David Everett’s Catersource session was one of many places that Mayesh Wholesale Florist’s fresh blooms made a star appearance.  During the session, David spoke about guiding clients away from the popular black & white towards color – from utulizing black/white combined with pops of color to going all out with “Rock & Roll”.  We took load of pictures to help bring this session summary to life.  Enjoy this review of the 4 color schemes that David and his JDK team put together for us!

Funky Town

1980s is coming back (honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this statement but I think the design is fun) black and white square vases set low mixed with tall black and white filled with lots of color color blocking hang different pattern napkins on the side of the table under the plate layer black and white plates wooden table numbers in vases in the floral design soulful inspiration, playful patterns, funky vessels & fresh florals

...

Miss Laura London, a Floral Event Specialist in our Los Angeles wholesale shipping department, wrote up a summary for her team on what is going on in the world of wholesale flowers.  I came across it this weekend and thought that you would like to read it as well.  If you are looking for a quick guide to what is currently available be sure to check out our Current Availability.  We update it every Friday so that you always have a great guide at your finger tips.  Enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By:  Laura London

ANEMONES:  These are pretty much  done for the season.  A few colors in small quantities are still trickling in but the quality is iffy and they are not withstanding shipping conditions.

If you are looking for something to substitute for white anemone with black centers please consider using Ornathagalum Arabicum, white Lisianthus with a black Scabiosa placed...

I have another guest blog post from our very own Laura London. Laura is a Floral Event Specialist in our Los Angeles wholesale shipping department. She is creative and have a true passion for beautiful flowers. You may remember her first guest blog post, Are White Anemones Your "Fr-Anemones"?, and I hope you enjoy this post as well!

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By: Laura London

We challenge the coral battle on a daily basis. This color can often be misinterpreted when trying to pair with fresh flowers. It can be perceived as orange, salmon, dark peach, pink, apricot, watermelon and so many more. With detailed planning and an eye for color, this challenge can be conquered!

Here are some examples of a beautiful coral blend that your sales professional at Mayesh Wholesale can assist you with:

A lush selection of coral...

Every now and then the planets align just right to allow something special happen and that is the situation that we have found ourselves in for this Mother’s Day holiday.  Lilac is such a beautiful flower and I was just informed by our purchasing team that this is the best they have seen in years and it is currently being fresh cut for Mother’s Day!  Be sure to get yours before it is gone!

Below are a couple of pictures of this amazing wholesale lilac:

The next holiday, Mother’s Day, is quickly approaching!  As a wholesale florist, we love this holiday because it is still a great holiday for our customers.  While our job is to provide the best flowers from around the world for your beautiful designs, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to put together a lil’ inspiration board on Pinterest to share with you all.  Some are traditional floral designs, but I was able to find some unique ideas that you may want to add to use to tweak your own line-up!  Enjoy! 

P.S.  I’d love to see your own unique Mother’s Day flower arrangements by posting them on our Facebook wall!

This will be 1 of 2 posts all about Preston Bailey.  He was the headlining name at the 2012 Event Solutions Idea Factory in Las Vegas and I’ve been itching to post my summary on this session, but I wanted to save it for the end, or at least near the end.  Just a warning, this was just a talking session, I don’t have a bunch of pictures to share, but I hope that you enjoy my summary as I enjoyed the session.  My next summary that I will publish soon will be all about the Live Floral Sculpture Demo, which was AMAZING and we took loads of pictures!  Preston was open, honest,...

I’m always very proud of our customer’s work – we get to work with the best people and designers in the industry that run the full spectrum of floral businesses.  Today, I'd like to share with you one of the many videos we captured at CaterSource/Event Solutions Idea Factory. Four of our customers competed in the Table Top Competition - check out their creative...

Social media is near and dear to my heart as Mayesh's Community Manager and that was the subject of Liene Stevens' (of Think Splendid) session at the Event Source Idea Factory show.  Below is a summary of her session, "All That Glitters Isn't Gold: Creating a Focused and Profitable Social Media Strategy", and I hope it helps you gain the courage to take the next steps in your social media journey!

Social Media and the Brain

You can call people's obsession with social media a chemical romance.  This is because your brain processes it like your in love - evoking trust, empathy, and love. This type of interaction causes people to think they are live communicating and it is literally addicting by raising oxytocin levels.  For businesses who participate in the social web, this addiction is a great thing because social fan/followers will be more likely to buy from you.  People buy because of emotional connection not logic.  Oxytocin increases trust but be...

How many companies do you know that can handle 900 events per year?  Well, I know of one!  MGM Resorts Events.  I was able to stop by and visit with Jonahs Kneitly, the Floral Manager of MGM Resorts Events.  He was gracious enough to take us on a tour of their warehouse, drive us over to our own Vegas branch, and then over to the Bellagio to get a sneak peak of the Wedding Luncheon (see slideshow below).

Our tour of the MGM Events' warehouse was amazing.  They have an amazing set up - from their workshop, painting booth, design offices, the display room that has at least 2 different full displays up at all times complete with fresh flowers, and their storage/floral design space.  The storage area houses a ton of large scale props, vases, 7500 linens, and 4225 pieces of drapery.  Pretty much anything that you can imagine, they have it!  The floral area is equally impressive with lots of design tables  lined up with the water hoses coming down from the ceiling, and 36 bins filled full with accoutrements (pictured right). 

Are you looking for a bit of Spring, Easter or Passover floral inspiration?  Well look no further!  We've put together 2 different Pinterest boards just for you filled with eggs, birds, peeps, bulb flowers and so much more!  Yellow is always a big color during this time of year symbolizing renewal, joy, energy and happiness.  What is your favorite spring flower? 

http://pinterest.com/mayesh/easter-passover-inspiration/



http://pinterest.com/mayesh/spring-fling/

We met up with J Schwanke at the Event Solutions Idea Factory & CaterSource show's Acolyte Technologies booth. J quickly showed us the remote control LED lights that you can switch colors and talks about why Mayesh is great - we get you the flowers that you want in whatever city you are in!

