Exotic Flowers in Boston

In Flanders Fields by Col. John McCrae, WWI Veteran

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The First Official Memorial Day
May 30, 1868
Do you celebrate Memorial Day? In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the grand Army of the Republic issued what was called General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a memorial day. He declared it to be "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land."

In 2014, we often celebrate Memorial Day with cookouts and baseball games. As a local florist in Boston, Exotic Flowers and Lombardi Florist on American Legion Highway are surrounded by cemeteries; Saint Michael's Cemetery, Forest Hills Cemetery, Mount Hope Cemetery, Mount Calvary Cemetery, New Calvary Cemetery, Oak Lawn Cemetery. Fresh flowers and live blooming plants are an ideal way to show your deceased loved ones how much you miss you them.

At Exotic Flowers, we always suggest outdoor blooming plants like geraniums, marigolds and petunias. These plants require less care than other items and will often remain on the grave until Father's Day. If a local Boston cemetery allows planting, the Exotic Flowers staff will suggest planting your geranium so that your plant can flourish through the summer.

Fresh flowers for the graves are nice, but will often only last one day. Exotic Flowers in Boston carries disposable containers that stake into the ground. These aluminum can vases hold water and retail for only five dollars. Carnations are a great choice, because they even look alive when they are dead.

May is the height of school activities and celebrations. We celebrate graduations, achievements, academic awards and our high schoolers often attend their first prom.

So many youngsters are so busy with school, sports, theatre and friends that preparing for their prom is like taking another course. You have to order prom tickets, get a dress or tuxedo, ensure a safe ride and of course plan for an after prom party. One of the last minute items often overlooked are flowers.

Exotic Flowers design studio in Roslindale and all of our Boston floral designers have been making prom corsages and boutonnieres for a combined work knowledge of over 100 years. Our local Boston flower designers have made the traidtional to the unusual.

Most popular these days are rose boutonnieres for the gentleman and rose wrist corsages for the ladies. Whether your prom is at Catholic Memorial, West Roxbury High School or Latin Academy, the staff at Exotic Flowers wants to be a special part of your prom.

Quick tips for quick ordering:

• order early
• know the dress color
• corsages in the Boston area for schools like Boston Latin, Milton High School, Roxbury Latin and other Boston schools are pretty much $25
• rose boutonnieres are $8
• roses, roses, don't get fancy. roses photograph well, are trendy and offer no unwelcome surprises.

At Exotic Flowers in Boston and Lombardi Florist in Roslindale, we often say ' every day is Mother's Day.' This statement may seem trite, but it is on point. Every day is Mother's Day. Mother's Day may be celebrated on the second Sunday of May, but Mother's Day should be celebrated every day.

What better to show your mom, grandmother or anyone you call 'mom' how much you appreciate them than fresh flowers from Exotic Flowers, Boston's Premier Florist.

Mother's Day at Exotic Flowers in Boston begins weeks in advance. The vases for Mother's day floral arrangements arrived weeks ago. The packaging and direct mail pieces were designed months ago. The outdoor garden plants were seeded locally in Boston's inner city in January. Every day from May 1st through May 11th, cut flowers will be arriving from Ecuador, Maine, New Jersey, Costa Rica, Columbia, California and Holland. We are floral importers. Every one of the fresh cut flowers in our Boston floral design studio has been hand selected and tested to exceed the needs of all our New England flower buyers and recipients.

This year (2014) entrust your Mother's Day flowers to your local Boston florist. We have been a family owned and operated florist for over 75 years. Do not leave your Mother's Day order to chance. She is too important. Flowers should not be left at a doorstop in a cardboard box. Her flowers should arrive artfully arranged and hand delivered.

Having worked in a Boston flower shop for more than thirty years, I am proud to share my experience in how to go about being a florist. I always joke that my first job was cleaning geraniums in the Lombardi Florist greenhouses in Roslindale when I was six years old. But you'd be amazed that creating amazing weddings and stunning florals starts at the bottom. My father has been an established florist in Boston for more than sixty years. His best advice has always been, 'never hire anyone who cannot sweep the floor,'.

 I strongly suggest starting at the bottom, sweeping floors, cleaning roses, assisting flower delivery drivers. Start as an intern or apprentice in any flower shop. Whether you are in a Boston florist or New York city flower shop, never lose sight that the basics are so important to provide with you a solid foundation for your career choice as a florist. I also believe that your career path as a florist should begin in a flower shop and not in someone's garage or design studio.

I am not knocking the design studio florist. As a matter of fact, some of the most elaborate floral displays and wedding flowers are created in these flower design warehouses. I suggest working in a flower shop because you will be a witness to all types of clients and their unique requests. 

In a flower shop, you will learn how to wrap flowers, make corsages, design funeral tributes like rosaries, crosses and heart shapes of flowers. The more every day requests you fill for a client, the greater your skill set will be. You will also be forced to think on your feet when dealing with rushed and demanding clients on the retail sales floor of the flower shop.

