Rosemont Floral - Portland, ME

We found an article with great advice for ordering your Valentine's flowers by Chris McLauglin of The Savvy Gardner on Examiner.com. She makes some great points!

1. First of all, never send your lady flowers at her house where she receives them alone. Not if you have the opportunity to send them to her work or any other place where her girlfriends and coworkers can see them delivered to her.
2. Is your Valentine also your wife? Then get down to the florist and bring her the same flowers she carried down the aisle on her wedding day. If you need to, find a picture of her bouquet and bring it with you to the florist. If you’re really romantic, you could have the entire bouquet re-created.
3. Here’s a huge point-scorer. When you send your lady flowers, send a second bouquet  - to her mother. Thank her mom for bringing your lady-love into this world. Don’t forget to send her mother’s flowers in front of people – she’s a girl, too.

To read the full article click here, special thanks to Chris for letting us share her advice with our customers!

To place order your visit our Valentine's flowers page.

Valentine's Day is fast appropaching and you can celebrate the day with beautiful, fresh flowers from Rosemont Floral for your sweetie and get your instant entry to win a 42-inch LCD HD TV! With your online purchase, you’re automatically entered into our limited nationwide contest featuring a grand prize of a 42-inch LCD HD TV.

Just picture it… your sweetheart is enjoying the beautiful Valentine's flowers you sent and you’re cozy watching your favorite shows together on your new grand prize TV. It’s a Valentine’s Day you’ll both remember.

So don’t delay, order flowers online now for your sweetheart now and get your instant entry today!

For complete Sweepstakes Rules, click here

*No purchase necessary to enter. Purchase does not increase the odds of winning.  Void where prohibited.  Odds of winning the grand prize will vary based on the number of valid entries received.  See the Official Rules & Regulations of the contest for further information.

As we start a new year, all of us at Rosemont Floral would like to wish you heath, happiness and prosperity this New Year's Day and all year long.

Fill your mind and spirit with positive energy, your heart with peace. Positive energy attracts positive energy. One of our all time favorite books is The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon, it is a great way to fuel your positive attitude in trying times.

From our family to yours, we wish you all the best in 2009!

This holiday season, Portland Buy Local is partnering with Goodwill Industries of Northern New England to help collect donations of clothing and other items to support their human services programs.

You can bring your clothing and other gently used items to Rosemont Floral and drop them in our donation box.

On the other side of town? You'll also find donation boxes at these other participating businesses: Aikido of Maine,  Casco Bay Frames, Clay City Redux, Corduroy Surf Boutique, David Muster's TV, Ferdinand, Longfellow Books, LT's, Inc, Planet Dog, Portmanteau, Tsunami Tattoo, and Videoport.

We've acquired a great selection of greeting cards and are bringing them to you at closeout prices, 3/$1.00!

Hundreds of cards to choose from including Anniversary, Wedding, New Baby, Baby Shower, Sympathy and Get Well. Wow, what a deal, come in and check them out!

While it is often said that poinsettias are toxic, research from The Ohio State University proves poinsettias are NOT toxic to humans or pets, all parts of the plant were tested in this research.

More information can be found on the Society of American Florists (SAF) website About Flowers. Click here to read the entire article. You really can enjoy poinsettias in your home without worry!

Read more about the history and legend of the poinsettia and check out these tips on caring for your lovely Christmas plant once you get it home!

Recently we won a webcam from our friends at Eufloria Flowers, growers of our very special ultra premium roses. While we're great users of technology at Rosemont Floral, a webcam wasn't anything we considered using at the flower shop. After setting up the webcam we started thinking of various ways to use this to benefit our customers.

We are now offering wedding consultations via webcam and Skype! What a great way to talk about your wedding flowers if you're too far away to come in!! Everything works just the same as if you were in the store. Additionally, using the chat feature in Skype links can be exchanged so we can view images or other online resources.

A big thank you to Eufloria for sparking this new idea!

Call us at 207-774-7673 today to setup your consultation, in person, by phone or our newest way, webcam and Skype!

After leaving LatinFlor we went on to the Dann Carlton hotel in Quito to meet with a group of people from Japan Floral Marketing Association.  JFMA is a collaboration of industry professionals from all segments, the mission of JFMA is to boost floral consumption in Japan and to make high quality floral products available to consumers at a reasonable price.

Nobuya Kaishita of Chrysal Japan was translator for those attending that were not bilingual. We use several Chrysal USA’s products in our store to care for cut flowers. Nobu organized the trip to Quito. JFMA members visited AgriFlor and several of the farms in Ecuador. After leaving Ecuador the group traveled to Colombia to visit farms there.  

The Japanese group was excited and enthusiastic about the Flowers For Kids program and asked all of us lots of questions. They are very interested in the program as it fits so well with their mission.

At the presentation I also met Hideaki Inoue, President of Aoyama Flower Market in Tokyo, a retail store. Flowers For Kids presented program to another group in Japan, JELFA. While there Ramiro showed me via web cam a petit bouquet from Aoyama. The dining bouquet is 8” tall and consists of five stems of flowers including a rose, hypericum, a sunflower and greens wrapped in thick brown paper and displayed in an old wooden crate.

I enjoyed meeting everyone from JFMA at the presentation and saw members several times throughout my time in Ecuador.

After my visit to Valleflor on Tuesday I also visited LatinFlor. We arrived at the start of lunch and just in time to see a football (soccer) game underway. LatinFlor has five football teams and has championship games. The LatinFlor staff was kind enough to invite me to lunch with them.

