If you thought the $65 price for SENDING FLOWERS TO AMERICA book was too high, you were not alone. So I am extremely happy that the directors of the Los Angeles Flower Market have lowered the retail price to $50 - INCLUDING tax for those in California.

It’s a pricey book no matter how you see it. The production costs were enormous, as you can imagine, for an almost 300-page, full color book with a year of research going back 150 years. But the book is a gem with dozens of human interest stories about the settling of the Los Angeles area, how early farmers began growing the flowers that came to be shipped to customers across the U.S. and more than 350 photos dating from 1885 to 2008, many of them full page florals and many historic images.

Does it sound like I’m crazy about this book? I’m not alone .. it’s gotten rave reviews and it was announced just yesterday that Sending Flowers to American is a NATIONAL FINALIST in the 2009 Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Yeah!

Anyway, if you haven’t bought your copy yet, if you love history, if you’re a SoCal resident, and/or if you like flowers, just do it now. See Amazon.com or visit www.flowermarkethistory.com .

And tell us what you think of it! Email peg@flowermarkethistory.com or send a note through the website.

Thanks!

Phil Rulloda, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, will be one of two featured floral designers presenting this show for the American Institute of Floral Designers’ Southwest Region, on Sunday, June 14, 2009, at the Mayesh Wholesale Flowers facility in Santa Ana, California.

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.

This celebration of the floral industry in Southern California is beautifully put together, with hundreds of photos of both people and flowers … While clearly an uncritical look at the industry, this book preserves a time and micro-culture that would have otherwise been forgotten. - Reference & Research Book News, Spring 2009

While at first glance this would seem a specialty acquisition narrowed to California and horticultural collections alone, in reality Sending Flowers to America is about much more than documenting the los Angeles Flower Market. it surveys the entire structure and fostering of the American floral industry as a whole, using a focus on Southern California’s evolution as a microcosm of experience. This focus offers over 60 stories based on interviews with descendants of the European immigrant families who formed the early Los Angeles Flower Market, and comes packed with over 350 photos. A gorgeous cultural history, highly recommended especially for California collections as a ‘must’ examination of the evolution of an industry. - California Bookwatch and The Midwest Book Review, March 2009

I have had many happy hours reading and just looking at the Sending Flowers to America. It is a beautiful book. So much real history welded into the romance that was made in flowers. - Norma Yocum founded the Alhambra, California historical society and authored histories about the area.

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

We received a letter on April 21, 2009 from historican/author Norma Yocum, who offered compliments on the handling in the Sending Flowers to America book of the relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II. Yocum, who has herself written about Los Angeles area early history, shared the story of her family’s much loved gardener, George Koba.

While Koba’s sisters and mother were in relocation camps, his wife was hospitalized with tuberculosis, leaving him to care for an infant daughter alone and somehow manage his gardening business at the same time. He and a few other Japanese in the San Gabriel Valley benefited from a delay in the evacuation order that would otherwise have sent them to a camp. Seeing his dilemma, Yocum volunteered to care for the child. The family agreed, and Yocum raised the child for the next several years as George Koba continued to work and until his family returned to their home. During those years, Norma Yocum exchanged many letters with the family during their stay in their camp.  “It is a long sad story” that Yocum included in the book she published called The Life and Times of Norma Yocum. She’s still in touch with that “child,” who today is a widowed grandmother.

This is one of countless stories of Americans working together with their Japanese employees and business colleagues and counterparts to help preserve their properties and businesses. A number of these heart-warming, poignant stories are shared in Sending Flowers to America. They are a gentle reminder of the joys and benefits of working together across cultural lines.

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.

We were overjoyed to see a fantastic review today of Sending Flowers to America, published late 2008 by the Los Angeles Flower Market. Excerpts from the review, which appeared in California Bookwatch magazine and online at Amazon and somewhere in the enormous book review annals at www.midwestbookreview.com follow:

“…surveys the entire structure and fostering of the American floral industry as a whole, using a focus on Southern California’s evolution as a microcosm of experience … over 60 stories based on interviews with descendants of the European immigrant families who formed the early Los Angeles Flower Market … packed with over 350 photos. A gorgeous cultural history, highly recommended especially for California collections as a ‘must’ examination of the evolution of an industry.“