Belfair, WA Florists

Belfair Flower Shop News

Making the Arrangements for a World Market - Kitsap Sun

Saville goes through a couple boxes of it each week. That’s 50 bunches, each a handful of sprigs.Continental Floral Greens of Belfair is one of the larger companies among a cluster of more than a dozen floral greens outfits in the Mason-Kitsap area.Counting mid-size companies and small brush sheds, often literally operating out of the owner’s garage, there are an estimated 40 to 50 floral greens companies in Washington and Oregon, representing a multimillion-dollar industry.Their inventory — salal, huckleberry, bear grass and other non-timber forest products — grows wild in the woods. But those who harvest it know it’s anything but free.PEOPLE AND THE FORESTIn the cold early morning, Jorge Luis Tomas arrives to his designated plot of forest in Belfair. He cuts into the woods, finding a slight path his footsteps have made before. Tall trees rise toward the sky, their branches making a canopy and shading the forest floor. The undergrowth is tall and thick. Tomas doesn’t waste any time — his eyes quickly seek out the leathery leaves of salal on a long, flat stem. It’s the perfect piece.He snaps the branch in one hand and strips off the lower, spotted leaves with the other while already looking for the next addition to his bunch. By mid-afternoon, Tomas has collected scores of salal bunches, held together with rubber bands. He hoists the load on his back and sets off down the trail, almost invisible beneath the bundles of brush.Tomas came to Mason County from Guatemala in 1999, driven by “economic necessity.” He is part of the latest wave of brush harvesters in an industry where the dominant demographic changes every few decades.James ... http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/local/making-the-arrangements-for-a-world-market-ep-420214813-357826061.html

'Essential' businesses: Florists, boat sellers and toy makers - The Daily Herald

Some not mentioned in the list have come up with their own interpretations. Do florists delivering flowers qualify as “agriculture”? Washington Floral Service, a wholesale firm with warehouses in Tacoma and Spokane, applied for and received a state exemption, Chris Berglund, a company vice president, told The Herald. “We’re essential,” Berglund said. Many of his customers — retail florists — are also seeking exemptions. “From what we’re hearing, it’s a 50-50 split on whether florists are getting an exemption,” Berglund said. “It seems to depend on whether they say they’re a flower shop or agriculture.” “If you can do a food delivery, you can just as easily do a floral delivery,” he said. Can yacht and pleasure boat dealers fit into the transportation category — as “marine consultants”? Harry Walp, president and CEO of Northwest Yacht Brokers Association, said it’s not yet clear if boat sellers are essential businesses. Essential marine industry jobs include consultants, naval architects and surveyors, but the state order doesn’t specify whether that applies to recreational or commercial segments of the industry, Walp said. “Several of my associates are taking a liberal interpretation of ‘consultants’ and make the argument that yacht brokers fit that description,” Walp said. “If so, yacht sales could be deemed essential. My concern is that a yacht broker potentially places himself, his family and his associates in harm’s way if he resumes sales activities. The yacht brokerage industry is taking the COVID-19 pandemic very seriously and the vast majority of our members would prefer to err on the side of caution.” About that Funko order … Meanwhile, hundreds of U.S. retailers are now focused on e-commerce delivery because retail outlets are shuttered. To fill orders, warehouses and distribution centers are open for business. Are those essential? Clothes, handbags, outdoor gear, bedding and toys are all available online from the likes of Washington-based Nordstrom, REI and Amazon, as well as retailers in othe... https://www.heraldnet.com/business/essential-businesses-florists-boat-sellers-and-toy-makers/