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LatinFlor's primary crop is gypsophilia, they also grow delphinium, veronica, agapanthus and other flowers and have a bouquet making operation. Gypsophilia is a field grown flower at LatinFlor and cut before it opens. It undergoes an opening process in a post harvest room over a period of 7 days. Gypsophilia left to open in the field risks pinking and botrytis from dew and rain, the post harvest room protects them from this. The gypsophilia is placed in cups in the post harvest process, this conserves water.

More about my LatinFlor visit and our Flowers For Kids presentation to a group of floral industry professions from Japan to follow soon!

Benito Jaramillo, an owner at Valleflor, kindly let me visit his farm on Tuesday. I was provided a private tour, my guides were Luis (Manager of Operations) shown on the left and Juan Pablo (Sales Executive) shown on the right. 

Valleflor grows many kinds of statices, limoniums, hybride delphinium, veronica and other flowers. I saw a new limonium, Michigan Blue, just incredible. Maine Blue is also one of their crops, side by side the Michigan Blue is much showier and has larger individual fleurettes. Valleflor employs well over 200 people.

The hedges shown on the sides of the greenhouse provide a windbreak for the crop inside and add beauty to the farm. Inside the hedges and in all areas of the farm bottled water and clean cups are provided for the workers.

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Valleflor has a medical office on site with a full time doctor and a dentist that sees workers every other Saturday. At all the farms in Ecuador breakfast and lunch are provided for the workers. Dinner is provided if there is overtime.

Valleflor has developed a computerized training program with another farm to provide new workers with a complete overview of the flower industry. Other farms are currently interested in licensing this training program for their workers.

         

         

Luis and Juan Pablo were fabulous hosts and very kind to take the time out of their busy day to show me around Valleflor. The pride in the product they produce is evident everytime they spoke of what they do at Valleflor.

Later in the day I visited LatinFlor, pictures and information to follow soon!

I arrived in Quito, Ecuador on Sunday evening and was greeted by Ramiro and Salome, the founder of Flowers For Kids and his lovely wife. 

Monday marked the first day of training for the Flowers For Kids program, I'm very excited to be able to return and work with kids in the classroom and to teach other retailers the FFK program. I met Alejandro and Sophia from Flowers For Kids as well.

Monday evening the Ramiro, Salome and I went to the launch party of Bloom, a fabulous book of pictures and stories of the Ecuadorian flower farms. I was introduced to Anamaria Chediak, photographer and author. Ramiro introduced me to Anamaria, LatinFlor, one of Ramiro's farms was part of the book. About 300 people were in attendance.

In the courtyard greeting us upon our arrival was this wonderful fountain below all decorated with white Oriental lilies and fabulous foliages, truly beautiful in its simplicity.

Bloom will be available for viewing in our store upon my return, we'd love to have you stop in to see where some pretty amazing flowers begin their journey to your home or office.

Tomorrow we're off to visit flower farms!

The most beautiful sunrises greeted me my first morning at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida.

I've met new friends, caught up with old friends and learned much about the new varieties from around the world at the SAF Outstanding Varieties competition for SAF and our friends at Eufloria Flowers received the Best In Class ribbon for their new spray rose Flash Night. Just beautiful! 

I've attended many seminars: Digital Deadbolt, Thinking on Your Feet, and a seminar on the blogosphere. Yes, another tech thing! Today I will attend two more seminars and then the President's Ball.

Tomorrow I'm off to Quito, Ecuador to begin my Flowers For Kids training, so excited!!

Society of American Florists fall meetings and convention kicks off this week at The Breakers in Palm Beach, FL. Erlene arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday evening in advance of the festivities to stay with friends for a day and a half.

We all went to Sawgrass Recreation Park in a protected part the Everglades near Alligator Alley for an airboat road hoping to see some of these amazing creatures. We were not disappointed! In addition to the three alligators, we saw fish, vultures and other birds and learned a lot about alligators and the delicate balance of the ecosystem in the Everglades from Captain Tim.

Our new found friend showed off for us for several minutes! Captain Tim estimated him to be about 13' long and about 30 years old.

What fun!

Flowers For Kids is a project designed to teach elementary school students and kids of all ages about flowers; where they come from, how to care for them and how to make a bouquet. Each child gets to bring whatever they make home to give to family or friends.

We're very pleased to announce that Erlene LeBorgne, proprietor of Rosemont Floral, will travel to Quito, Ecuador in September to become certified to teach the program to students. Additionally, Erlene will be certified as a Flowers For Kids trainer and will teach the FFK program to other retail florists in the United States.

While in Ecuador Erlene will also tour flower farms and attend two days of FlorEcuador-AgriFlor, an international trade show of Ecuadorian flower producers.

If you're interested or know of someone would like to have the Flowers For Kids course presented to a group of students in your school this fall, please call us at 774-7673.

Married on May 10th, Heather chose to use beautiful Talea+ roses and Viviane! spray roses from Eufloria Flowers for her bouquet accented with lily grass and ivy in a contemporary cascade bouquet. Her bridesmaids carried handtied bouquets of matching flowers.

These beautiful images were captured by favorite
photographer Jennifer Stone. 

A number of brides have chosen the more traditional cascade/teardrop style bouquet this year with a more tailored and stylized look. Congratulations Heather and Shane!