Clare Florist Blog

Where does the leap year traditions come from?

Today is a rather peculiar day, it only comes around once every 4 years, was a day which had no legal status in old English law but was one of the very first steps towards equality between men and women. How so? Well in many countries a leap year signified the only time it was legally acceptable for a women to ask a man to marry her. The first documentation of such a practice dates from 1288, where in Scotland a law was passed in which made it legal for a woman to ask a man to marry her in that year, if the man refused however, he must pay a fine which could be anything from a kiss to a silk dress! Another possible origin of this tradition is from Ireland in which a women was allowed to propose as they believed it balanced the traditional roles of men and women. If the proposal was rejected the man had to buy the women 12 pairs of gloves so she could hide her hands from the shame of not wearing an engagement ring!

In many of today’s cultures it has become perfectly acceptable for a women to ask a man to marry her, around 10% of women are ready to break with tradition today and propose to their man. Even without the threat of a fine around a third of men actually admitted wanting their partner to ask to take the pressure of them having to do it. 

So if you’re planning to break from tradition and propose today good luck, and if he says no, demand that silk gown!!!

Spring Time Bulbs In February

With the burst of colour beginning to appear some those blooming spring time bulbs you may be feeling the urge to get back in the garden as the winter weather begins to fade away. The great news is that if you missed the boat on planting your bulbs in October/November you still have plenty of time to get them in the ground ready for the summer. Good spring bulbs to choose are snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and tulips and if you’ve never planted bulbs before its really easy if you follow some of these top tips.

 

1)      When choosing your bulbs make sure they a firm when you give them a little squeeze, if the bulb is soft, looks damaged or shrivelled up get rid of them, as there unlikely to grow.

2)      Your bulbs love sunlight so when picking the position look for when that gets sunlight all day long and is in soil with good drainage. Place them either randomly, in rows or together, it really doesn’t matter.

3)      Here come the two key tips to planting bulbs.

a.      The first key point is that the hole you place the bulb in needs to be around 2.5 times the
length of the bulb deep

b.      Secondly make sure you put the bulb in hole the correct way round. This is usually with the bulbs point facing up, but if your unsure place it on its side and it will sort its self out.

4)      Once planted and placed correctly, cover with soil, water and move on, simple as that!

Pancake Day - Lets make Yummy Flower Pancakes!

So since its pancake day we have searched the internet and all its knowledge and stumbled across these three great ways to make your pancake day a bit more interesting. Instead of sugar and lemon, nutella or the other joys you can throw onto pancakes why not try some flowers!.

A video of how to cook flower pancakes

 

A recipe for cooking Elderflower Pancakes from Pretty Candles via Mumsnet

Ingredients

4-6 elderflowers (elderberry blossom heads)
1 egg
85g plain flour
Lemon zest
Dash of vanilla essence
2 tsp sugar
2-3 tbsp milk or milk-substitute
2-3 tbsp wine (white or rosé)
Oil for frying

TopTips! - Elderflowers won't keep, so pick them just before you want to cook them. If you pick them earlier in the day, or the day before, say, then pick them with long stems and stand them in water until you are ready to use them. Keep the flowers themselves dry.

Method

- Beat egg, flour, zest, vanilla and sugar together with a little of the liquid ingredients to make a smooth paste, then beat in more of the liquids to make a thick, cream batter.

- Leave the bowl in the fridge until you are ready to cook the elderflowers. It needs to stand for half an hour, or more.

- When you are ready to cook the pancakes, shake the flowers to make sure there are no creepy crawlies in them, then dunk them one bunch at a time in the batter. 'Pump' them up and down a little to enclose the flowers in the batter, but don't swish them around the bowl. Allow excess batter to drip back down into the bowl.

- Heat up plenty of oil in the pan and gently lower the battered flowers into the pan. They should spread out again. While they are frying on one side, snip the stems off with kitchen scissors and discard.

- When the pancake is cooked golden brown on the bottom, gently flip over and cook the top.

- Serve hot, plain, or with sugar or sugar and lemon.

And finally a blog of how to make flower shaped pancakes

What to plant this February!

With milder temperatures on the way it seems a good idea to start thinking of getting back out in the garden and planting some flowers! Even though the weather can still get pretty damn cold and the odd wintry shower or frost its still a great time to get back in the garden as the weather is on the way up. For all of the plants below if the soil is soft enough to be workable planting outside will give you a great head start but if its still two hard you can begin growing these plants indoors and move them outside.

Perennials 

Weather it’s the seeds of chrysanthemums, delphinium or lupine or plants like blooming bare root shrubs or heuchera, perennials are great for you to plant once and enjoy their blooms many times over with all of the above can be hand sown or planted in February.

 

Annuals

Annuals are great; they are a small investment for a bright and colourful return in a short period of time.  These two can be sown directly outside if the ground is malleable so go pick up seeds for carnations, marigolds, larkspur, poppies and forget-me-nots

 

  Bulbs

It should be known that bulbs are slower growing than their seed counter parts so planting bulbs now will see them bloom in the summer or early autumn. A great selection of bulbs to plant now are canna, spider and white calla lilies, dahlia and gladiolus.