This was my first time meeting J and he is just as great in person as he is on camera.  A quick story about my first encounter with J Schwanke was back in 2010 at the WF&FSA conference in Miami.  He was presenting on trends and as you probably already know, J is an amazing story teller, and he told such an emotional story, that I started crying right in the middle of the conference room!  I don't remember the exact details, as I have an acute case "Swiss cheese brain" (a.k.a. a bad memory), but I'm pretty sure it was a love story and involved the loss of a loved one.  His session is probably one of my most favorites to date because he packed important trend information with emotional story-telling!  When we were discussing...

We met up with La Tavola Fine Linen Rental and Michael Mantalos of Louloudi Designs at the 2012 CaterSource/Event Solutions Idea Factory show in Las Vegas, NV. Check out La Tavola's beautiful linens and Louloudi's gorgeous floral designs. This booth was by far one of my favorites - full of color, beautiful designs, and truly inspiring!  I love the chevron fabric that is in the background table at the beginning of the video, the bright yellow paisley table and, of course, the pink table!  Even the lighting that was brought into the booth was simply stunning!  Enjoy the video and let me know which table setting is your favorite!

Bobbi Ecker and Deborah De La Flor, floral industry veterans, chat about the benefits of being a member of Wholesale Florist & Florist Supplier Association and what an asset Mayesh is for its customers while at the 2012 The Special Event show.

While at 2012 The Special Event, Bill Schaffer of Schaffer Designs, a freelance floral design team, explains his experience with Mayesh Wholesale Florist's "Destination Events" services. Whether you have an event in your home town or across the globe, Mayesh will be where you need us to be with the wholesale flowers that you want.

Early Sunday morning I will be boarding a Vegas bound plane heading to the Event Solutions Idea Factory (ESIF) event!  Like the last event I attended, The Special Event (TSE), I will be squeezing in as many seminars as possible that I will use for future blog posts, and our team will be running around capturing videos and pictures to share with you.  Now that I have my feet wet with this whole show thing, I feel more organized and confident.  I hope that you have been enjoying all my TSE recaps and I can’t wait to share with you all that I see at ESIF!

Not only will Mayesh have a booth (#463) at the event, but Mayesh’s wholesale flowers will be seen at several venues within...

We were lucky enough to chat with a few of our current customers who buy their wholesale flowers from us at The Special Event. Find out what they have to say about Mayesh Wholesale Florist.

About a week and a half ago, I blogged about the four season event scenes that Barb Oehlerking of Artistry Designs Group created for The Wedding Galleries at The Special Event show.  If you didn’t get a chance to check out that post, click here.  I thought it would be a nice compliment to follow-up with an interview so that you could get to know Barb a little more.  Enjoy!

Connect with Barb & Artistry Designs Group: www.artistrydesignsgroup.com Facebook Twitter

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During The Special Event 2012, Smither Oasis gave us a tour of their booth and some of their new products - giant spheres and garden stakes (round and rectangular).  Plus we received an inside scoop on their upcoming floating wreath forms that will come in 3 different sizes - look for those this Spring!

Enjoy!

I wanted to share with you the latest “Fresh Focus” article found in February’s issue of Flowers&.  This month’s article is all about Anemones and you will be able to read what our very own, Tricia Tang (Mayesh Miami General Manager), has contributed, among others.  Here’s a quote from the article: 

At Mayesh, Tricia notes that demand rises during the most popular wedding months, such as October and June. That’s when she’s more likely to reach out to Holland or Chile to meet the needs of her customers.

Flowers& was kind enough to create a .pdf so that I can share the entire article with you:   http://www.mayesh.com/Portals/0/Content/PDFs/Flowers&FreshFocusFeb2012.pdf   

...

During the TSE 2012 show, we were involved with The Special Event’s Wedding Galleries as we sponsored Barb Oehlerking of Artistry Designs Group by providing her with wholesale flowers.  Again, as The Special Event was my first show, I had no idea what to expect.  I was BLOWN away!  The creativity of all the galleries was amazing and I will share some pictures in the near future, but think of everything from Buddha to chicken...

Another great seminar that I attended while at The Special Event 2012 in Tampa, was called “Successful Happenings in Floral Trends and Technology” presented by Bill Schaffer owner of Schaffer Designs.  I will be completely upfront that I may be a tab bit biased because we provided the fresh flowers to Bill for the session.

The session started off with some video to explain a little about Bill’s background – he is a third generation floral designer.  My favorite quote from one of the videos that Bill showed was “You better be damn good …. Otherwise you aren’t going to make it!”  Such a relevant quote for any type of business – isn’t it?

The original company was started back in 1925 and Bill states that the family’s floral business has been successful because they are always finding and staying with the trends.  Its a matter of staying relevant in today’s world and no one wants to buy yesterday’s design/look/product/etc.

...

It’s here!  We put together over 350 floral design images into one book to pay tribute to all of the talented floral artists who participated in our 2nd annual national design contest, “The Art of Flowers”.  I was so impressed that although the designers had only two different wholesale flower boxes to choose from, the range of designs were wide, all the while unique and beautiful.  I’m so honored to be a part of your community and industry!  Thank you to all who participated and we hope you enjoy our newest book!  Let me know what you think!

February is right around the corner and Helleborus is at the top of our Mayesh Certified Awesome Blossom list for both January and February!  These darling little flowers have a way of coaxing someone to instantly fall in love with them.  Check out our guide for some great insider information on these beauties! 

 

Don’t forget to check ‘em out in our Flower Library too:
http://www.mayesh.com/FlowerDirectory.aspx?search=Helleborus

It’s show season!  First up for us, The Special Event Show!  We have a team in Tampa right this very moment designing and setting up our booth and the rest of us, including myself, will be arriving tomorrow! 

If you are attending The Special Event Conference and Tradeshow be sure to check out our flowers at the following:

Of course, be sure to make your way to Mayesh’s Booth #830. Our flowers combined with Artistry Designs Group’s skills will be rocking The Wedding Event Gallery #33. We teamed...

If you watched our debut “The Art of Flowers” with Mandy Majerik video, then you know that our featured Mayesh Certified Awesome Blossom (MCAB) for January is Dusty Miller.



