day Sale