California State Floral Association 

outdid itself in the Calif Flora 2009 annual convention and Top Ten design competition. Not only did the organizers combine the weekend events into a more concise, fast-moving schedule (with some great seminars, I might add, and both student and Top Ten contests taking place on Sunday, October 25), they introduced a new “Dualing Designers” contest that was wildly entertaining.

Winners of the Top Ten Floral Design Contest for the Year were: First Place - Roslyn Dodds, Jasmine Creek Florist in El Cajon; Second Place - Gerry Gregg AIFD of The Flower Market in Chico; Third Place - Sandy Villa AIFD of Mission Hills Florist in San Diego; People’s Choice - Felipe Sandoval of Kaleidoscope Flowers in Santa Barbara.

Student competition audience

The Top Ten finalists (out of a field of more than 30) were: Toni Tibbets of Capri Floral & Events in Bellevue, Washington; Ania Norwood of Ania Norwood Design in Newport Coast; Cathy Beaver of The Flower Shop in Forest Lawn-Covina; Samuel Van Wert AIFD of Companie’s Flowers in Los Angeles; Felipe Sandoval of Kaleidoscope Flowers in Santa Barbara; Jamie Chae CFD of Dolce Floral Design in El Dorado Hills; and Karen Castellano of The Flower Shop in Forest Lawn-Cypress.

Winners of the Student design competition on Sun., October 25 were: First Place - Carolyn Murillo, Mission College in Santa Clara; Second Place - Ivana Royse, Golden West College in Huntington Beach; Third Place - Nixon Tran, City College of San Francisco. Ivana Royse also won the People’s Choice Award.

This was one of the more “fun” CSFA “Calif Flora” weekends. I can hardly wait for 2010!

Polder flower ranch crew at the home of Walter Polder, Mines Street in Montebello; circa 1914.

Great slideshow today at Montebello Public Library, sharing some of the photos of the area and from the book Sending Flowers to America. Highlighted some of the folks from Montebello who were so instrumental in establishing the Los Angeles Flower Market and Southern California as a source for cut flowers nationwide. People like H.N. Gage (grower), Roy F. Wilcox (nurseryman), Gebhard Prechtl (grower), C.J. Groen (grower), John and Walter Polder of the Polder Ranch*, Frank Kuwahara, the Goto family of florists and many more.

Several of these people (Gage, Wilcox, Prechtl, Groen) helped establish the Los Angeles Flower Market.

*Much to everyone’s delight, John Polder’s son Bill showed up at this presentation. We enjoyed his comments and reminiscences from his childhood growing up in Montebello and working in his father’s and uncles flower fields there.

A delightful afternoon.

Michael Daniels' window garden with mannequin

Do drop by http://flickr.com/photos/pegridgway to see the photos taken at the Virginia Robinson home and gardens in Beverly Hills during the Friends of Robinson Gardens’ annual garden tour. The rooms and surrounding areas were decorated so beautifully by floral designers including Michael Daniels of Silver Birches, Marc Byrd, Lucas Design Group, etc. Check out the photos.

The Sending Flowers to America slideshow and talk is going over BIG with local libraries and historical societies. We are so pleased that 11 groups have enjoyed it and raved about it, and 6 more are coming up.

Oh, and Peggi Ridgway will guest on “Home Wizards” AM 870 radio with host Cindy Dole this Saturday morning - from 8 to 9 a.m. Be sure to tune in and enjoy. We’ll be giving a book away to a lucky caller!

It was a great day with floral designers and decorators as Jan Works and Peggi Ridgway did a book-signing at the Virginia Robinson Gardens in Beverly Hills on Fri., May 15, 2009. The Sending Flowers to America was the featured book for the event and a portion of the proceeds helped the Friends of Robinson Gardens, which maintains the estate.  What a beautiful place - Virginia Robinson’s estate was the first estate to be built in Beverly Hills, around 100 years ago.

Designs are posted on Peggi’s FACEBOOk page.

Check out the very positive reviews we’ve added to our newst category, Book News. We’re very pleased our book is so enjoyable and that its contribution is such an important one in terms of Los Angeles area history, cultural histories, and as one reviewer so aptly states, the evolution of an industry.