We created a companion piece to the video, a Dusty Miller product guide:

 ...

As you know, it takes many resources, people & companies to give life to an event.  This year we are proud that we have over 30 sponsors between our prizes and fresh wholesale product!

Please be sure to check out Bella Bouquets & Fusion Flowers magazine.  And you will surely see product being displayed at our open house and in our contestants designs that originated from our fresh cut vendors. 

Thank you to all who have donated amazing products to our national event to make it special for us and our customers!

Last year was the first time I saw these beauties and instantly fell in love!  I love hot pink and I love hydrangeas!  Our grower’s season just started and will continue until the end of March.  Get these great blooms from Mayesh Wholesale Florist while you can!

She captured my heart as soon as I started to watch her Mayesh Design Star contest video intro and she did it again upon meeting many of my team members when she arrived in Los Angeles last week to begin filming our 2012 video series.  She is THE Mandy Majerik, Mayesh’s 2012 Design Star!  Before debuting our new and exciting video series next week, we wanted to take a moment to formally introduce Mandy to the rest of the world.  Please read on and be sure to stay tuned next week!!

Connect with Mandy Majerik, AIFD, PFCI: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hothouse-Design-Studio/191074230910843 https://twitter.com/#!/MANDYSHOTHOUSE http://www.hothousedesignstudio.com/ http://www.hothousedesignstudio.blogspot.com/

When...

We have shared with you Beth O’Reilly’s and Steven Santos’ vision for “The Art of Flowers” contest boxes.  Today, with only until this Wednesday to register for the contest, we are going to share with you Joanna Park’s vision.  Again, all three designers received them same flowers, but their each of their floral art pieces took different directions.  Thank you to Beth, Joanna, and Steven for helping us with this experiment and getting us excited for our upcoming contest!

I love designing the unexpected.  For me, each piece needs to have enough of an appeal to stop someone in their tracks and take a closer look.  Both of these designs are non-traditional and a true reflection of me. So, in honor of celebrating "The Art of Flowers" and floral artisans, cheers to you! Enjoy!

For the exotic mix box, I wanted the flowers to look like they were floating - almost like an illusion. So I wired the orchids onto the horsetail.  And I used a clear tape grid over the top of the vase to hold the horsetail under water and give the the orchids on top a floating look.

I wanted to share with you a recent customer testimonial and his photo slide show that we received on our Facebook page from George Catechis of The Fleuriste and FloralVision in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma about the fresh flowers that he ordered online and received through ShopMayesh.com.

Have you taken advantage of the online "Shop Mayesh"?? You can't dismiss the great prices and amazing quality of the flowers purchased this way! 
Take a look at the actual flowers I received through this system:

With the posting of our interview with Beth O’Reilly today means that the debut of our first video is nearing!  If you remember Beth O’Reilly came in second place to Mandy Majerik for our Mayesh Design Star contest, which is no small feat!  She created an amazing video and when we called upon her to help us do some designs to help promote our upcoming National Design Contest, she did not disappoint (you can see her amazing designs for “The Art of Flowers” here),...

  Last week, you received a first look into the possibilities of The Art of Flowers contest boxes with our post of Beth O’Reilly’s great floral designs.  Today, we are sharing with you floral art created by Steven Santos, another one of our Mayesh Design Star finalists, with boxes filled with the very same floral content.  And as you can see, Steven...

This post is all about getting your design juices flowing and getting you excited for our 2nd Annual National Design Contest, The Art of Flowers.  We’ve recruited four of our five Mayesh Design Star finalists to put together flower designs, or rather floral art with both our of contest design boxes – Garden and Exotic – to show all the endless possibilities.

Be sure to sign up soon for the contest.  Remember you have until December 28th to register.  The 300 free registrations are going fast.  At the time of writing this blog we had almost 90 designers registered to compete.  Get all the contest details here.

Meet Shawn Adams, owner and designer of Ambiance Designs and one of five awesome Mayesh Design Star finalists.  Here’s how to connect with Shawn; be sure to check out all the great pictures on his blog:

www.ambiance-designs.com 
www.blog-ambiancedesigns.com 
https://www.facebook.com/AmbianceDesigns 
https://twitter.com/#!/AmbianceShawn

When did you realize this was the career for you?

During high school I planned on majoring in landscape architecture. I won many competitions and even was awarded a full scholarship to pursue my degree in the field. It wasn’t until after I became a delivery driver for a flower shop did I realize how inspiring flowers were to me. All the beauty in variety and color selections were uplifting. I volunteered to help with window and store displays and the owner really noticed my interest and how creative I was. Everyone praised me on how well my designs were and at that very point I realized this may be my niche.

This week, I would like to introduce Steven Santos of J. Michaels Florist.  You will remember Steven from our Mayesh Design Contest contest because he did the video entry of himself creating a floral bustier - very fun and extremely eye-catching!     

Here’s how to connect with Steven and J. Michaels Florist: 
http://www.jmichaelsflowers.com/ 
https://www.facebook.com/jmichaelsflowers 
https://twitter.com/#!/jmichaelsflwrs

When did you realize this was the career for you?  
When I was 15 i got a job at a sandwich shop that had a gift shop and florist attached.  I saw the designer create amazing things and it struck a nerve in me. Ever since then, I have been working in the floral industry.

 

How did you start your business? 
Right now I am the creative director for J. Michaels Florist. I was brought on Nov. '10. I started as just a regular designer, but as I grew their business through social media, and other social networking, I have stepped up, and have been promoted to Creative Director.

How would you describe your design style? 
I am a very fast designer, I do not like to take too much time, or over think a project. when I design I like to look at my materials and who the order is for, and my idea just  "spark" in to my mind. I really enjoy Linear designs right now and my favorite items to use are Fun fall foliage textures.

I feel like I’ve been waiting FOREVER to share this editorial with you!  Starting on page 20 of the newest issue of Catering Magazine, Mayesh is highlighted in a great article “What’s In Bloom”, which speaks to current wedding floral trends.  I believe we really shine through as a top-notch and high-caliber wholesale florist that is in touch with today’s trends and I’m very pleased with the article.

