April’s Top Tips
It’s Easter time, so it’s always nice to get a spring bunch, bowl of bulbs or a mixture of bulbs in a pretty
container. These are great value at the moment, so give up that Easter egg idea or the cuddly Easter
bunny and think flowers and plants instead!
There are so many different types of tulips available now, for example:
 ‘double’ flowering - like a jumbo tulip with lots of layers;
 ‘lily’ flowering - very elegant with a head that looks like a posh wine glass (without a stem);
 ‘parrot’ tulips – they’re great. They look like Waggles, the furry friend of Heather from Tinto
Kennels [insert link]. (Waggles was originally from the Amazon, about 40 years ago, and Heather
found him and rescued him from a tiny cage in a pet shop. Waggles likes classical music - it
reminds him of the jungle). They come in two or three colours and open out into these same
shades but with even more shades of these shades – if you get my meaning.
 ‘frilly’ tulips’ – have a serrated edge
 ‘single’ tulips – have a smaller head. They come in amazing colours nowadays and the leaves can
be two-tone or edged white.
All varieties of tulip like to do their own thing. They grow and follow the light; they bend and follow
the light; and then sometimes, when you’re not looking, they straighten up again!
TOP TIP
Keep these guys cool and out of the sun. No flower food – keep those sachets in the drawer for once
and cut the stems STRAIGHT, not at an angle! Add a touch of nice greenery like soft, fine-leaved
Eucalyptus Parvifolia or some twigs. These are only our recommendations. We’re using bilberry
foliage at the moment. Customers aren’t sure about it at first: ‘Looks like sticks!’ one of our more
chatty gents said but, once seen, everyone’s back for this. The foliage also helps support the tulips in
the vase.
TOP TIP
You need a clean vase, fresh clean water, foliage in first, then ‘thread’ your tulips in and around the
greenery.
There’s some great greenery available nowadays. Some of it’s not cheap but it’s lovely. The stuff we
have is sourced from Italy, Australia and America. We do use stuff from the UK too but, to be honest,
most of what we use is from faraway places. Again, you have to be careful with what you buy so that it
remains fresh after its long journey.
TOP TIP
Treat your foliage the way you treat all your cut flowers (except tulips, which should be cut straight).
On arrival at their destination, cut half an inch (1-2 cms) at a sharp angle off all stems. Put into clean
fresh water with the appropriate amount of food – too much food leads to flowers and foliage opening
up too quickly. I can feel a rant coming on about using flower food but I’ll hold back for fear of boring
you, as I’ve ranted on about this before.
TOP TIP
Pots of bulbs – after the flowers have died, let the whole thing die down. Don’t chop it up or trim it –
paws off!! Leave well alone and when it’s all dried, clean up, store bulbs in a cool dry place and
replant in autumn for a show in spring.
In next month’s Top Tips section, I will be talking about summer flowers and plants, what’s available
and our top tips on using bedding plants to make baskets and tubs. Please not these are just a few of
our ideas – it’s a bit like giving advice on driving: everyone has their own idea on how to do this,
especially out here – but I have to say we do a nice hanging basket or tub! And yes, yes, I hate
gardening and don’t do it at home! Whew – see you in May!
RANTS
We’re really pleased at the response we’ve had to this section of the website. Your comments are
much appreciated. Thanks for all the positive remarks. I expected to scrub the rants section once I’d
got things off my chest but no, I’m back, by popular demand!
In April’s Rants, I’m talking about vases: an easy topic you might say but as usual we have stories to
tell and, as you will expect from reading previous Rants, I hope you will laugh at them as they are all
true to life.
Opening up on this, let’s talk about our shop vases. Everyone loves them and comments on them.
We’ve been collecting vases, and breaking them, ever since we opened. After working in three or four
flower shops with only buckets, I vowed if ever I had a shop I would display the flowers in vases.
Okay, okay, we have buckets too, and, no, I don’t do vases at home – I stick cooking utensils in them,
not flowers! Most of our flowers have long, long stems, so the vases are big and, wow, it makes the
flowers look great and lets them breathe and open up as they should.
Always keep the vase clean (and please tell us if we have slipped up in our own cleaning) so if it’s the
right size, stick it in the dishwasher cool cycle and, bingo, one clean vase. Treat vases like your wine
glass or coffee mug – sparkling please, so that no infection is mixing with the water and food to curtail
the life of your flowers. Clean your vases with glass cleaner and a glass cleaning cloth which is clean
and kept for that purpose (and not used to clean yesterday’s tasty snack of filled roll and beans!
The best glass cleaner I’ve found is Lidl’s, and glass cleaning clothes come in wee packs of three. I
wonder what you could do with the other two – perhaps to clean up after your tasty treat mentioned
above … I’m sorry, but let’s be honest – and I am – I can name really only two friends and customers
who return my vases as they’ve got them: sparkling! The rest of you (I still like you) get those cloths
out!
I’ve seen the lot. You bring someone a nice bunch and, yes, wait for it, they open the cupboard and
produce the vase and it’s ‘minging’ (translation: not clean). It’s also too small for the bunch. Do not
cram flowers into a stupid wee tight-necked vase. The agony! The pain! Flowers need to breathe like
us.
If you like flowers, buy yourself a nice open-necked vase with a bit of height and, if you like lilies, a
tall vase with an open neck to support these long stems as they open up. If you’re buying a glass vase,
buy a good quality one if you can. Honestly, it works out cheaper as they sit well, don’t wobble and
don’t break as easily as cheap ones. These cheap ones … the glass is so thin. I use them too, and they
break. I’m always in a hurry, grab the ‘cheapies’ at the side to clean and polish then, bingo, a big
chunk of glass breaks at the side of the vase and that’s it. Luckily, no cut hands yet …
Most of our vases have been found in TKMAXX. This is not an advert for the company, but if you pop
in to any store they seem to have a great range left over from all the posh shops. But always check the
balance – if they wobble, don’t buy as they’ll wobble off your table. Also visit their ‘reduced’ area.
There lie treasures of large vases people don’t know what to do with. Aha, we know! So it’s back to
the shop …
Finally, a special story called ‘My Dream Vase Cupboard’. This actually happened right here in one of
the villages surrounding Biggar. I was doing some house flowers for a wedding at an old country
house and the lady owner showed me into the large kitchen to prepare them. She said, ‘Just help
yourself to anything you want to use in the vase cupboard.’ I thought it would be a cupboard with
vases and lots of other things in it (like mops!) but, no, it had four doors, two at the top and two at the
bottom and it stretched from ceiling to floor. It was fully lined with wooden shelves and as my eyes
went up and down, up and down, they took in a lifetime collection of vases from all eras: from modern,
to not so modern, to years and years ago. I could have spent all morning there, putting flowers in
different vases. Anyway, I did what I had to do and shut the cupboard doors. I often wonder, though,
what became of the vases in that cupboard …
In May’s Rants, I will be chatting to you about how the plants arrive at the shop and the good old days
of going to the market to buy and collect. Happy Easter! See you soon.