Parrot Tulip

We have lots of colors and varieties. Come and celebrate spring at Pushing Petals!

Tulips caused maniacal behaviour and tulip wars at various points in time. A brief look at the vivid history of the tulip can be found here.

Gary White, your floral design instructorHi, it's Gary here.

Our first floral design workshop will be held on March 7, from 2 to 4pm. Class size will be limited to 5 people to allow for individual instruction and a relaxed environment for everyone. The cost of the workshop will be $125.00 and includes everything you need to create your first arrangement.

Your first arrangement will be a traditional round centerpiece. All the necessary flowers and materials will be provided and you will get to take your creation home with you!

During the workshop you will learn about and discuss design theory and flower care tips:

• which varieties are best suited to arranging in floral foam, versus vase arranging
• how to prepare the flowers
• how to care for them
• what tools are required
• how to cut them
• what to feed them
• sterilization
• and more, so bring your pen and something to write on.

The Fine Print: In order to make this work, we require that you prepay the cost to hold your place and to ensure that the class is filled. We will not run the class if the number falls below 3 people. We will notify you in plenty of time if the class quota is not reached, and offer you an alternative date for the session.

Since there has been a lot of interest in this type of workshop, we have decided to run them once a month on Sundays. We hope to expand the topics in the future to include more advanced flower arranging.

So, if you want an afternoon full of fun, creativity and learning, please call me at (403) 263-3070 for more information and to register.

Thanks and have a great day!

Gary White - Owner, & Lead Designer

 

Yes, we are open on Sunday February 14th from 9am to 6pm for your Valentine's Day shopping. We will also be offering floral delivery services on that day.

We will have a full inventory of flowers in stock from Tuesday February 9th to Sunday February 14th.

Come and visit our store and see our Valentine's Day offerings!

St. Valentine's Day, February 14, is just around the corner! If you want to make sure that you have flowers for your special someone, then call to pre-order (403) 263-3070 today!

This year, we are purchasing roses from a new farm in Equador that is very reliable, has a great product, and promises not to increase the cost of roses to us just because it is Valentine's Day. Most growers take advantage of the supply and demand of Valentine's Day and inflate their wholesale prices. So, this year, we at Pushing Petals are pleased to be able to offer that savings to our customers.

If roses are not your thing, we will have a selection of other flowers available in reds, pinks and whites. We also have a great selection of Valentine's cards by Marlene Hielema, and other gift items such as silver jewellery by Donna Fradley.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!
Gary

Thank you for supporting Pushing Petals through another year. We really appreciate the community and are so happy to be in your neighborhood of Hillhurst Sunnyside!

As most people know, 2009 was not easy due to the economy. In 2008 we were very busy with flowers for office parties and other functions, but due to drastic cut backs, many of the companies that we dealt with, especially those in the oil business, did not have office parties or send seasonal flowers to their special clients or partners. So, at Pushing Petals we had to take up the slack by trying to appeal to walk in trade. I will be honest, it was not easy, and we squeaked through the holiday, but I feel that there is a bigger problem out there.

Small business is gradually being attacked by the big box chains.

The large chains are all now scouting for other business ideas to use in their huge stores - everything from eye wear to pharmacy to grocery to flowers to home improvement, and so on, and so on. To give you an example, we tried to purchase potted rosemary plants for Christmas. We approached a greenhouse in California only to find out that a local grocery store, a big one that we all use, had arranged to buy the entire crop, thus being able to shut out everyone else. This store is doing this with a lot of growers. Because of the volume they are able to purchase at very low prices and undercut everyone else.

Now if that were not bad enough, some of our local wholesalers have jumped on their bandwagon. These particular wholesalers are now undercutting local florists by supplying grocery stores with bouquets and once again, because of volume buying, they are giving those stores cheaper wholesale costs. We cannot even match their retail prices. What most people do not know is that this kind of thing, selling flowers or other items at very low prices, is called a loss leader. The big chains do not make a lot of money on the items but they know that if they get people in the door with some ridiculously low priced item, they get people in the store, and then that customer usually purchases something else while shopping there. People rarely leave with just one item.

So what can you do???

You cannot be blamed for looking for a deal but in doing so you are eliminating all the small, independant creative businesses who, by the way, tend to be more community-minded and employ others in the community, and offer better working conditions for their staff. The money that you spend here is also kept here and not wisked off to our friends south of the border who, by the way, own most of the big box stores.

I will not continue with more of my rant, but here is an option:

Keep supporting the little guys, the mom and pop stores who exist in your trendy city neighborhoods and small-town communities.

I would like to once again, thank you for all the kind words and the support that you gave us the past year. We are unique and different. We try to always be true to our craft and give you the best design work of any flower shop in Calgary. We look forward to 2010 being a good year, so lets all work together to arrive at this goal!

Thank you,

Gary White, Owner of Pushing Petals Inc.

p.s. By the way, we aren't the only type of business that has to deal with this. For a related post see here.

Okay, so we're a few days late getting our new year's greetings out to you. Our only excuse it that we have been too busy with things like, cleaning up the shop, updating our web site, getting new music on the MP3 player, ordering flowers, and planning for the year ahead, so that we can continue to be the best flower shop in Calgary!

If you have stopped into the store recently you may have noticed that we have been in transition since early December. The biggest change is that Gary White is now the new owner of Pushing Petals! Gary is excited to be taking over the business from Joanne Lee. His plans include monthly flower specials, regular articles of interest about flowers, and much more, so watch this space!

In the meantime, come by the shop today to congratulate Gary and see what's new. While you are there, pick up one of our signature bouquets of flowers to brighten up your January.

We look forward to serving you in 2010.

All the kinks should be worked out by the start of the New Year. Thanks for your patience during our transition.

Gary White

Happy New Year! We look forward to serving your floral design needs again in 2010.

Gary White - Designer

Welcome to Pushing Petals' new web site! We're still in the early development phase, so in the meantime check out our old site: pushingpetals.com

Thanks and keep in touch!

Gary White, Designer

p.s. Our new email is info (at) pushingpetals (dot) com

p.p.s. Our phone number is still (403) 263-3070