Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening and happy Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is actually one of the busiest weeks for florists, and so we thought we would take a look this week at the floriculture industry.

We start out by going to the Oklahoma Flower Market in Oklahoma City to take a look at this 80 -year-old business.

We then have a familiar face who's here to share with us about the cut flower industry.

And finally, Dr.

Lua Nella, director of the Botanic Garden, has an exciting announcement to share with us.

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Today we're at the Oklahoma Flower Market, and joining me is Megan Mendoza, who is the manager here.

Megan, let's talk about this 80-year-old business that's family-owned, right?

It is.

We are third generation.

We've been here since 1946.

We are a full-service wholesale florist.

We service florists in the state of Oklahoma, as well as event planners and special event people.

We supply flowers for holidays, special events, and everyday orders.

And not just flowers.

You got every little supply that I never even knew we needed.

We carry all the supplies that they could need for any kind of floral adventure that they choose.

Yeah.

And I know you're just coming off prom season, right?

And we're headed into Mother's Day.

We do.

Let's talk about what that might be looking like around here.

So as soon as we get done on Valentine's, we go right into, there'll be prom.

This week was administrative professional week, and then we do Mother's Day, as well as it's wedding season.

So we're very busy.

So how do you keep up with the trends?

Let's talk about how floristry has changed over the years, whether it's color or style.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

It's never ever changing.

All the fads change, the colors change, the styles change, the seasons change.

So we just have to stay on top of everything that's changing and just try to stay within the fads that are going around.

Can you give us a little hint as to what we might be expecting to see this season?

Right now, it's still whites, very popular with the weddings, as well as pastels.

This year, it's been a lot of pastels.

The pale yellows, the peaches, the lavenders.

Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about your actual production here.

You're constantly getting flowers, and that's the most perishable, more than the ribbon, right?

Right.

We receive five trucks a week, so we're constantly fresh product, in and out, all the time.

So you got a giant, cool room back there?

We stock many, many flowers every week, and we also provide the florists with their regular weekly orders, and then we do special orders.

Okay.

So your busy week, is that the week prior to the florist's busy week, usually?

We start a week before the flower shops.

All right.

And can you share with us a little bit about the processing, when those plants come in, and how you manage that to keep them as fresh as possible?

So the flowers come in five days a week, and as soon as we get them in, we process them.

We use a floralife, which is the flower food that we use.

We give them a fresh cut, we put them in the buckets, we let them drink, and then we move them into the coolers.

When they're ready to be sent to the flower shops, we pull them out, we pack them, we put ice on them, and then we deliver them.

All right.

Can you tell us a little bit about where these trucks are coming from, like the actual product is coming from?

Because you get, you have an array of plant material.

So we get in trucks three days a week from Miami.

The flowers that come from Miami are imported, and they come into Miami from Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, just all over the world.

We also get trucks two days a week from California, and those are all flowers that are grown domestically in California.

Okay.

Okay.

And are you seeing the, you know, the lifespan, everybody always wants the peony, right?

But we know peonies only can grow for so long of a season.

Tell us how florists have kind of worked around that a little bit.

Luckily enough, peonies, a lot of flowers, they've found workarounds to where they can expand the season.

I know it used to be the peonies would end in July or August.

Well, now they've, they're grown in Alaska, so we can chase peonies all the way August, September.

Okay.

All right.

So that's nice for the bride to know that.

Right.

And is there any, tell us a little bit about, you know, what you like best about this business.

It's ever changing.

It's never the same.

It's in 25 years, it's completely evolved and just having to stay with it.

High pace during those holidays.

Very high pace.

Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

Joining me next is Mark Erickson, a long time floral designer, and I'm so excited to have him on our show today.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

You work magic.

I have seen you work magic.

I'm so excited that you're going to show us some of your secrets, hopefully.

Well, I'll share some things.

Okay.

Excellent.

So I know so often we might buy that $15, $20 bouquet and just plop it in a vase, right?

Right, right.

Are there some tricks that we can do to maybe zhuzh it up a little bit?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

The first thing is that you want to have the joy of working with flowers.

So don't just chop and drop.

Okay.

Do some designing.