Turnover in a flower shop is generally pretty high. New associates often have no idea that the job is so physically and mentally demanding. What the floral apprentice must learn is that paying your dues, working for little starting pay and working holidays can lead to a great career. As florists, we make a difference in people's lives. Florists share emotions. When someone dies, when someone is born, married, sad, celebrating a birthday, falling in love; your local florist becomes a part of your life.

If you cannot wait any longer and your visits to Craig's List are just let down for job openings then get on Twitter and follow @GetFloralJobs. Recently, they posted a job link for a florist in Boston. Check out these requirements, do you have what it takes ?

Ability to work well in fast-paced environment
Completing tasks in an efficient manner
Pleasant manner and outstanding customer service skills
Ability to work well with others as well as independently.
High level of enthusiasm and self-motivation

Team members manage the following responsibilities on a daily basis:
Provide excellent service to customers
Assist clients with product selection
Flower Preparation and Processing
Floral Design
Ability to take phone orders.
Making impressive outdoor displays daily

Please send your availability include hours, from Monday-Sunday. Candidate must be able to work 30-40 hours/wk including at least 1 weekend day.

Whether you call it Secretary's Day, Administrative Assistant's Day or Administrative Professional's Day, Boston bosses are usually befuddled regarding what to order for the holiday. Naturally flowers are the best choice and even scientifically proven to increase production at work.

Boston bosses often find themselves at a loss for the card message for their admin. 

Here are some of the top card messages that the staff at Exotic Flowers in Boston has run across for the holiday.

"They say a combined effort can break down the wall of impossibility. Thanks for helping break down the walls !"

"Dedication is the fuel for progress and growth. Thank you for your dedication."

"Someone once said that ingenuity plus work equals miracles. Thank you for all the miracles you perform every day."

Secretaries is not just for admins. Do you have a house manager or personal assistant that make your day better ? From the nanny in Newton to the home health aid in Arlington... show them your appreciation with flowers.

Growing up Jewish always brought a host of questions this time of year. Did we really have to do the whole “matzah thing” again for an eight-day stretch?  What was the deal with eating fish on Fridays? And that most perplexing of all mysteries – what do colored eggs, jelly beans, and rabbits have to do with commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The sacrifices of the unleavened Passover diet were difficult enough for a bread-obsessed, food-focused kid, but watching my friends make what seemed to be drastically reduced abstentions with Lent and gorging on spiral ham, Peeps, and Cadbury eggs at Easter made this time of year even harder to swallow.

The passage of time and the onset of maturity have given me a more accepting take on the practices connected with these Spring festivals, but I’m still left with unanswered questions regarding my Christian brothers’ and sisters’ Easter observances. An attempt divine some answers via an Easter-themed google search may have given me more than I bargained for in the “things that make you go huh?” department. It should come as no surprise that the internet is filled with an abundance of informational sites that pop up when you type in “What is Easter?”, so grab a big proverbial grain of salt for my findings, and let’s dig in!

1) Did you know that depending on whom you believe, the name Easter stems from the pagan goddess Ashtaroth, goddess of Spring and Fertility, or the Egyptian fertility goddess Astarte, or the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess Ostara. or…the commonality of all of these goddesses and their names leads me to my next point, which is…

2) Were you aware that the Christian holiday of Easter evolved from pagan celebrations honoring their fertility goddesses  upon the arrival of Spring? There are even descriptions of families celebrating their savior’s resurrection by decorating their homes with flowers and bunnies, painting and hiding eggs, observing 40 days of abstention ending in a worship service at dawn and a ham dinner with all the fixings. Only these weren’t early Christians, they were Babylonian families celebrating the resurrection of their god Tammuz, who was led back to life by their fertility goddess Ishtar.  Sounds a bit like Easter, only the events just described took place over 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus!

2) Did you know that the celebration of Easter wasn’t commonplace in America until nearly 100 years after the country was founded? The Puritans who arrived on our shores seeking freedom to observe religion in the manner they saw fit were leery of the pagan festivals connected with the arrival of Spring. These misgivings about the “chiristian nature” of certain holidays included Christmas as well. The appearance of Easter as a celebration of the mystery of faith (the death, resurrection and ascension to heaven of Jesus) became more commonplace shortly after the Civil War.

3) Lastly, the connection of rabbits and eggs to the holiday is somewhat murky, but both served as symbols of fertility and life dating back to some of the earliest pagan practices, and seemed to accompany the transformation of pagan spring festivals into what is more commonly known as Easter.

None of this, of course, is shared with any intention other than to illuminate some lesser known aspects of a celebration that is a mainstay in our lives. As is often the case, the celebrations and traditions that have been a part of many of our lives for as long as we or our parents and grandparents can remember are not necessarily what we might have expected. The research (if you can refer to a google search as such!) leaves us with the impression that no matter what the explanation, these times of year are likely descended from universal and time honored celebrations of man, hope, life, faith, and family brought on by the burst of life that arrives with Spring each year.