Since pictures were requested and we don’t work with the end result – beautiful wedding flower designs – so we had to reach out to some customers.  Our very own Mayesh Design Star, Mandy Majerik of...

I thought with Thanksgiving being tomorrow and stores already adorned in red and green, it would be fun and refreshing to talk Spring!  Pantone released their Color Report for Spring 2012 which is molded by the fashion industry’s leading experts and designers.  As you know, the fashion world has great influence on flowers, so we put together a fun floral and design inspiration board on Pinterest. 

You’ll find flowers, bouquets, dresses, decor and invites all mixed in a Pinterest board solely inspired by the great colors forecasted for this upcoming Spring season – Tangerine...

Fall is here, the leaves are falling, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  For me, Fall reminds me that it is a  great time to use Sunflowers in floral designs!  I know many associate these large fiery blooms with summer, but my favorite time of year to see sunflowers in arrangements is for the Fall season.  My team member, Valerie Maurer, put together a great Mayesh Sunflower Variety Guide just for this occasion.  There are many wholesale varieties of sunflowers available but we wanted to highlight our staple products. 



As I’m writing this blog post, I remembered that one of our Mayesh Design Star contest entrants submitted a great video with Sunflowers as the feature flower.  I dug it up and hope you enjoy Jermone Raska’s video:

...

It happens to the best of us . . . a favorite flower can quickly become an enemy or “frienemy”.  That seems to be the situation with white anemones right now.  Unfortunately, even though the price or supply of an item is out of budget or just not available you still need to make your client happy.  What is a florist to do?

Well, one of our creative Los Angeles floral sales professionals, Laura London, came up with a brilliant solution.  If you can’t buy/get it, create it!  Laura took a white Lisianthus and simply inserted a clipping of a burgundy Scabiosa.  You just need to make sure that the blooms are underdeveloped and therefore black.  And voila!  A great alternative to a white anemone! 



...

About a week and a half ago, we hosted our 1st Twitter party in conjunction with Chandler’s design demonstration class.  If you missed the party, check out the recap below from Sabrina, your Live Event Correspondent.  In addition to the recap, be sure to check out our online album filled with pictures from the event, and stay tuned as we have more goodies from the show that includes some video and interviews.  I can’t wait to share everything with you all! 

From Sabrina Mesa:

Ikebana may not be what you think of when you think of Arizona but it was not...

The Wholesale Florist & Florist Supplier Association, or WF&FSA, just held its Floral Distribution Conference.  One of the priorities at the conference is for WF&FSA to elect new officers.  We are proud to announce that Mayesh Wholesale Florist’s CEO, Pat Dahlson, was elected the First Vice President!  This means that Pat will sit on WF&FSA’s executive committee and will be the next President.

Here’s an excerpt from WF&FSA netWORK, 10-25-11 issue:



Patrick M. Dahlson is WF&FSA's First Vice President.  He is the CEO of Mayesh Wholesale Florist with headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. Under Dahlson's...

Now that we have a Mayesh Design Star, Mandy Majerik AIFD PFCI, we need to get busy planning our 12 videos for 2012.  Among the many details, we need determine what Awesome Blossoms are going to be featured in our videos.  As a refresher, Mayesh Certified Awesome Blossoms can be fresh cut flowers, greens, branches, succulents, orchids, herbs . . . anything we carry, but they need to contain one of the following charactistics:

Unique shape, color, texture Unusual variety Superior grade Many of our fresh cut product fall under the Awesome Blossom label, so we want your help!  Since the videos are for you, we want to know what products YOU want to see featured?  Leave your comments here!

I feel like I’m bursting at the seams! Why did we decide to wait a whole weekend to announce the Mayesh Design Star Contest winner? I can’t remember a great reason. But we all made it through the weekend, took Monday to get organized, and now I can tell the world who our 1st Mayesh Design Star is!

First, (yes I’m dragging the anticipation out a little bit more) we want to thank all of our finalists and all of our contestants again. We decided to try this crazy idea and had no real idea on what the outcome would be or if anyone would embrace the challenge and make themselves vulnerable. I have to say that I would personally never be able to do anything like this . . . I would just stutter and trip over myself. I admire each and every one of you and would give you all a hug if I could! Thank you and I hope you all are proud of yourselves!

So now, for the moment that everyone is waiting for . . . our 2012 Mayesh Design Star is . . .

We have today to get through before we learn who the Mayesh Design Star Contest winner is and I thought it would be fun to share the letter that my manager, Cindie Boer wrote to our semi-finalists.  Cindie was responsible for conducting the interviews for our 10 semi-finalists.  After her interview she was so impressed by everyone and their commitment to our industry.  While everyone had something unique to say, we found many common themes.  Among the themes, Cindie found that the majority...

Did you hear?  Mayesh Wholesale Florist is hosting its first ever Twitter Party this Sunday (#TOTBAZ)!  Our Chandler, Arizona location is hosting a Design Show & Workshop featuring Ping Wei and Ikebana design. 

We realize that unless you are a local Chandler customer you may not have the opportunity to attend, so we are bringing the show to you virtually!  And we are giving away 5 gift cards for Amazon worth $10 each.

Hope to “see” you there!

Time:  Sunday, October 23 · 10:00am - 3:00pm MST

Location:  Chandler, AZ and the Twitter world (@mayesh)

Prizes: We will be giving away $10 Amazon Gift Cards to 5 lucky party participants.  The more you tweet the more chances you have to win!

Eligibility: Tweet your comments and questions using #TOTBAZ

How to attend: Follow us at http://twitter.com/mayesh. During the party tweet your thoughts and questions using the hashtag #TOTBAZ.

How many floral industry events are you able to attend each year?  I know many florists strive to attend at least one show each year, but there are many others who are not able to for various reasons.  Mayesh Wholesale Florist is involved with several shows and many events throughout the year across the country and I have always wanted to have a team member to be our eyes and ears at these events so that we can essentially bring the event to those of you who are not able to attend. 

