Bloomin' News

AIFD - FLORAL DESIGN SHOW JUNE 14 - ORANGE COUNTY

2009-04-26T16:54:00.001-07:00

I'll be manning a trade show booth at this popular AIFD floral design show, for The Bloomin' News, so if you're there, be sure to stop by. I'll also have the Sending Flowers to America book along, but mostly, I'll be on the lookout for story material for upcoming issues of The Bloomin' News.

Phil Rulloda, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, and Susan Butler, AIFD, are the two featured floral designers presenting at this show for the American Institute of Floral Designers’ Southwest Region, on Sunday, June 14, 2009, at Mayesh Wholesale Flowers, 3241 Halladay Street, Santa Ana, California 92705 (call 714 668-2120). Need directions or map? See http://www.mayesh.com/locations.php

We Are Bloomin' Now

2009-04-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Have transformed this blog into a Bloomin' News blog, as the So Cal Flower History news is now being covered at http://flowermarkethistory.com/blog ; no need for two on same topic.

So readers of The Bloomin' News, the bi-monthly newsmagazine of the Los Angeles Flower Market, should feel free to submit comments and articles here. In future posts, I'll try to include the fun potpourri type material that makes the printed version of The Bloomin' News so popular: people, places, happenings, news of special or unusual interest, you get it. Keep it light, make it fun. Looking forward to your comments.

New Location for Sending Flowers Blog

2009-03-19T17:00:00.001-07:00

Please visit us at our main website: http://flowermarkethistory.com/blog

Great Walk of the Flower Markets

2009-03-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Met some fascinating characters and interesting people while walking the Los Angeles Flower District Wednesday morning. "Polo" at Floral Prop Rental (need arches, pedestals?) hammed it up for the camera. Company celebrating 40 years this year. Sensation Flowers, Milagra (corner of 8th and Wall), Moskatel's, Floral Supply Syndicate, Natural Floral - saw them all. And shot the photo at left - glorious golden mini-calla lilies.

Great to see the new Flower Market Restaurant and Cafe at 765 S. Wall Street. It shines with a somewhat spartan decor in green and white (appropriate for March) and tasty breakfast and lunch dishes.

I'll add a little history of the area, along with facts and trivia, for the May/June issue of The Bloomin' News - http://www.bloominnews.com/ .

Walking the Flower District

2009-03-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

My walk of the Flower District was cancelled by pouring rain last Wednesday morning, so I'll do it early Wednesday, March 11. I mean the original Flower District - WALL STREET from SEVENTH to EIGHTH streets. I'll interview storefront owners who are paying members of the real Flower District (largest wholesale flower district in the US), for my upcoming cover story for The Bloomin' News (see http://bloominnews.com/).

The "LA Flower Market" that started in the 1920s is still going strong. The shops on surrounding Eighth and San Pedro streets attract the public now, unfortunately, keeping customers from the real Flower District merchants, who are for the most part, hidden from view in the neighborhood of merchants that has sprung up around it. Check out the rich history of this District at http://laflowerdistrict.com/ . Public hours ($2 admission) are 8 to 10 a.m. -- Buy flowers on Wall Street and help your original Flower District survive. Wish for no rain for me on the 11th.

Featured Flower: Ginger

2009-03-05T01:09:00.000-08:00

Thought you might enjoy a visual treat. Today's photo from the Los Angeles Flower Market is Ginger.

The Thurnhers of San Marino

2009-03-05T00:29:00.000-08:00

A delightful email today from Oskar Thurnher, who with his brothers Bertram and William, were sons of the admired and respected San Marino florist Erna Thurnher and her husband, nurseryman Armin Thurnher, both now deceased.

I'd asked Oskar if he knew of the "Thurnher House" in his hometown of San Marino, a Los Angeles suburb near Pasadena, to which he replied that the family had lived there "all during our childhood." The Mediterranean style house, built in 1929, was later designated an historical building and named after the boys' father, who "built Lacy Park." Since 2004, it has served as home to the San Marino Historical Society. Naturally, this was the centering place for our darling florist Erna Thurnher, who bought her flowers downtown at the Los Angeles Flower Market like hundreds of others.