Most importantly, keep in mind that Spring and the arrival of the holidays like Easter and Passover create a wonderful time to gather with friends and family, be grateful for our many blessings, and send lots of beautiful arrangements from the folks at Exotic Flowers as a token of that gratitude! Happy holidays, and Happy Spring!

 Jonathan Bornstein

on Twitter @Zucrow

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Have you ever wondered about those “kosher for Passover” shelves that crop up in your local grocery store when Spring arrives? Are you one of those people who like to eat the “matzah crackers” your Jewish friends choke down this time of year while you’re obliviously munching on chocolate bunnies? Or are you simply curious about the “Seder” dinner that you’ve been invited to by one of your Jewish colleagues? Well, wonder no more, you amongst the hebraically-challenged! The sandwich guy is here to ‘splain all about the holiday of unleavened bread with his “Passover Primer”!

Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, is one of the three major pilgrimage festivals on the Jewish calendar.  These festivals are so named in light of the historical pilgrimages Jews made from all over the world to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate these special holidays. Passover commemorates the Exodus, the part of biblical Jewish history where the Israelites were freed from generations of enslavement at the hands of the Egyptians to travel for forty years in the desert (yes, even back then, men refused to stop and ask for directions despite the protestations of their wives) on their way to the Land of Milk and Honey, otherwise known as Israel.

The holiday lasts eight days, during which Jews observe a special diet absent foods made with leavening agents. These dietary sacrifices were inspired by the unleavened bread, (or matzah) the Jews prepared in their haste to leave Egypt once the Pharoah had finally been convinced to grant them their freedom. The aforementioned haste was a result of said Pharaoh’s multiple renegings on similar promises. The Jews were taking no chances that the Egyptian leader might change his mind again, and anyone familiar with the parting and closing of the Red Sea allowing the Jews to flee their Egyptian pursuers who were swallowed up by the swift unparting of those same waters understands their haste.

The first two nights of Passover Jews conduct Seders, ritual dinners that retell the story of Passsover by incorporating song, prayer, stories, and food. Seder literally means “order” referring to the many parts of the meal that must be observed in order to tell the story of Passover properly. The dinner is participatory by everyone in attendance, from youngest to oldest, ensuring that all involved participate in the retelling of our past enslavement and by doing so on an annual basis become less likely to forget where we came from.

Passover is a time for all Jews to be grateful for how far we’ve come and what we’ve gained during that journey. But you don’t have to be Jewish to engage in that exercise. Just send flowers! After all, what better way to show your gratitude and humility than by sharing nature’s beauty with those you care about!

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Not only has Red Sox slugger David Ortiz rung up Exotic Flowers in Boston for a number of spectacular flower deliveries to his lovely bride; Big Papi also personifies Exotic Flowers' vision statement: Reaction Guaranteed. Much like David's prodigious blasts and all around swagger, Boston's Premier Florist delivers our products in an over the top fashion. Both Exotic Flowers and David Ortiz have the wow factor.

David gives back to Bostonians and his homeland. Exotic Flowers will always remember its humble beginnings and neighbors in Roslindale. David brings his son D'Angelo to work. Exotic Flowers staff members always bring their kids into the shop to show them what we do for a living.

David's recent foray into Manhattan to win one New York fan over at a time mirrors Exotic Flowers' philosophy of serving one client at a time. David enjoys the food at Meringue on Blue Hill Ave in Dorchester, the Exotic Flowers staff eats there as well.

David Ortiz won the World Series in 2007 with the Red Sox; Exotic Flowers served as the Official Florist of the Boston Red Sox in 2007. David Ortiz has a huge legion of fans. Exotic Flowers has a huge legion of fans. David Ortiz sends premium flowers. Exotic Flowers sells premium flowers. David Ortiz speaks Spanish; Exotic Flowers has staff members who speak Spanish and a Spanish version of our website.

David Ortiz does not dwell on the negative. Exotic Flowers is the most upbeat florist in Boston.  David Ortiz has an ego-centric nickname, Big Papi. Exotic Flowers' nickname, Boston's Premier Florist is just as over the top.

"Reaction Guaranteed !" It is what David 'Big Papi' Ortiz and Exotic Flowers, Boston's Premier Florist are all about.

David is a potential Hall of Famer. Exotic Flowers works with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.

I guess the only difference may be that we are not about guys taking 'selfies'.

At Exotic Flowers in Boston, we value the arts and literature. We are all about creating. Our mission is to enhance the lives of everyone who has any contact or interest in our florist.

"A Flower to Die By":

• written by Boston Author, Suzie Canale
• You will be on the edge of your seat to find the killer of this murder mystery.

At sixteen pages, you will be asking yourself why this is not a movie.

Suzie is not only our favorite author, but my wife as well.

Download Your free short story here.