Exotic Flowers in Boston

Halloween is one of the most celebrated holidays in New England.  Bright orange pumpkins and jac o' lanterns adorn every doorstep. Hayrides carry  laughing children along eerie trails. Homes fill their bowls  with  candy corn, Snickers and M & M's.  Halloween casts a spell over Boston, enchanting its residents  to not only participate in the spooky fun but to decorate  with spider webs, creepy ghouls  and scary music.   

Halloween is also a popular wedding date for the mysterious and  enchanted. Halloween wedding centerpieces  feature burnt oranges, burgundies, purples along with spirited accessories.  With a few easy tricks and treats, anyone can change a common table floral arrangment  into an eye catching and haunted floral presentation.

Purple, orange, cream and black are the most traditional colors for Halloween flowers.  These colors work well as a monochromatic design and complement each other as well. If you cannot find the right color balance, include a few stems of lime green hydrangea or celosia pop the colors  in your wedding centerpiece.  This palette of color has some store bought limitations, but florists like Exotic Flowers in Boston can provide all the flowers you need.

 Deep purples and violets  are readily available in ornamental kale or lisianthus. Pumpkin oranges include mango callas, spray roses and gerbera daisies.  For wedding like creams, ecuadorean roses and kale are great choices.  Black flowers will give you your spooky sensation, Schwartzwalder mini calla lillies, bat flowers and Twilight Black Roses are some the favorites of the Exotic Flowers in Boston design staff.

Here are a few tips to enhance the  spirit of Halloween in your floral arrangements.  Add a few wisps of store bought cobwebs to the tops or to the sides of the bouquet to give you that Addams family look. Invest  in a few plastic spiders found in any local party (Iparty in West Roxbury) or craft store (AC Moore in Dedham,).  Place the spiders  in one or two spots, making them appear that they are hiding within the flower arrangement.  For an added value with minimum investments, lightly sprinkle candy corn in a circular shape around the bottom of your vase. 

Happy Halloween!

Suzie Canale

follow me at twitter.com/SuzieCanale

October 2011 - Boston

Exotic Flowers Announces its Horror Hall of Fame

Like The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, Exotic Flowers in Boston has its own Hall of Fame. Founded in 2011, Exotic Flowers will announce an induction class to its Horror Hall of Fame every Halloween. The inaugural class mirrors the likes of Cobb, Ruth and Matthewson; the Exotic Flowers in Boston Horror Hall of Fame presents the Wolfman, Frankenstein, Dracula, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhes and Michael Myers.

The Exotic Flowers Boston Horror Hall of Fame will be a virtual homage to Horror Movies. 

for seventy years.

an obsession with all things Vampire including the popular Twilight black roses.
* Frankenstein - Mary Shelley may not have known what type of monster she really created when bringing

this legend to life.

became the main character in many nightmares.

can create the character.

Halloween from Boston to Salem and Beyond by Jonathan Bornstein (one of Exotic Flowers in Boston's top clients).

It’s October, and if the sight since late August of shelves stuffed with blinking plastic skulls, fake cobwebs and creaking miniature coffins didn’t clue you in, then allow me to spoil it for ya – Halloween is here ! A fan favorite for those who love a good holiday, Hallow’s Eve is a delight for your sweet tooth as well as a paradise for your inner dress up doll.  It’s also vastly underrated for one other thing – community. 

 Halloween is perhaps the only time of year when my family gets to spend a few moments reconnecting with all of our neighbors in Newton. Busy lives lead us to run around with blinders on, and amazingly, it takes an event where everyone dresses up like fiends and fairies to create a scenario where, we can reconnect and exchange a pleasantry or two before extending some goodwill to tide us all over til next year.

 

That’s not to say that our more colorful and somewhat less altruistic sides don’t get aired out as well. I’m not referring to that kid or two well past the accepted trick or treat age that shows up on your front doorstep around 9pm with no costume and a brown paper grocery bag to claim the last of your bulk bought candy. I’m actually conjuring up the cherished memory of my late father who loved to negotiate the terms this time of year for taking my sister and I out to trick or treat. The number of houses and streets we got to visit each year was directly tethered to the percentage of candy we had to surrender to Dad’s considerable sweet tooth. Fortunately for me and lil’ sis, he loved the stuff that we were just as happy to throw out, like Bit O’ Honeys, Mary Janes, and Good n Plenty’s.

 I now bemusedly put forth the same deal each year to my kids, and fortunately for them, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. My sweet tooth hangs out in a completely different area code than theirs. They love sugary pixie sticks, Nerds and “sucker style” ring pops. So what then, might you ask, are my top five trick or treats? Can’t narrow it down to five, but I can do seven -

 

1)   Milk Duds – love the gooey sticky taste of caramel that blends with the chocolate coating after just a couple of chews.

2)   Charleston Chew – seeing a pattern here? Sweet vanilla taffy blending with a chocolate coating – even better when put in the freezer first!

3)   Snow Caps – the rich, sweet flavor of dark chocolate mixed with the sugary crunch and texture of the tiny white pellet coating? Just the right amount of crunch, and sublimely delicious.

4)   Anything Reese’s – you put your chocolate in my peanut butter, indeed!

5)   Mike and Ike’s – love the chewy, fruity sweet nature of these guys, and that includes their lesser known cousins, “Hot Tamales”.

 

6)   Junior Mints – creamy, chewy mint covered in pure chocolate? Done and done. Extra credit for their Seinfeldian cred.

7)   Dots! – LOOOOOVE Dots. Sweet, chewy, and always a surprise which flavor comes out of the box. Especially when the yellow ones emerge, cause I don’t like ’em, and they are promptly returned to their cardboard home to await new ownership.

Honorable mention goes to Milky Ways and Three Musketeers, because the experience gets enhanced when they're placed in the freezer, and I love the word “nougat”.

So now that you know what I sneak out of my kids plastic pumpkins, tell me, what treats don’t make it back to your kitchen for sorting?

- Jon Bornstein

photo credits: Jon Bornstein

follow me: twitter.com/zucrow