All right.

I like to use foliage first.

This is Israeli Ruscus, and usually when you buy an assortment, there's not going to be a lot of foliage, but there is somewhere around there a foliage bouquet to buy.

So go ahead and buy that with your flowers.

And one of the things that I always do is remove the bottom foliage from the stem because we never want foliage in the water.

Because foliage creates bacteria when it hits water, which shortens the life of the flower.

So what I do is I take this and I measure it against the vase and I estimate where the bottom is.

I chop it all at once and I go, how beautiful.

That's perfect just as it is, right?

Well, it kind of is, you know.

Simple, modern.

Exactly.

So the next thing that I would do is I would select my largest flower, which in this case is that big hydrangea.

Right over here, yes.

I'm going to want that flower to sit right on top of the foliage this way in the center because hydrangeas are such heavy drinkers.

They love water.

Is I strip the bark off.

Oh, I never even thought about that.

And when you strip the bark off, then you've created a lot more surface for water to enter the flower.

So we'll put that hydrangea there.

It won't stay till we get other things in, but it's, but it's a big bold right in the middle.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

So let's use white daisies next.

Got them.

These, these daisies are daisy palms, which means they're actually in the mum family and not daisies and put one bunch on one side of the hydrangea and this other on the other side.

I want to ask about this one, like notorious, right?

We have one that's broken in there.

What do we do about that?

Absolutely.

You always remove any broken flower because it's going to fade long before the others do.

So these are spray roses and this particular variety has no thorns, which is a good thing for us.

Yes.

We're going to use three in the beginning here, and we may add more later because you could never have enough roses.

And in this particular instance, I used a professional trick and that's a product called quick dip that helps the flower last longer and take more water.

Next let's do the purple Veronica.

This is a really popular flower this season for weddings.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Bridal bouquets and so forth.

Well, and what we're dealing with so far, I mean, we can have this in our backyard that we bring in.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We do work with two things, color and texture.

Those are the two big ones.

You mentioned both.

And so the more texture you put in it, the richer it is visually.

And it looks like you spent more money.

We use a professional flower food.

The brand that we use is called Floralife, but there's many out there that you can use.

If you don't have a flower food, you can use a lemon lime soda, like Sprite 7-Up, whatever, and use that.

So it's not a myth.

We can use that.

You can use that.

Now the penny and the vodka and all of the other ones, I'm not so sure all that works, but I know that the 7-Up or Sprite will.

Okay.

I mean, it's beautiful what you're making here.

So what's kind of the shelf life of some of this plant material too?

There's two things that are important.

First is how they're handled before you buy them.

And most places are doing what they're supposed to do, refrigeration, water, that sort of thing.

Then after you get the flowers and make your beautiful design, then you need to add water every single day.

On an arrangement like this, you should get probably two and a half, three weeks, maybe a little longer, but some of it may not last that long.

And like we were discussing earlier, take the ones that are not pretty out.

So these tulips might be the ones that would perish first?

They would be.

They would be.

Tulips are a big deal in the bundles at the stores.

So go ahead and get a bundle of tulips, but put them all up to themselves.

Just do a tulip arrangement with some foliage.

And then when it's gone, go buy more.

Buy flowers.

Flowers enhance lives.

Yes, they do.

And it definitely shows in your personality enthusiasm that you've been working with flowers for so long.

I have and I still love it.

Every single day that I'm with flowers, I love.

Today we are joined by Dr.

John Dole, who is a former professor here at OSU and is currently at NC State.

Dr.

Dole, thank you so much for while you're visiting, coming back onto Oklahoma Gardening with us.

You're no stranger to the show.

It's great to be back.

You know, it has been a few years since I've been back here in Stillwater, and it's been so much fun to see all the excitement going on at Oklahoma State University with all the new programs and new buildings and such.

A lot of fun.

Well, one of your main areas of interest or research, I should say, is floriculture.

So we're excited to have you on the show to talk a little bit about this whole market of floriculture and cut flowers.

There's a lot that goes into it.

Can you give us kind of the highlights?

Sure.

You know, we, flowers are gorgeous, you know, and we love having them in our homes.