 

Facts about Valentines Day - The Good the Bad and the Ugly

If you hadn’t heard Valentines Day is fast approaching. With the power of the internet here are a bunch of surely accurate and 100% verified facts that people on the internet have posted. There are some that may surprise you some what other that may shock you but surely there all true since the internet never lies.

The Good

Teachers receive the most Valentines cards out of anyone

Over a billion valentines cards are sent worldwide making it the second biggest card sending period after Christmas

Worldwide over 50 million Roses are given each year for valentines.

The oldest known Valentines poem is dated from 3500BC and was written in a clay tablet.

The Bad

Around 60% of men don’t make plans for Valentines Day in advance

15% of women send flowers to themselves on Valentines

Women purchase 85% of all valentines

Men spend nearly twice as much on valentines than women

The Ugly

Around 3% of pet owners will buy gifts for their pets for valentines day

Valentines Day can be traced back to the Lupercalia festival in Ancient Rome where men would strip naked, grabbed whips and lashed the girls and women to increase their fertility.

The sale of at home pregnancy tests peak in March

About 40% of people have negative feelings towards Valentines Day

And to finish as one lovely cynic put it, even though your really really in love now, your still going to die, so very uplifiting.

Happy Valentines from the whole Clare Florist Team!

Weird and rare plants – Which would you give for valentines

So its just under a week till valentines, instead of seductive roses and pretty roses, which of these weird and rare plants would you rather give.

Baseball Plant

 

It may not look very affectionate but just think about it, if he does something wrong it’s the perfect object to throw.

Welwitschia Mirabilis

 

It looks like a giant mess but if this was in your back garden you would never forget your loved one.

Titan Arum

 

Show how much you love them with the worlds biggest flower, being up to 3ft wide and 12 feet high it’s the prefect gesture of displaying your love. (It should be said it does smell of rotting flesh but that shouldn’t matter)

Venus Fly Trap

 

Venus fly trap will definitely keep the flys, bugs and beasties away a very sensible gift when you think about it.

Beat the Frosts - Top Tips

With the cold weather having finally struck its time for all the fun and games that comes with being a gardener in the winter. Over the past few weeks we have looked at keeping plants alive this winter and how you can carry on your plant and flower passion by focusing on indoor gardening. Below is a few previous posts which look at Keeping flowers alive this winter, how to grow plants successfully indoors and where you should place your plants to stave off any chance of the winter blues.

Keeping Indoor Plants this Winter

With the first real frost rolling in this week and the start of those ever familiar sub zero temperatures its time to batten down the garden shed and put away those outdoor tools but that’s not a reason to give up on gardening. Here are some of our tips to keep your gardening hobby alive this winter with some of the best indoor plants to keep you active and brighten up your home………………………

Keep those flowers alive this winter

Having had our first frost this week of the winter what better tips to give than how you can keep your indoor and outdoor plants alive this winter. It’ll require a bit of work to keep your flowering friends alive but with some simple expert tips to help spring will come around and just as quickly as it went……………..

Where to place your flowers to maximise your happiness

We all are aware that have plants in the home helps lift our spirits, helps clean the air and all round just makes the home a happier and healthier place. Here are some tips for creating a flower empowered home to match your personal style and décor using findings from recent research from Harvard University.

Where to place your flowers for maximum happiness

• Place flowers in the entrance of your house………………………

Facts and Riddles - Its all about the seed

Interesting Facts about seeds

With us being close to the end of the week, our brains are tired, were looking forward to the weekend and in need of some mental stimulation. Here are some facts, figures; challenges and general fun to keep us all occupied for one more day and this week it’s all to do with seeds.

The seeds from an orchid are incredibly small. It takes roughly 1.3 million seeds to tip the scales above 1g.

A single ragweed plant can release up to as many as a billion grains of pollen

A single drift seed from the Marys bean plant, found in very specific parts of the south Mexico and Central America rainforests was once found in Norway, that’s 15,000 miles away!

One of the world’s deadliest toxins comes the seeds of the castor bean. Ricin is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisionous than rattlesnake venom. 0.000015g of ricin, that’s about the same as the weight of a seed head, is enough to kill a 160 pound person.

Seeds from certain berries are dispersed by mechanical dispersal, a forcible ejection of the seeds away from the plant. In Dwarf mistletoe there is enough hydrostatic pressure built up to fire the 3mm seeds up to 15m laterally with an initial speed of around 62 mph!

Riddle

On one side of the river, a farmer has a chicken, a fox, and a bag of seeds. He needs to get them to the other side of the river, but he can only take one at a time. The problem is, if he takes the fox and leaves the chicken with the seeds, the chicken will eat the seeds. If he takes the seeds and leave the animals alone, the fox will eat the chicken. So how does he get all three over intact?

(Highlight the text below to see the answer)

A:  First take over the chicken. Come back and take over the seeds, leave the seeds and take the chicken back. Now take the fox back to the seeds and finally go back across to bring the chicken!