Thanksgiving with Rose Story Farm
““Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls.””
This Thanksgiving, I had the great pleasure of designing with roses from Rose Story Farm. One of my favorite podcasts, The Flower Podcast with Scott Shepherd, partnered with Rose Story Farm for a giveaway, which I won. Besides winning a VCR at an elementary school carnival, this is probably the most excited I’ve been about winning anything.
The demands on the floral industry to produce commercial roses that have extraordinary vase life and long, straight stems has resulted in the loss of fragrance, and in most cases, the appearance of a garden-style rose. We use commercial roses every day, for the same reasons that they were created: longevity and stem structure. They are beautiful in their own right, but when the opportunity presents itself to work with heirloom-variety roses, it’s a true pleasure.
As this was a giveaway, I really had no idea what variety or color palette I would be receiving. I did request for the roses to arrive the week of Thanksgiving, knowing that would be a good opportunity to showcase these special blooms. I had no expectations that the roses should be in traditional fall colors, so I was prepared to design around whatever happened to be in the box. What did arrive is what I’ve coined a Jewel-Tone Thanksgiving: three shades of hot pink, deep purple, and lavender.
I paired the Rose Story Farm roses with deep purple fugi mums, dark burgundy leucadendron, eryngium (blue thistle), as well as more traditional fall elements like broomcorn, sorghum, magnolia leaves, and cedar. The mantel piece also includes Shimmer roses not from Rose Story Farm.
Besides the visual beauty of these roses, what really made this a unique experience was the noticeable fragrance that we rarely experience anymore designing with commercial roses. The scent reminded me very much of the lavender roses that were available in the 80s.
As I mentioned earlier, another difference is the stem structure. There are a lot of daily designs that we could not do if we were using the length, thickness, and meandering stem of these roses.
But the vase life really exceeded my expectations. When I was corresponding with Patti from Rose Story Farm, she emphasized that these roses are intended to be used for event work, and to expect 2-3 days of vase life. I received them dry-packed on the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving. All the images to this point were taken on Thanksgiving day. The following pictures were taken 4-6 days after I received the roses.
As these images show, the vase life of most of the roses was about six days. That’s really impressive for an heirloom-style rose. I truly enjoyed having them hang around for close to a week. To smell, touch, and watch these roses was a unique experience.
I always try to take advantage of the holidays by designing floral pieces that—on a daily basis—we don’t always have an opportunity to produce. This time it was a bit extra special with the addition of the roses. A big thanks goes out to Rose Story Farm and The Flower Podcast for facilitating this fun project through their giveaway.
If you’d like to learn more, The Flower Podcast episode featuring Danielle of Rose Story Farm can be found here.
Jennifer Schuitema
Co-Owner of Wyoming Stuyvesant Floral, Wyoming, Michigan
Third-generation florist working in the same location established by her grandparents. She’s worked in flower shops most of her life but only in earnest since 1998, when she graduated from Western Michigan University with a BBA. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
