A Flower Shop
Timeline of floral purveyors
My life has been punctuated by flower shops.
My mother loves flowers, her mother loved flowers. From an early age, I was taught their significance for special events, holidays, traditions, gift-giving, and affection. Growing up in the Midwest, my summer memories are sprinkled with moving pictures of my mother planting impatiens and pansies in the early summer and weeding well into dusk. She wore green garden clogs, in theory only, as they often sat, lonely, a few paces from where she plucked. Her pedicured toes and dirty soles free to enjoy the summer night. During the cold months inside, she tended lovingly to a gardenia tree in our living room. A fixture in the space, similar to a table or couch — we moved around it. It had its own spotlight at night. The leaves were always dark green, healthy, and in the spring, my mother would collect her treasured blooms and place them floating in glass snifters around the house.
My first memory of a flower shop was the Grosse Pointe florist. As a child, my mother took my sister and me along on her errands. She stayed at the desk to handle her business and we girls explored down the long greenhouse that extended from the back of the modest brick storefront. The smell was humid and earthy, we played with pebbles on the floor under the wooden shelves holding sprouting plants and flowers.
Further north in Harbor Springs, MI, AR Pontius greets you on the left when you first drive into the idyllic small town. Jamie, the proud owner, is hardworking, organized, and reliable. Her petit shop has undergone makeovers and improvements in its one hundred year tenure. This mighty operation manages to keep local businesses and homes looking pristine in the picturesque resort haven. Well-to-do seasonal residents have their weekly orders in before they arrive for their annual stay and are delivered flawless showcases of midwestern summer blooms. In 2018, when my mother and I met with Jamie in the shop to discuss flowers for my wedding, the idea of embedding an iron arch in florals sent our budget into the red; my mother only responded, “oh well… that doesn’t count.” Flowers were not an extravagance, they were a necessity.
In 2014, I left the midwest after college and moved to Southern California, where my first job was delivering flowers for Bloomers Flower Shop in La Jolla, CA. I drove a white Ford transit van with a 20’s pin-up girl on the side flashing her bloomers. I traversed all over San Diego in my first few months living there, learning neighborhoods and highways. Arrangements of all sizes were loaded into the back of the van and held in place by circular foam cutouts and elongated sandbags that wrapped around the vases for stability through the hilly terrain and stop-and-go traffic. On one of my more memorable deliveries, I drove to the affluent neighborhood of Rancho Santa Fe where I pulled into the driveway of an elegant 90’s style home. I held a $175 arrangement and rang the doorbell. Through the glass front door, I watched a woman in her 50s walk across the tile floor, behind her a few dogs and a pool out through the backyard. She greeted me with a disappointed look. She said she was leaving town tomorrow for a speaking engagement, she hated to see the flowers go to waste. She took them anyway. On another occasion, an artist answered the door (evidenced by the easel set up behind her). She began crying when she saw the flowers, received them, then handed me $20 and said “I’m sorry.”
After a cross country move to Rhode Island and a reintroduction to seasonal living, I found great joy at Wild Season Florals. Jill Rizzo, a steady and talented woman, had also recently returned to Eastern Standard Time after a California (Northern) residency. Her store was one part florist, one part art studio, one part gift shop. However, “gift shop” is a terrible way to describe the incredible pieces and displays offered. In her floral work, Jill and her team assembled unique combinations, in shape, varietal, and color, that forever changed my standards for floral arranging. Her technique, informed by a design degree from Parsons, is dissected and celebrated in her books. When my sister called Wild Season and asked to deliver something for our new family of three after the birth of our first daughter, a stunner appeared that I still think about every September.
A few years later, in Barcelona, I stumbled upon Marea Verde, the second day we arrived. Only a few blocks from our apartment, Valentina and her husband, Manuel became fixtures during my time in Spain. The shop was a former Farmàcia and the transition from apothecary to flower sanctuary felt natural and appropriate. Situated on a popular corner in Eixample, the colorful and historical storefront lured you in. The first time I went inside, I met Federico who said his sister owned the shop, he invited me to come down to the basement of the store after we talked a bit about home decor and style. This was the first time I had experienced this type of hospitality in our new city — I hesitantly followed the man down a staircase, I had a brief flash of fear that this might be the end of my time in Barcelona, and on earth. He turned the lights on to reveal a room filled with incredible 20th century antique furniture and objects that he had collected to sell after decades as an expert in art and design.
My VIP tour with Federico only solidified and expanded the connection I felt with Marea Verde. Valentina and Manuel helped deliver large potted trees (gardenia) and Christmas decorations to our 4th floor apartment, they counseled me on plant care, and arranged incredible pieces when I called ahead for special occasions. When pregnant with our second daughter, I walked our dog to the shop weekly and carefully assembled a collection of interesting stems myself to showcase in our apartment. After Penny was born, our new baby experienced the weekly trip in the bassinet and by that time, Valentina was pregnant with her first child.
The humble flower shop has proven to be an internationally recognized phenomenon of connection and community and, a place where both traditional and innovative thinking can live side by side. To know a florist feels special, timeless, and powerful.
The weekly or monthly errand (budget-dependent) is a fabulous item to check off the to-do list and each of my floral relationships have accompanied me through major life transitions. I can easily match a memory to a shop and who I was at that time.
While I may not know who I will be or where I will be in the future, I am certain that I will know a florist.