With that said, I would like to introduce you to Sabrina, your Live Event Correspondent!  Sabrina will be bringing you the inside scoop of all of the events that Mayesh is involved with . . . bringing you on our journey.  Here’s what you can expect: live Twitter parties,  video, interviews, photo, and a wrap up blog.  We hope to bring the event to you virtually.

Our first event that Sabrina will cover is Mayesh Chandler’s Design Show & Workshop happening this Sunday, October 23rd from 10 am – 2:30 pm MST.  The show is featuring Ping Wei and Ikebana design.  Use and follow the hashtag #TOTBAZ to join the Twitter party (hashtag means “think outside the box, Arizona”).  Don’t miss out on the fun!

P.S. We will be giving out $10 Amazon gift cards to 5 lucky Twitter party participants – just be sure to use the #TOTBAZ hashtag! 

Now that I explained a little about what we are planning, I want to introduce you to Sabrina – check out her introduction of herself below:

Last week, my boss, Cindie Boer interviewed all 10 Design Star Semi-Finalists.  After speaking to everyone, our job to choose the 5 finalists was pretty difficult because all 10 designers are amazing people who truly love what they do and have so much passion for their craft, floral design.  Mayesh would be honored to have any of the 10 semi-finalists as our Mayesh Design Star!  Thank you again to our top 10 and to everyone who entered the contest – you all rock!

But as you know, we are running a contest and we need to find just 1 Mayesh Design Star who will be our 2012 designer spokesperson and who will win an amazing trip to Holland!  So after much deliberation, our 5 finalists are listed below!

Congratulations and Good Luck!  Voting begins tomorrow, October 15 until October 22!

  I don’t know if you already know, but we offer a great service called “Destination Events”.  Here’s the basics, you, the florist or event designer, booked an event anywhere in the world but are worried because you are not sure where you are going to source your fresh wholesale flowers from.  Have no worries though. You can still buy your wholesale flowers from Mayesh no matter where your event is!  Just give us a decent lead time and we will ensure the process is as seamless as possible.  Often times, Destination Events is used for designers who travel to a different city within the states, but occasionally we have requests for events out of the country. 

...

We are super excited to finally unveil FloraFile!  Please watch the overview & demo, it’s only about 3 minutes long.  Then check out our super cool tool, FloraFile. 

You may be wondering what the heck is FloraFile?  Here is how we define FloraFile on the website: 

“FloraFile is your custom collection of flowers within our Flower Library. Use FloraFile to store and organize images that you are interested in – like a folder or portfolio or album. You can create any number FloraFiles based on your projects, events, weddings, etc. FloraFile will also allow you to email a link to whomever you’d like – colleagues, clients, prospects, etc.” 

Please note that to use FloraFile, you will need to login with your Facebook account. 

In creating FloraFile, a few more updates were made to our Flower Library.

As soon as you enter the Flower Library, you will see the latest 12 wholesale flowers that have been added – “Latest Additions” group...

Where do you buy your wholesale flowers from?  It is always little scary when deciding whether or not to try something new, especially a new wholesale florist.  For flower designers, the fresh cut flowers you decide to use combined with your artistic ability is everything – gains repeat business, new customers, maybe even new business ventures.  So for us, Mayesh, it is always a challenge to try and gain a customer’s trust, especially when they can be hundreds of miles away.

I can honestly say that we have the best people behind Mayesh who are extremely dedicated to improving and strengthening our industry.  But, as I find myself often repeating, it’s always better to hear how great a company is from someone other than the company itself.  Which brings me to my main point . . . We get in positive feedback each week and I wanted to share these two customer testimonials that came over just this week.

It happens every week across the country at all our locations, we get flower orders for events last minute, the Friday before or the Monday of the week, or (gasp) even later than that.  Do we try to cover them?  Of course, we try our best each and every day no matter the circumstance. 

While I realize that orders do pop up last minute time-to-time, I thought it might be helpful for you to see how long it takes us to get in our wholesale flowers from various points of origination.  This example uses product arriving to our Detroit branch (each branch varies a bit).

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What’s the connection between Kim Kardashian’s wedding and Mayesh Wholesale Florist?  Read on to find out!

Are you into celebrity weddings?  Do you want to know which florist was responsible for designing Kim Kardashian’s wedding flowers?  Mark’s Garden of Sherman Oaks, California is the company behind the designs.  Mark’s Garden is the florist that has been responsible for the beautiful floral designs seen at the Academy Awards Governors Ball for last 18 years, the Emmy’s, the Golden Globes, and many celebrity weddings.

It has been reported that there were 50,000 flowers - that included white roses, white hydrangea, and white phalaenopsis orchids - at the Kardashian/Humphries wedding.  Are you wondering who supplied the majority of those wholesale flowers to Mark’s Garden?  Mayesh, of course!  We feel so lucky to supply wholesale flowers to so many events across the country - from small intimate home parties, to benefits, to weddings, destination events...

I’d like to introduce to you “Seabreeze”.  Seabreeze is a pollenless asiatic lily!  These beautiful wholesale fresh cut flowers will develop like normal but never produce that brown, wedding dress staining pollen!  As with most new products, availability is extremely limited.

Hopefully you’ve heard about our Mayesh Design Star Contest.  If not here’s a quick run down:

• Designer’s submit a short 5 minute video from September 1 to September 15
• One designer will be chosen to be our 2012 spokesperson in 12 educational flower design videos
• The Design Star will gain great exposure for themselves and their company
• The Design Star will earn a fab trip to Holland’s Horti Fair

I’ve seen some people hesitate to enter because they feel that they may not be good looking enough or they don’t have the time to put something together or they aren’t a professional videographer . . . I’m sure there’s a million other excuses not to get in front of the camera.

Each week we get to be involved in some exciting projects and events – working with the most renowned floral designers to start-ups to everything in between in the event world.  Recently, Mayesh Wholesale Florist had the pleasure of working with a project for Coach’s launch of their new perfume, Poppy Flower, at Macy’s in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.  We were contracted by the Geoff Howell Studio, a New York company, to provide roses for the event.