What is so much fun is just how much goes in to getting that flower there.

You know, it starts with the plant breeders coming up with the new varieties, the new colors, the new styles, and then the growers that are growing them all over the United States and indeed all over the world.

And then the work that goes into getting the flower from the grower to the customer.

You know, there's a lot of technology, a really cool technology involved in that.

And then, of course, just enjoying the flowers when we do get them.

And how long they might last for us, right?

And how long they might last for us, that's right.

So tell us a little bit.

Let's start with maybe some of the cultivars.

What's shifting with some of the plant material?

Well, you know, floriculture in some ways is, well, it is definitely agriculture, but it also combines fashion and which makes it challenging for the growers because they not only have to grow the flowers and grow them well, but they also have to try to anticipate what people are going to want in terms of styles and colors.

You know, dahlias.

Dahlias are big again.

You know, it's interesting.

Dahlias were grown in the 1800s as a major cut flower, and here they are back again.

And which colors of dahlias, which styles of dahlias, hydrangeas are a big deal.

Shade of red can change from year to year or something will show up in a magazine and then everybody wants that for their weddings.

So it's a fascinating industry that really takes a lot of skill and work to make it all happen.

Absolutely.

And have we seen a shift from just flowers to leaves and stems and things like that?

Also some of the woody plant materials?

Very much so.

You know, we say cut flower production, but it's cut flowers.

It's cut foliage.

In fact, some of the growers now focus quite a bit on just the foliage.

You know, there's the lacy textured foliage.

There's the fragrant foliages.

There's cut stems.

Woody ornamentals have been popular, continue to be popular.

You know, some of the red twig dogwoods with their beautiful colored stems.

Woody shrubs with berries.

You know, and then we buy them mostly fresh.

Dried flowers are coming back preserved.

So there's just a whole plethora of different ways that we can get those flowers and use them and enjoy them.

So you mentioned this is a global industry.

Can you talk a little bit about some of those leading countries and also the shift to maybe local production?

Sure.

You know, if you buy flowers in a grocery store, there's a good chance that many of those flowers were produced in Colombia or Ecuador.

The climate there is excellent.

And then with air transport and increasingly sea transport, those flowers can get from those countries here into the United States in quite short amount of time.

But the fact is that there's only certain flowers that handle that transport process very well.

There's a huge number of other flowers that we can grow and sell that are new and different.

Some of them don't handle that transport chain very well.

And others are just grown in such small quantities that these very large growers, it really doesn't fit into what they're doing.

And so about 10, 12 years ago, the interest in all things local just boomed.

And that translated into people wanting to buy local flowers.

And so we've just seen a big increase in the number of growers trying to meet the demand for local flowers as well as unusual flowers.

Different flowers.

Flowers with a story.

You know, it's just really been fun to see the big increase in interest in cut flowers.

And let's talk a little bit about the marketing of that local also with U-Pix.

There are so many different ways that flowers are marketed these days.

Many years ago, a grower had really just three, maybe four different options.

They could sell to a retailer, a florist.

They could sell to a wholesale florist or they sold at the farmer's market.

Now we see, we see farmer florists.

These are folks that grow their own flowers and design with them.

They do weddings, they do events.

We see folks like you mentioned doing some U-Pix.

We see folks selling through cooperatives and hubs.

You know, these are groups of growers that come together.

Each, each grower grows certain things really well, but by combining several growers together, they can offer a whole variety of product to their customers.

What's really been a lot of fun is on the farm sales.

You know, U-Pick being one of those, but we see a lot of folks doing events on the farm where folks can go out and see the flowers being grown.

They can then go in, they can use those flowers to make their own arrangements and then take them home.

And so it becomes much more than just buying flowers.

It becomes a whole afternoon, a whole evening, an event.

They do it with their friends, they do it with their families, they do it for special occasions.

It's just been a lot of fun.

The driving a lot of this, of course, is the internet.

The fact that growers can reach the customers directly and tell their story about their farms and about their flowers.

And that's so impactful when you can tell your story directly to your customers.

Let's talk a little bit about who are your colleagues within this and what are some of the future research that's coming?

We work a lot with the Association of Specialty Cutflower Growers.