The newsmagazine of the Los Angeles Flower Market, The Bloomin’ News, now offers a blog at http://socalflower.blogspot.com for “all things floral.” It’s a litte melting pot for a large variety of events, news, comments from friends in the floral industry, etc. Check it out!

The Bloomin’ News is a bi-monthly newsmagazine with free subscriptions for folks in the floral industry in California. For more details, see http://bloominnews.com

Small part of Palm Forest

The Friends of Robinson Gardens made it possible for Peggi Ridgway to give her slideshow, Sending Flowers to America, to their group of members and guests on Thursday, April 16

 The perfectly beautiful day and the wonderful gardens (including the spectacular palm forest with its forest floor covered with amaryllis in full bloom, made this an extraordinary day. The slideshow (based on the book Sending Flowers to America) with its history of the Los Angeles area interspersed with stories of the area’s early flower farmers, local florists and floral events (including the Tournament of Roses) put the finishing touches on an exquisite experience. Our thanks to the Friends of Robinson Gardens for the opportunity to share these highlights and experience their beautiful surroundings. The Gardens are open to the public. Visit http://robinsongardens.org or call 310 276-3302 for details.

Note: Virginia Robinson founded the Robinsons department stores in the Los Angeles area. Her estate was the first to be built in Beverly Hills, around 100 years ago.

Flower Fields, Carlsbad, CA

The Flower Fields (R) at Carlsbad (Palomar Road exit from I-5) are in full bloom right now until early May, attracting some 250,000 visitors in this short spring season. But this prolific growing area, that once shipped its flowers through the Los Angeles Flower Market daily, has not always been a tourist destination.

Ed Frazee recalled seeing ranunculus blooms for the first time as a child in 1922 when his uncle Earl nurtured them along with the English peas he tended for horticulturist Luther Gage on Gage’s Carlsbad farm. A few years later, the Frazees moved to Oceanside. In the moist evening air from the ocean and warm, sunlit days, Uncle Earl grew beautiful freesia bulbs on leased land. In 1932, he added his beloved ranunculus (see picture below). Uncle Earl’s flower business was blooming, so nephew Ed, at age 16, quit school to help.

Edwin Frazee became a great flower breeder. By the 1950s he had bred a superior ranunculus bulb with profuse petals known as doubles and expanded to the coastal slope at Carlsbad overlooking the ocean. By 1975, Ed retired and his sons John and Jim took over, moving north to Palomar Road to a former poinsettia field owned by the Paul Ecke family.

In the early 1990s, finding the operation less than cost effective, Jim asked Paul Ecke Jr to terminate his lease. But Paul Ecke Jr saw great potential and through the family’s Carltas Company and a loan from the California Coastal Conservancy kept the fields running until a joint venture with Mellano & Company, a long-time Southern California flower grower, took over the fields.

But the fields really needed the expert hand of Edwin Frazee, who had developed the exquisite ranuncula. Ed emerged from retirement to help beef up the operation, now branded as The Flower Fields. Today’s Flower Fields grow ranunculus as far as the eye can see, as well as gladiolus, watsonia, sparaxis (Wandflower), Oxalis (Blooming Shamrock), babiana and tritonia, which are supplied to nurseries everywhere. Most of all, the flowers represent the love that Ed Frazee has for the flowers he grew up with.

We should note that The Flower Fields is a wonderful example of a public - private partnership in action, one which has become a successful regional tourist attraction.

But it’s only open March 15 - May 15, so hurry on down the I-5 to Palomar Airport Road exit. Weekends are best, with activities for the kids, art and crafts fairs and wagon rides through the flowers. Remember to take your camera. See http://theflowerfields.com for more details.

Excerpted from The Bloomin’ News, March 2003 - http://bloominnews.com

A somewhat “miscellaneous” category, Roundabout is our way of having an online coffee clatch. We’ll tell you who we ran into last week at the Flower Market (or in the grocery story) or who called with flower news…

Hey, that reminds me of last week’s call from the Costa Mesa lady who wanted to order a copy of Sending Flowers to America - for her neighbor, Bill Polder, whose family operated the Polder Ranch in Montebello, CA nearly 100 years ago. And the flowers there were gorgeous! We’ve got pictures in the book, of course (Sending Flowers to America - see http://flowermarkethistory.com ).