Our job was to deliver 1000 wholesale roses a day – processed, stripped, cut to length and conditioned for seven days to Macy’s.  We set up the initial display in the buckets and then subsequent deliveries would be incorporated into the display by on site personnel.

In addition to Coach and Geoff Howell Studio wanting 7000 fresh cut roses to be incorporated into the Poppy Flower launch, they also brought in a celebrity designer, Denise Porcaro, from Flower Girl...

Our CEO, Pat Dahlson, and our Director of Purchasing, Pam Uranga, went to Mexico earlier this month to explore sourcing wholesale flowers from that region.  They toured the flower growing regions and took some great pictures to share with you.  These pictures don’t tell the whole story, but give a flair of the local markets.  Hope you enjoy!

Pam with a test variety of giant white oriental lilies. 

As promised, here’s Heather Cook’s follow-up article on her trip to Resendiz Brother’s Farm.  Learn a little about the farm and how Mel Resendiz is a visionary within our floral industry!



Two views of the farmland at Resendiz Brothers. You can see the leucadendrons safari and salignum on the hillsides. In spring, these hills are painted in color with waxflower which you can see in picture on the right.  All of these hillsides are covered in poly tubing to provide water to the plants which are irrigated regularly.  Also you can see there are roads above and below...

I think we all get excited for new wholesale flowers or different product colors – right?  Well I’m excited!  We are starting to get in some fun new echinacea, also known as coneflower.  Coneflower now comes in pinks and greens – such a great addition to our summer flower line up!  Make note that the foliage is not the best looking, but the flower itself is super cool.  Check out a few pictures below:

Pink Echinacea

Coconut Lime Coneflower ...

This year our wholesale flower purchasing team and a few of our location managers attended NORCAL’s Fun ‘N Sun Weekend.  During the trip, our team also took tours of a couple different farms – Dramm & Etchter and Resendiz Brothers Protea Growers.  We have a bunch of great pictures to share with you from the show and from the farms.

At the show there were tons of great designs all created from fresh California product – Sunflowers, Roses, Snapdragons, Ivy, Mini Callas, Blushing Bride Protea, Waxflower, Stephanotis on the Vine (I love this stuff), Lilies, Tulips and so much more.

We have an amazing grower based in Ecuador who just sent us over three new varieties of wholesale garden roses – Snow Chips, Kate, & Snow Augusta.

These are brand new and we have not had a chance to do any testing, so please bare with us while we gather more information for you.  In particular we want to tell you what color these are upon opening, as we all know that garden roses often soften in color as they fully bloom.

Heather Cook just wrote a great article outlining the different asters – with the majority available as fresh cut flowers at wholesale florists.  Enjoy!

China, Beauty, Matsumoto, Rainbow, Krallen, Igel, Seestern, Meteor, MardiGras, Novi Belgii, Crown, Serenade, Monte casino, Solidago, Solidaster…... OMG!! It’s a little more complicated than some people might think! With the introduction of new varieties, forms, and shapes, its time for a refresher. This is an old and honored member of the floral industry, its about time we see some new entries.



Above you’ll find pictures of some of our more basic asters, more commonly known as “spray asters” . There are a myriad of different names and varieties of spray asters and a disbudded...

Can you believe that this is the last week of June already?  Which means we are wrapping up our weekly homepage wedding pictures of the week feature.  But don’t worry, we loved how you all came together as a community to share your creativity and we will surely be doing this again!  My team member, Jenn McJunkins was the one responsible for sorting through over 370 pictures and hand selecting 40 to highlight on our website’s homepage.  So I wanted to send a special shout out to Jenn and thank her for her diligence and vision for grouping the images together.

And of the 40, Jenn thought it would be fun for our last week to highlight a few of our favorites – which is a difficult task because everyone submitted amazing pictures of their work!  So here we go!  This week, you’ll find soft pink hydrangea and lilies, succulents, lilac, bouvardia, wax flower, snowberries, lisianthus, dahlias, astilbe, stellata pods, green hydrangea, green vibernum, red hydrangea, roses, and peonies – all great...

I’m very excited because this week’s wedding pictures of the week include one of my personal favorite photographs from Park Place Design.  I really love how it seems that the photographer was in the water and I always admire floating flower arrangements!  Looking at the rest of the pictures (and if you didn’t read the title), can you guess the theme for this week?  It’s “Red Romance” and they feature an array of lovely red blooms including carnations, lilies, roses, peonies, ranunculus, and hypericum.  This week our homepage pictures are courtesy of:

Today is a great day in my world because “The CA Grown Experience Visits Mayesh Wholesale” episode is finally live! 

J Schwanke takes a tour our LA Market location with Pat Dahlson, our CEO.  They discuss Mayesh’s amazing sourcing, technology and service capabilities.  In addition, J chats with a few Mayesh employees and a couple of customers to really dig into why Mayesh rocks!  And as I say often, it’s one thing to hear from Mayesh why we are the best at what we do, but it’s another to hear it from our super customers! 

For this week’s Favorites Friday article I decided to focus on the Dahlia, with this fresh cut flower being such a popular seasonal favorite!  There are two major groups of dahlias – single-flowering and double-flowering.  Then within those groups there are many forms and size classifications, with not all flowers widely available for wholesale.  If you want to check out The American Dahlia Society, they’ve put together a great classification handbook.

At Mayesh, there is NO doubt what Dahlia is our favorite #1 – this particular variety took over 57% of the votes!

We need help!  We created this cool app for our Flower Library to store and organize images that you are interested in – you could call it a folder or portfolio or album.  You can create any number of folders based on your project, events, weddings, etc.  We will also offer a feature that allows you to email a folder/portfolio to clients!  We have so many people that love our new Flower Library, but we think this new feature will just take it to the next level!

But, we need a great name!  And that’s where you come in.  We want YOU to name this new feature!

