Ask the Expert: Peace Lilly life

I purchased a Peace Lilly a little over a year ago. It turned yellow and I thought it was dead. I trimmed off all the leaves, but left the roots in the pot. I planted a new plant in the pot and just figured the Peace Lilly was dead. A few days ago I noticed that the Peace Lilly is starting new growth. I removed the plant I had planted in the pot and am going to see what happens. Could there be a reason the Peace Lilly died off and now is starting to grow again? Obviously the roots were not dead, its as if it just went into hibernation for the winter.

Kevin,

Your Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum clevelandii)was under some form of stress; either too much light or too much water. As a result, the plant seemed dead but was actually in a mode of conservation - store it's resources to produce a new flush of growth. When you placed the new plant in the pot, it must have correct the problems that caused the Peace Lily leaves to turn yellow. With the problem corrected, the peace lily was able to take it's store energy to produce the new growth. Now that your plant is actively growing again take a look at our Peace Lily Plant Care tips; these tips will help you keep your Peace Lily healthy.

Peace Lily - Spathiphyllum clevelandii

Ask the Expert: can I put my philodendron (arrowhead)? outside for

I have a pretty houseplant vine, i think its called an arrowhead philodendron?, can I put it in a hanging basket outside for the spring/summer months?

Lisa,

You can use this plant outside during the warm months. The Heart leaf Philodendron (Philodendron scandens oxycardium) needs very warm conditions in fact it can not tolerate temperatures under 40 degrees. So if you are going to place it outside make sure that your time temperatures are not going to dip below 40 degrees for an amount of time.

For those of you who don't know what a Heart leaf Philodendron looks like here is a picture:

More Heartleaf Philodendron plant care tips.

Last night while I was eating my Reuben sandwich, I realized that St Patrick's Day was just a few days away. I love St Patrick's day. What's not to love about a holiday that promotes drinking larger quantities of green beer. Actually I don't like regular beer - so I not so sure about green beer - but the pub crawl participants seems to adore it. I love St Patrick's day because of the positive nature of the holiday. Four leaf clovers - shamrocks (good luck), the color green (money and prosperity) and corned beef and cabbage or bacon and cabbage (just good eats). This is a holiday that focuses on fun and optimism with festivals, parades and "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirts. To celebrate the holiday many people send potted shamrocks to spread luck to friends and family members. I personally like to send and receive flower arrangements with Bells of Irleand instead - shamrocks remind me of a weed called oxalis that drives me crazy in our greenhouse. Here is an example of the kind of arrangement I send my folks on St Patrick's Day.

If you want one that works for both St Patrick's Day and Easter you could send this

After all Easter is only a fews day after St Patrick's Day this year.

Of course florists across the nation have some wonderful ideas when it comes to arranging flowers for St Patrick's Day. In fact, if any florist wants to send me a picture of their St Patrick's Day flower designs,  I'll post them on the blog. We might even get readers to vote on the best one.

You have five days till the fun and festivities of St Patrick's Day. So plan to have a good one - I plan on it.

If you have a special way of celebrating St Patrick's Day let me know. I'm always curious about how others celebrate. You never know when you'll discover something great.

Representatives from Flower Shop Network attended the Northeast Floral Expo in Hartford CT on March 1st and 2nd.

From upper left to right: Joe Hays, Loranne Atwill, Brock Atwill and Leslie Cox.

New England florists and vendors attended floral design, business and technology seminars and presentations. New business relationships were forged and products were purchased and sold. High School students competed in floral design and select florists displayed some amazing work. Congratulations to the officials of the Northeast Floral Expo for another successful show.

Renato Cruz Sogueco, Chief Information Officer with SAF visited our booth after his presentation on how to be a web savvy florist.

Renato's seminar was attended by more than fifty florists interested in claiming their place on search engine results. It is apparent that owners are realizing the Internet is the new preferred way for customers to shop and order flowers. Renato relayed the story of a shop owner in Denver, located directly across the street from a large hi-tech company. The shop owner said that almost 30% of his revenue came from the employees of that building, although he had never had a single one of them come inside his shop. Renato expanded on the point by saying that Generation Y (kids these days) are more comfortable online, than on the phone.

Renato outlined some basic ways to improve your website’s appeal to the search engines, pointing out that content in the form of keyword rich text was really more important than “pretty pictures”or flash.

Blogging as well as exposure on social networking sites such as Myspace.com and Facebook.com and even YouTube.com are ways to gain more exposure for a flower shop’s website, according to Renato.

In the end, a shop wants to wrap up as many postions on the natural results as possible. Ways to accomplish this are through listing with online floral directories, such as FlowerShopNetwork.com. For more information on Renato and SAF visit www.safnow.org.

Joe Hays of Flower Shop Network meets member Jenny Thomas of Oak Hill Florist from Scarborough, ME.

Flower Shop Network members Dot and Paul Chenevert of The Green Oak Florist in Hyde Park, New York, talk to Leslie about their new FSN website.

Our neighbor at the show also happens to be the representative for our phone system here at work. We would highly recommend anyone looking to improve communications to contact Kelly Lumpkin of Alternate Access about their TeleVantage system.