It's a national organization for cutflower growers in the United States and Canada.

So I guess I should say international association because it does include many Canadian members as well.

With that group, I'm the executive advisor.

I've been working with that group for many, many years.

Just wonderful group.

And for those who are interested, it's not just for growers in the sense they also have a part of the website where you can go in, put your zip code and you can find local growers.

So if any of your audience members want to buy local, that can help you connect to local growers.

One of the things we've been doing for many, many years, over 30 years, has been new cutflower trials.

This is in cooperation with the Association of Specialty Cutflower Growers.

We get in new seeds and new varieties from the breeders.

And we have a network of growers around the United States and Canada that test them along with their regular production.

And then in the fall, send in results.

I tabulate all the results.

We pick the top winners.

It really helps growers find what's new.

Growers are busy.

It's sometimes hard for them to try a lot of new things.

So we sort of take that middle part out of them and tell them, here's the ones you really should look at.

We've been doing that for many years and it's really been helping out a lot.

Very good.

And I know you're involved with Seed Your Future.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about that and the potential for anybody going into this industry also?

Right.

Seed Your Future is an organization that was started about 11 or 12 years ago now.

And at the time, I was department head for horticultural science at North Carolina State University.

And we had more jobs than we had students graduating.

And it turns out that many of the other schools have the same situation as well.

So myself and others, including Doug Needham, who I understand has been on the show before, got together and really started to focus on how we can get more students interested in horticulture.

There are so many careers.

I mentioned earlier, you know, what all it takes to get a flower from the breeder to our homes and all the jobs that are involved in that.

So I hope any young folks out there, any folks interested in potentially horticulture as a career, they can check out the Seed Your Future website.

What's really fun is they have a whole lot of resources, scholarships, internships, but there is one section that kind of lists out all the various careers.

And just scrolling down there, you know, I wish I had this when I was a kid.

Things have worked out well.

But there's just so many different careers that people will find engaging.

Yes.

Well, thank you so much for sharing this information with us today.

I'd like to introduce you to a new adventure we have here at the Botanic Garden, the Evelyn de Bening Storybook Trail.

It is a series of sculptures all related to children's literature.

And so we try to do things here at the Botanic Garden that are attracted to families that will make coming to the Botanic Garden a more enjoyable experience for children and families.

And so the Storybook Trail is a great addition for that.

It was the idea of Annywin Shamus.

She wanted to honor her mother, Evelyn de Bening, and she came up with the idea of having a Storybook Trail.

And commissioned some sculptures to have here at the garden all related to children's literature.

When you come out to the garden, look for the entry to the Storybook Trail.

It is a stone gate with a beautifully engraved wood door, and it represents the secret garden.

Then, all the way south is a beautiful horse rearing up that represents Black Beauty.

Closer to the stream we have a little boy fishing representing the adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Near the Tree Walk Village we have a statue of a wizard and, if you can find it, up on top of the Tree Walk Village an owl, representing Harry Potter.

And then, here we have a collection of statues with Fern and Wilbur talking to Charlotte of Charlotte's Web.

In the very near future, we're going to add statues representing where the Red Fern grows.

It'll be a boy with two dogs.

And we'll also have another statue called Teata which represents an actress, a Native American actress from the 1930s.

We hope to form partnerships with the English Department, the Theater Department, maybe the Stillwater Public Library, and have them have programming here at the boanic garden relating to children's literature.

We really want to thank Anna Wynne for her generosity, for coming up with this idea of building the Storybook Trail at the Botanic Garden, and for having this idea to honor her late mother, Evelyn de Bening, who was a teacher here in Stillwater.

And so we're so happy to have this and look forward to generations of children learning about literature, learning about nature, and discovering things at the Botanic Garden at OSU.

And as always, if you have a question about today's show, feel free to stop by your local county OSU Extension office or leave us a comment on our social media.

There are many great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

We have a colorful show headed your way.

Right here.

Ready?

To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local Extension offices, be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

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Tune in to our OkGardening Classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our Studio Garden and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater Gym.

We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by the Tulsa Garden Club, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society and the Tulsa Herb Society.