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This week’s wedding pictures of the week is themed “Purple Rain” featuring lovely bouquets in hues of purples and blues.  Check out the 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  These beautiful bouquets feature an array of wholesale flowers that includes: roses, hydrangea, geranium, hypericum, kermit mums, fujis, cymbidium orchids, wheat, seeded eucalyptus, stock, erynigium/thistle, mokara orchids, delphinium, and ageratum.  This week our homepage pictures are courtesy of:

This week’s wedding pictures of the week is themed “Pretty in Pink”.  Check out the 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  These beautiful bouquets feature an array of wholesale flowers that includes: hydrangea, lilies, roses, peonies, stellata pods, muscari, ranunculus, boronia, gerbera daisies, nerines, and dahlias.  This week our homepage pictures are courtesy of:

We didn’t forget the grooms when selecting our favorite FB pictures.  Check out the 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  The theme for this week is boutonnieres!  These little designs create big impact featuring an array of wholesale flowers that includes: succulents, seeded eucalyptus, craspedia, hellebores, stellata pods, and grasses.  This week our homepage pictures are courtesy of:

If you missed “Pat Goes to Italy – Part 1”, then here’s a quick recap:  In April 2011, Pat visited Italy.  Part 1 shares the details from the first part of his trip to Seborga and Sanremo.  Part 2, we are sharing details of Pat’s trip to Genova and the Euroflora show.

Genova, Italy is where the Euroflora 2011 show was held.  The Euroflora show was started back in 1966 and since has had 9 shows drawing in over four and a half million guests to take in breathtaking floral and garden displays.  Fresh cut flowers, plants, technical ability, and creativity all come together all the while showing off the best of Italy in terms of floriculture.  The next show will be held in 2015.

Heather Cook recently created this article covering the specifics of Verbascum, Stachys, and Dusty Miller.  I don’t know about you, but I get confused as to whether I’m looking at Lamb’s Ear or Dusty Miller every now and then.  So thanks Heather for the clarification! 

Over the past few years, popularity of silver foliages in the wedding and event business has risen, and so in the wholesale flower business.  Plants that traditionally have been listed as noxious weeds are now being ordered by florists. Just to help clarify the differences in these foliages, here are brief botanical description and some pictures of Verbascum, Stachys and Dusty Miller. These are silver foliages available through wholesale floral suppliers.

Check out the 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  The theme for this week was coined, “Country Chic”!  These rustic and romantic designs were created using antique colored roses, green eye roses, antique hydrangea, bouvardia, mini callas, freesia, dahlias, wax flower, anemones, tulips, football mums, china mums, stellata/scabiosa pods, cymbidiums, lisianthus, berzillia, dusty miller, hypericum berries, astilbe, snowberry.

As a sort of finale to our peony season kickoff, I thought it would be quite appropriate to highlight the classic peony for my next Favorites Friday post!  The double peony in any color is one of my personal favorite flowers – they are just so beautiful with their billowy petals.  They are irresistible!  And I actually just bought my first peony plant for our garden, so wish me luck!

The peony must be a Mayesh favorite too because this survey has had the largest response from the Mayesh team to date!  And were you wondering which peony is favored by Mayesh’s CEO, Pat Dahlson?  Well, you just have to read down the list to find out!

Mayesh Wholesale Florist's CEO, Pat Dahlson, is always on the move. He serves on several industry boards, visits growers, and attends industry events taking him to different corners of the world.

In April 2011, Pat visited Italy.  Specifically he went to the Italian village of Seborga, Sanremo, and Genova.  Part 1 of 2 will showcase Pat’s journey through Seborga and Sanremo.  Part 2, which I’ll post next week, we will share Pat’s trip to Genova, which hosted the  Euroflora 2011 show.

Seborga, Italy Pat came across 8 foot tall Ginestra here!  Seborga is a very small village near the border of France and is known as an agricultural region, with it's main focus on olives and floriculture crops.  A perfect place...

We would like to introduce you to “Willeke Alberti”.  No, not the 1960’s female Dutch singer, but rather a new variety of fresh cut Oriental lilies!  This particular variety of Oriental has a deeper shade of pink on its tips, fading to a white star center that is also speckled with white dots.

What do you think?

Kicking off the peony season, here is the second peony article written by Heather Cook:



Few plants can offer a history like the peony plant.  It’s believed that the peony  was known in China as far back as 1000 BC. In the 7th century AD, peonies became popular amongst Chinese royalty and began to increase in demand and value. The best varieties were extremely expensive. It is told that peony plants were often included as part of a dowry  settlement amongst the wealthy elite of Chinese society during the Tang Dynasty. Peonies continued to be favored by Chinese royalty and as their kingdoms expanded, the peony’s geographic territory grew. Chinese began using grafting techniques to expand...

Check out the 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  The theme for this week was inspired by Billy Idol’s song “White Wedding”!  Classic white flowers are seen in this collection:  Gardenias, roses, ranunculus, hydrangeas, freesia, callas, oriental lilies, orchids, and lily of the valley!

Peony season is here!  And our own Heather Cook has put together a couple of peony articles that I wanted to share with you!  This first article is about the most popular peony varieties that are available wholesale as a fresh cut flower. 

From Heather:  Please find below pictures of some of the most common peony varieties we will be seeing over the next 2 months. I have listed the most common varieties with pictures to help you identify them. Many varieties of peonies will fade and change color as they mature, a very good example is Monsieur Jules Elie. In bud form it is a perfect hot pink, but Mayesh considers this variety "mauve" because it fades pretty dramatically. Gardenia is a white peony that in bud form is quite clearly blush pink, but as it matures it becomes more white. Not all varieties are available at all times, as some are "early bloomers" and some are "late bloomers". I’ve also listed the date of when the variety was introduced next to variety name where applicable.

It’s a new week and we have 5 new Facebook wedding design pictures on our website’s homepage.  Again, thank you to everyone who participated in our Facebook wedding photo contest!  We are so lucky to work with and be associated with the best in the floral business!

This week our homepage pictures are courtesy of:

• Desert Bloom Event Florist of Scottsdale, AZ; desertbloomeventflorist.com
• Rose of Sharon Event Florist of Fayetteville, AR; roseofsharon-eventflorist.com
• Studio Blush Floral Design of Madison, CT; studioblush.com
• Blooming Flowers of Ashville, OH; bloomingflowers.net
• Manor House Flowers of Lewis Center, OH; manorhouseflowers.com

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Facebook wedding photo contest!  Not only did we receive tons of great pictures, but many came with warm words and camaraderie! 

