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Leslie Woodriff is a horticultural legend, famous as a man who bred "Star Gazer" lily. Woodriff was broke, his health failing, and his house seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The Dutch growers made so much money from ‘Star Gazer,’ and I could not believe that he had so little.

What Leslie Woodriff did to his lilies is no different from what a bee or a butterfly would do: he brushed pollen from the stamen of one flower onto the stigma of another. There was no microscope, no gene splicing, not even a sterile environment. Woodriff, and breeders like him, interfered with the sexual activities of plants for one reason: a passion for flowers. He worked tirelessly to create new breeds of lilies because he was wildly in love with the flower and emboldened to push it to its limits, attempting to cross species that everyone else had declared incompatible. He hoped to make a living by breeding and selling lilies, but he was never a businessman. Leslie Woodriff was simply unable to do anything besides breed flowers.

Leslie Woodriff was a man in search of beauty and poetry. George told me that he always carried the image of the perfect lily in his head. He dreamed of a black lily and a blue lily. He was in search of a lily that broke all the rules, one that crossed all the boundaries that had previously held the genus back. An agricultural inspector once told Woodriff that he should not bother with brightly colored lilies because when people thought of lilies, they would always think of the white Easter lily, which was a sign of purity. Woodriff told him that his lilies were for people who were less than pure."

"So are we being tricked when a scientist engineers a lily that doesn’t shed pollen or when a grower forces tulips to bloom in December? Does it matter that a dewy-fresh bouquet of roses traveled halfway around the world and lived without water for several days before it arrived at. Yes and no. There’s no doubt that flowers underwent a complete makeover in the twentieth century. New breeding techniques, advanced greenhouse technology, and global transportation systems saw to that. Thanks to those advances, there are some fantastic flowers on the market, all year long. 

Forty billion dollars changing hands each year, all in the name of flowers. The idea was intoxicating. Before long, it became clear to me that this global flower traffic was not without consequence. A hundred years ago, for example, almost all of the cut flowers sold in the United States were also grown here; now roughly three-fourths of our flowers are imports, mostly coming from Latin America. The flowers themselves have been forced to change in response. They are now bred more for their suitability as freight than for any of their more refined qualities —delicacy, grace, and fragrance. They may have lost their scent, but they’ve gained a longer vase life. They’ve lost their individuality but have "gained the ability to travel all the way from Ecuador or Holland to sit on your hall table in the middle of December. They are ephemeral, emotional, and impractical, but we Americans buy about four billion of them a year. We buy more flowers than we do Big Macs. Flowers are big business. It just happens to be a gorgeous, bewitching, bewildering business."

From Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart

It’s always then there's the special joy of receiving flowers. Red rose from the local Manhattan florist or a “Happy Birthday” flowers delivered with courier from your far friend. Flowers always mean so much.

Small bouquet of flowers can make your day brighter even when it’s rainy behind the window. Unfortunately we are all known fresh flowers will not stick around forever.

Bacteria are a mortal enemy of cut flowers. It pile up at the cut end and occludes the uptake of water into the flower. As the stream of water slows, the flower become to dry and die.

Here some tips from "Alaric Flower Design" to help cut flowers last longer:

• Wash your vase in hot soapy water to remove any dirt and bacteria
• Cut the stems of store-bought or delivered flowers immediately with sharp knife at a slant of 45º angle, 1 to 2 inches off will be enough and most important to cut stems under water to avoid getting air bubbles trapped in the stem
• Put the fresh flowers into clean vase and fill it with cold water.
• Add the lemon juice to the water it should be less than a tenth of your water volume. Lemon will prevent bacteria formation.
• Now we need to feed the Flowers. Adding a sugar into the vase will do it. One teaspoon will be enough.
• Change vase water often. Best choice to change it every day. As longer you don’t do it as more bacteria will be in water.
• Keep cut the stems regularly, every time when you change water.

Using these tips you can order flowers online and keep it fresh longer. Enjoy in your Manhattan apartment a beauty of Mother Nature gifts.

Visit “Alaric flowers design” online store and make order for the beauty of your apartment or send floral gift with magic words in it. Also you can visit our floral design studio in the heart of Manhattan – Midtown area 42 West 56th Street New York, NY 10019

Have any question? Reach us by the phone: +1 212 308 37 94