There's more information about the house and the Society at http://www.smnet.org/comm_group/historical/ - and I'll include some of this local color in my July 12 slideshow at San Marino's Crowell Public Library (see https://www.flowermarkethistory.com/asp/presentations.asp ).

San Pedro Street Garden Centers

2009-02-22T12:45:00.000-08:00

In the early days in Los Angeles, that is, after statehood in 1850, the climate and fond memories of "back home" quickly fostered the growth of the nursery and flower industry. City leaders wanted to beautify the streets. New residents wanted to enhance their sparse, dusty yards - even if it meant watering with dirty bath water from the house or toting buckets of water from a nearby canal. Southern California was a blank canvas eager to have color and texture applied.

Getting seeds from the East could take weeks or months, so the arrival of nurserymen and plantsmen, who established the garden centers and nurseries in what is now the Fashion District of Los Angeles, was a welcome happening.

Both Main Street and South San Pedro Street became settings for large garden centers that became popular among the area's residents as they designed their gardens and planted shrubs and trees. Ozro W. Childs' success with his nursery just east of Main Street encouraged him in 1857 to partner with W. Huber in the Los Angeles Nursery and Fruit Garden. There, Childs introduced new fruits, nuts, flowering shrubs and cut flowers from Europe and South America. The center quickly became a tourist attraction, with many residents making their way in horse-drawn wagons to the city's central business district every weekend.

Research tells us there were numerous plantsmen in the area very early on. In 1855, William B. Osborne advertised his new shipment of roses and lilacs from the East. In the 1880s-1890s, South San Pedro Street was home to Thomas A. Garey's 72-acre nursery and Mrs. H. Shaw's 35 acres of fields and nursery. (Our photo above shows the entrance to the City Gardens, started in 1874 at the corner of Eighth and San Pedro streets.) The nursery operations of horticulturists Jacob Dieterich, Louis Stengel and Eugene Germain all continued into the twentieth century.

What a wonderful opportunity the area offered for anyone with knowledge, a few resources and an enterprising spirit!

Source: Sending Flowers to America, http://flowermarkethistory.com/

Presentation at Costa Mesa Historical Society

2009-02-16T07:00:00.001-08:00

The slide show presentation to Costa Mesa Historical Society on Feb 15 went exceptionally well. Some 50 colorful slides depicting highlights from the Sending Flowers to America book shared the basic history of the Los Angeles area as it paralleled the growth of the flower industry here. I was so pleased to have three members of the Amling family present at this talk, for their family's history in the flower industry is covered in the book's Profiles section. Next up: The Noon Lions in Buena Park, on February 24. See http://flowermarkethistory.com/ for the roster - click the Speakers link.

Welcome, flower & Los Angeles history fans!

2009-02-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

Seems like a good time to create a cyberspace to honor an era and a people in Los Angeles history that have been largely overlooked (Well, completely overlooked) by Los Angeles and Southern California historians. For 50 or more years, the flower growers of the Los Angeles area (we're talking hundreds of farm families) supplied the entire nation with its winter and off-season fresh, cut flowers. (How else could the in-love guys in Buffalo send fresh roses, tulips and dahlias to their sweethearts for Valentine's Day with all that snow on the ground?)

Sure, we've recently celebrated these hard-working immigrant farmers, and their contributions to the U.S. flower industry, in the book Sending Flowers to America (more about that later); but today, hurray! We have an online presence for them. And for all the folks who grew and processed the blooms from the fields that blanketed the land from Santa Barbara to San Diego for so many years.

I'm not going to do all the talkin' here, though. Yes, I have the stories from Sending Flowers to America at my fingertips, and I'll share them here just as I do in the fascinating slide show I'm currently giving to local groups. But I have a hunch you can contribute to this L.A. history and Southern California flower history blog in a big way. So I've set it up for posts and I am really, truly looking forward to hearing from you. Tell your memories, share your stories, send your photos. Who knows? Maybe we'll do a second book!