A devoted florist gives each 9/11 victim a white birthday rose - The Gazette

On Friday, six names will be adorned with white roses.Amelia Fields, 46, had been working at the Pentagon for only two days when Flight 77 crashed into the imposing military fortress outside Washington.Ivhan Luis Carpio Bautista, 24, a cook for Windows on the World, was supposed to take the day off but subbed in for a co-worker.AnnMarie Riccobini, 58, a billings supervisor at a law firm, had just beaten breast cancer.Michael Berkeley, 38, had just founded his own brokerage.Michael LaForte, 39, a broker, never met his third child, born two months after 9/11.FDNY Lieutenant Vincent Francis Giammona, 40, last spoke to his wife while en route to the burning towers.Family members often reach out to Collarone or to the memorial’s staff, touched and surprised by the ritual. “It is with tears of gratitude that I write this,” said Jennifer Glick in an email to the memorial. Her brother Jeremy was among those who rushed the hijackers on Flight 93, which crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. “With all the insecurity and chaos that we face right now, knowing that our loved ones are remembered gives me great comfort.”Kerry Irvine, an artist, used to visit the memorial often to think about her sister, Kristy Irvine-Ryan, a 30 year-old equities trader who had been married for just three months when she died. But in March, she told The Washington Post, “It was all chained off, and one of my first thoughts was, ‘Oh, God, her birthday,’ which was May 22nd.” Then she got a photo of her sister’s name decorated with a white rose. “To know they’re taking care of all of them, and giving them the respect they deserve,” she said, “it takes the load off the families a little bit.”The memorial grounds reopened July 4. The museum will begin allowing visitors inside again this weekend - first, family members only on Friday and then the public on Saturday, with drastically limited capacity.Collarone didn’t come up with the idea for the birthday flowers; that was a volunteer in the museum. But he’s the one who’s made it happen all these years, carefully selecting roses - he wants them to be a perfect white - from the city’s flower market and cleaning them and nursing them at his shop Floratech, in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. “I’m not looking for the cheapest roses,” he says. “I look for the best.”When the pandemic forced New York to shut down, halting inbound flights bearing hard-to-get white roses from global suppliers in the Netherlands and South America, Collarone knew instantly “that I had to take care of it,” he says. “I went into an immediate rescue mode for the 9/11 memorial.”Whereas roses had been coming in on 10 flights a day, there was now one flight a week from Europe. He worked connections (“My Holland guys helped me out.”), paid large markups as freight pricessoared, and sent drivers to the airport to pick up loads of roses directly from the source, circumventing wholesalers, because, he says, the city’s flower market, then and now, “is operating on life support.”His own shop, which used to supply flowers for Madison Square Garden and high-end hotels like the Mandarin Oriental, has hit dire straits. “We’re lucky if we make enough money to keep our electricity on,” Collarone says. He’s had to close all three of his retail flower shops, and lay off all of his employees, some of whom had been working with him for 20 to 30 years.Still, he wouldn’t dream of stopping the birthday-rose ritual, or asking for payment.He “grew up poor,” he says, in the firemen-and-cops enclave of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, and worked in a flower shop before becoming an insurance salesman.It was a chance meeting with Andy Warhol at the legendary Limelight nightclub, he says, that got him to turn back toward his love of flowers. Warhol co... https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/a-devoted-florist-gives-each-911-victim-a-white-birthday-rose-20200911

Florist Starts ‘Flowers for Black Men' After George Floyd's Death, Sharing Random Kindness - NBC Southern California

S. Capitol in shock, many couldn’t help but wonder why the underwhelming police response to President Trump’s rioting supporters was so different from the massive show of force seen this summer at a Washington D.C. Black Lives Matter protest following the death of George Floyd. NBCLX’s Fernando Hurtado talked to Frank Straub, an expert in critical incident responses at the National Police Foundation, for a breakdown of the police reaction to both events. "Guys really do like flowers and they even blush when they get them which is kind of cool," Brown said. "'Flowers for Black men' were a way to show that, hey I love you, I see you, I understand this is a traumatic experience you’re going through, so here’s flowers to show you that," she said. Mallory With The Flowers has more than 11,000 followers on Instagram. And if there’s proof that her approach works, it’s now on her finger. Her boyfriend proposed on new year’s day. But she says for her wedding, someone else will handle the flowers. Ted chen nbc 4 news view park. ... https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/view-park-mallory-with-the-flowers/2504159/

Headed to DC, local florist chosen for White House Christmas decorating team - Clarksville Now

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Local florist Kassie Peterson is headed to Washington DC, where she will join the White House’s decorating team in preparing for Christmas.Peterson opened her shop, Kassie Kay Floral Designs, on Franklin Street in June of this year. She applied to to be a volunteer White House decorator in September and was selected in October.“That was a reach goal for 2020 for me. It’s something that’s been on my radar for several years, but it hasn’t been able to work out to get selected for it,” said Peterson.Peterson says that her style as a florist is rooted in her Southern upbringing. She loves romantic, seasonal arrangements.For the White House project, Peterson will be working with the White House’s team to bring their Christmas vision to life. She will be in DC all next week.In 2019, the White House halls became a forest of lit Christmas trees with red and white flowers, a design Peterson said she was a big fan of. She particularly liked the inclusion of trees from across the US“I have definitely seen Melania’s style in the last sever... https://clarksvillenow.com/local/headed-to-dc-local-florist-chosen-for-white-house-christmas-decorating-team/