A member of our sister site, FGmarket.com (wholesale directory for floral and gift products) , Carroll Hunt, is always good for a laugh and a positive attitude. Carroll offers a delivery product that we personally used back when we had a flower shop. We highly recommend it. Check out their website at SeminoleDeliverySystem.com.

Thank you to the officials of the 2008 Northeast Floral Expo for producing a very productive show. We look forward to seeing all of you again in 2009.

Ask the Expert: HELP IDENTIFY PLANTS SO I CAN CARE FOR THEM

I have never been a gardener but we just moved into a lovely place where someone put a lot of heart and soul into their plants and I don't want to kill them.
I know absolutely zero and need simple terms.
We have an apple tree, a pear tree, several raspberry vines, and a huge wall of concord grapes.
I have a lot of ground cover and bushes I have never seen. Any help would be appreciated.

This is a dormant rose bushes. The red berries are called rose hips. Basically the seed pods of a rose. Depending on the rose species, the rose hips can be Read the rest of Plant Identification With Care Instructions »

Ask the Expert: what is this plant

this plant is all over my yard I thought it was strawberry but its not. its really dark with a reddish tint.

I Believe this is a Common Mallow (Malva neglecta)

I found this Common Mallow Photo on a Michigan State University site. You can see the similarity in the leaf.

Ronald Calhoun in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University supplied this picture. In fact, it comes from the MSU Turf Weed.net program. This is a wonderful resource for weed identification and was developed to assist MSU turf students earn the key identification characteristics of common and not-so-common turfgrass weeds found in Michigan and the midwest. Ronald has compiled a variety of useful weed identification pictures including wild strawberry, henbit and Carolina geranium.

Today I finally had a chance to catch up on all of the blogs I read. Since it was discussing one of my favorite flowers, lilies, one particular blog caught my eye. As a cut flower, lilies are simply wonderful and I absolutely adore them in my garden. I grow Asiatic, Oriental, Trumpet and Tiger lilies in my home garden and at our garden center. But the difference between lily types is often confusing to many; especially which are used in flower shops and which are grown in the garden.

Kenji at Flower Insolita gives a great outline as to which lilies are used by florists as cut flowers and the vase life expected of each kind. According to Kenji there are three types of lilies used: Asiatic, LA-hybrids and Oriental. Asiatic lilies are very colorful and my favorite is one called Lollypop. This lily has a snow-white center with vibrant pink edges. It adds a pop of color to any mixed flower arrangement. But as Kenji mentions, Asiatic lilies tend to be the smallest of the three with the shortest shelf life 5-7 days. On the plus side, Asiatic lilies tend to be the least expensive with a wider range of colors available.

Oriental lilies have two of my favorite flowers Stargazer and Casa Blanca. Most people are familiar with Stargazer lilies and Casa Blanca lilies. Stargazer lily bouquets have become a popular Valentine’s Day flower and Casa Blanca lilies are often used in funeral flower sprays because of their pure white color. Stargazer and Casa Blanc lilies are fantastic as, both, cut flowers and garden flowers. I have both in my garden and when they bloom the air is filled with an incredible aroma and the eyes are immediately drawn to the massive blooms. In fact, Oriental lilies display the biggest blooms and are all very fragrant. This premium flower is available in white, pink, pale yellow and a “red” (more of a dark pink) and has the longest shelf life, 10-14 days. According to Kenji, there is a dark purple oriental lily that is sometimes available called Sumatra. I am not familiar with Sumarta and would love to see a picture of it used in a mixed flower arrangement.

LA Hybrids are a cross between Asiatic and Trumpet lilies. Non-fragrant like Asiatic, but with bigger and stronger blooms and a shelf life of 7-10 days. These lilies have an abundance of bright color options. As a premier Huntington New York Florists Flower Insolita uses LA hybrids instead of Asiatic lilies.

I often cut the lilies in my garden and place them in a vase to enjoy them in the house. During the off-season, I purchase stems from my local florist. But, I never really though about what to look for when buying lilies. Kenji pointed out three great tips for buying lilies.

1. Count the number of buds rather than the number of stems. Cheap stem price doesn’t equate to quality lilies.
2. Look for thick study stems. Lilies are top heavy and need a good support system.
3. Look for healthy leaves. Yellow leaves could mean ethylene damage.

Subconsciously, I always look for thick stems and healthy leaves; but bud count isn’t something I paid attention to. But the more blooms the better presentation in the vase, so it make sense to look for a good bud count when selecting lilies.

Asiatic, Oriental and LA hybrid lilies are used by florists to create a multitude of flower arrangements. Maybe some of the confusion surrounding florist lilies has been removed and we can all just sit back and enjoy these wonderful flowers. Remember, there is more to the florist’s lily world than Stargazers and Casa Blanca lilies.

I hope you enjoyed this discussion on lilies, as much as I enjoyed Kenji discussion on lilies. I thought I'd share some pictures of flower arrangements containing lilies. If you have any flower arrangement pictures with lilies send to me and I'll post them here.

Easter Flower Basket

Mothers Day arrangement with pink Asiatic lilies

Secretaries Day vase arrangement with yellow lilies.

Orange lilies in a vase great for an anniversary.