With over 370 beautiful photos submitted for our contest, we had our work cut out for us to pick our 1st five that will be featured on our website’s homepage.  Don’t worry if you aren’t seeing your picture here today.  We will be selecting 5 new pictures each week during our wedding season.  Also, in addition to using the pictures on our site, we selected a few for a new wedding season banner that will be displayed at our locations.

Last week, I polled our Facebook fans and asked them what they wanted to read about.  Among all of the choices, Tulips won the race.  I decided to focus on Parrot Tulips because there are quite a few very cool varieties, 18 total in our Flower Library.  In all, I read somewhere that there are over 4,000 named varieties of Tulips – isn’t that just amazing and a bit overwhelming?!  If you want to read a little history of the Tulip check out this link:http://www.hortmag.com/plants/collectors-choice/tulips.

After polling our Facebook fans, it was time to poll our Mayesh team.  Here are our top five favorite Parrot Tulips:

When J Schwanke and his film crew came to Mayesh Wholesale Florist earlier this month to film a segment for "The California Grown Experience", we were able to capture some behind the scenes footage with our own video camera. We took that footage and created a trailer for our episode just for you - it's pretty awesome!

When trying to figure out where to start out at with literally thousands of flowers and with some having hundreds of varieties, I decided to tackle roses!  Roses are probably the most popular flower in history. Evidence suggest that roses have been used by mankind for thousands of years, as quite apart from its intrinsic beauty, it was valued for its fruits for a source of vitamin C as well as for its restorative powers, also for its beautiful wood and as a highly valuable ingredient in essential oils and perfumes.

Narrowing down our topic flower to the most popular flower of all time was easy.  Then I had to decide which color to start with and since Mother’s Day is quickly approaching, I decided to start with the pink rose (pink happens to also be one of my favorite colors).

Among all types of pink roses – medium, light, and hot – there are literally over 136.  I know this because we have 136 named varieties in just our Flower Library...

As a wholesaler of flowers, Mayesh, as a company, needs to know everything there is to know about fresh cut flowers.  Our wisdom lies within each of us who work for Mayesh and I’ve decided to take on the task of pulling out that wisdom to share with all of you.  So each Friday, I will strive to publish a new blog post discussing our favorites for a certain flower category, hence the name “Favorites Friday”.

It makes us very happy here at Mayesh Wholesale Florist when we put a ton of sweat and effort into something and our customers end up loving it.  We’ve heard from many of you on how much you love our new Flower Library, but we didn’t expect much else.  Then this week, we had a customer call our Cleveland location with a story.

Christa, our customer,  just finished up with a wedding consultation that went very smoothly.  The bride was super organized, had pictures of all the flowers she wanted to use, and knew all the names.  Christa told the bride that she was very impressed with everything that she knew and asked how she was able...

First of all, did you know that carnations are a part of the dianthus family?  I did not until reading an article that Mayesh’s Heather Cook wrote.  Read below to learn more!

Dianthus is one of the oldest flowers used in the floral industry with their usage traced back to Roman times. Members of the Dianthus family have remained a dominant floral product from the early varieties of Sweet William and "pinks", popular in Victorian times, to the current new varieties of Green Ball and Broccoli carnations. The introduction of the Moon Series carnations by Floragene and Japanese genetic engineers, has revived the use of carnations amongst high end floral designers. Hopefully we will continue to see their popularity grow with the introduction of new colors and shapes.

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In starting to write this post, I do want to point out that I am a little behind in publishing anything about the Rose Parade.  As most of you know, we were working very hard on our first national open house and design contest, but the Rose Parade is so amazing I did not want to pass up the opportunity in total.

Mayesh Wholesale has been supplying flowers to the Rose Parade float builders for about 20 years now.  Of the 46 floats presented in this year’s parade, 24 floats were made with Mayesh’s fresh cut flowers, with 9 of those winning awards.  Ready for this?  We supply more that half a million stems of flowers!  Yes, over 500,000 stems that consist mostly of roses, carnations, and gerbers! 

If that doesn’t impress you, then maybe the fact that about 51.9 million Americans plus millions of international viewers watch the Rose Parade on TV or that on January 1, 2011 there were an estimated 700,000 people present along the parade route will indeed impress (see source link below).  When talking about positive exposure for flowers, this is about as good as it gets.

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Mayesh Wholesale Florist hosted its first ever National Open House and Design Contest for floral industry professionals, retail florists, and event designers on January 12, 2011. The day after, the company was faced with a quandary. What to do with the nearly 200 flower arrangements submitted to locations for the design contest?

With the question posed, many of Mayesh’s 15 locations decided that the best answer is to donate the beautiful floral designs to those in need of a smile. Local hospitals and retirement communities were at the top of the list.  The many benefits that flowers provide us with has been well documented. 

Research done by top institutions, like Rutgers and Harvard, have found that flowers have a profound and positive effect on people.  Flowers help decrease depression, help jog recent memory performance, and encourage companionship, among countless other benefits. (source links listed below) 

Amy Gebhardt, manager of Mayesh’s Phoenix location said of the donations that...

First, I want to say “welcome” - welcome to Mayesh’s new blog!  Mayesh Wholesale Florist is on its way to making many changes this year and one of those changes is adding a blog to our website.  For those of you that read David’s Diary blog, have no fear, his blog still exists and he actually just posted just a few days ago.  If you need to find his link, just look over to the right hand side of this blog and you will find it there.  Now I would like to introduce myself – my name is Yvonne and I live in Cleveland.  I’ve been in the floral industry for about 6 years now and have an enormous passion for flowers and all things design.  (You can find out a little bit more about me by reading my blogger bio).  I’m really looking forward to sharing, learning, and interacting with you.  I know that sounds cheesy, but it is really true!  Now that the informal formalities are out of the way, let’s talk about flowers, shall we?