Episode 36 - Companion to Episode #210 - Everything's Coming up Roses!

Today on Behind the Bloom Podcast- Everything is Truly Coming up Roses… with our Companion Podcast to Life in Bloom Episode 210. Today RJ and I will discuss all the goings on-from this Episode all about Roses… Including a Visit to the World’s Largest Garden Rose Farm in Bogota Colombia… We’ll talk about creating rose arrangements for everyday- Visit the Tournament of Roses Parade, Create a Rose Inspired Cocktail with my Friend Kristen and even plant a Julia Child Rose in the front yard! Everything is coming up roses- on Behind the Bloom today!

Episode #210 - Everything’s Coming Up Roses - J Schwanke’s Life in Bloom
https://watch.ubloom.com/life-in-bloo...

A Visit to Eufloria Flowers - CA Grown Experience
https://watch.ubloom.com/videos/the-c...

A Visit to Alexandra Farms- The Flowers of Columbia Series
https://watch.ubloom.com/videos/the-f...

Learn more about Alexandra Farms
https://www.alexandrafarms.com/

Buy Garden Roses for yoursel
https://gardenrosesdirect.com/

Everyday Garden Roses- How to Video
https://watch.ubloom.com/videos/every...

Bind Wire- Available from Oasis Floral Products

Learn More About Flowers and Access all LIFE IN BLOOM Episodes At J’s Website www.uBloom.com  

Full Access to over 1800 How to Arrange Flower Videos - $7.99 a month uBloom.com/Join 

View any Life in Bloom Episode uBloom.com/LifeinBloom 

Watch Life in Bloom on PBS.org or PBS Passport or CreateTV.com 

Subscribe to J’s Blog uBloom.com/blog 

Purchase J’s Award Winning Books, Flower Care Cards and Music CD uBloom.com/store  

J’s Favorite Flower Food Products ChrysalFlowerFood.com Chrysal Professional 3, CVBn Tablets, Chrysal Glory, Leaf Shine, Orchid Food and More

J and Life in Bloom On Social
Instagram.com/j_schwankes_life_in_bloom
Facebook.com/jschwankeflowers

Youtube.com/jmhschwanke 

Linkedin.com/in/jschwanke...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Today on Behind the Bloom Podcast, everything is truly coming up roses with our companion podcast to Life in Bloom Episode 210. Today, RJ and I will discuss all the goings-on from this episode that's all about roses, including a visit to the world's largest garden rose farm in Bogota, Columbia. We'll talk about creating rose arrangements for every day, visit the Tournament of Roses parade, create a rose-inspired cocktail with my friend Kristen, and even plant a Julia Child rose in our front yard. Everything is coming up roses on Behind the Bloom today. Roses are the national flower of the USA and one of the most popular flowers to give and receive. Different colored roses have different meanings. There are so many to choose from. And what better place to check out the options for roses than with your local flower seller? Plan a visit today to see what they have available for you. Cowflowers is a proud sponsor of Life in Bloom and Behind the Bloom Podcast, where flowers and wellness go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Hey Jay, how's it going? I'm good. How about you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited to talk roses.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

This is a great episode. Yes, it really is a great episode. I mean, I love it. I mean, that's that's what's incredible about it. Yeah, yeah. Not only going to South America, this is the first time that we go to South America on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, I'm so I have so many questions about that because that was so cool. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

But then we also go to the rose parade. Yeah. I mean, holy smokes. So it made me think when it comes around rose parade time again, we should do. And this summer, I am taking a tour of Fiesta uh floats in Pasadena. Oh and and like way before the rose parade, they get started. So they're already building floats for next year. That far out. Yeah, so we'll so I'll know more about that inside story when I get back. So I'm headed there in August. So yeah, we'll be but that'll be a good thing to talk about as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Before we get started, I just I really loved the quote at the beginning the you can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. I just loved that.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

It's really true. And you know, there is a huge drive in the flower industry for someone to develop a rose. That is a big rose has big petal count, has a fragrance, has great color, and has no thorns. Okay. And it's really difficult because fragrance and thorns go together. Oh. If a rose doesn't have thorns and they can breed them to not have thorns, they won't have a fragrance. And so so many people who say to us, you know, hey, my roses don't have my roses don't have a fragrance. And it's like, yeah, because they were bred to have a bigger head and to hold their petals and then be quick and easy to design with and not hurt anyone. Oh, okay. Then you lose the fragrance. And so I have had roses on the show that are so fragrant and they have thorns on their thorns. Oh wow. Like there's a big thorn and it will have little thorns on it as well. Oh. And I'm just like, oh man, yeah, this is crazy. Yeah. It's a functional piece for us because a roses with thorns, you have to strip them off. And and so, so here's a great Bloom 365 tip. People always wonder what's the best way to do that to get off those thorns. My favorite is to take a terry cloth towel or a newspaper and wad it up in my hand and then run it down the stem. And it will knock off just the end of the thorns rather than taking a knife and trying to cut them off. Oh, okay. What's interesting about this too, another great thing too is some people will use toenail clippers just to clip off the ends. Okay. And not because if you take too much of that rose thorn off, you bark the stem and you create a hole for it to draw air through.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Oh, okay. So you don't want to take too much off.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So that terry cloth towel, and it it makes it shreds that terry cloth towel. So that's that that becomes your rose towel. But it knocks off all those pieces that would tear up other leaves and foliage and flowers as you're sticking it into an arrangement, too. Okay. So that's a very important part of it. Thorns and roses go together. This is a perfect example of is your glass half empty or half.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I know. That's exactly what I thought. Yeah, yeah. Half empty or half the other. This is a better version. I like this analogy even better. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah. We had a puppy once um who caught their ear on a rose thorn and got stuck.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

You know, and we had to get it, get his little ear off of the get her ear a little ear off of the rose thorn too. But I mean, you know, it it's part of that. It's part of its defense mechanism, and it's an important part of that. People want everything can be I mean, you know, it's kind of like when you have uh an orange that doesn't taste like an orange anymore, or an apple that doesn't taste like an apple anymore, because we've hybridized it too much. And the thorns and the also the longevity. Oh the more fragrant a rose, the less it will last.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Really?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah. And that because that's what activates that fragrance is botrytis, and that's what makes the rose bloom out, and then uh causes the rose to create the rose hip. So, you know, it's all those things, right? That all go together. Yeah, yeah. Just let the roses be roses. Right. I like a rose that smells personally. I mean the ones we plant in the yard, we always check and make sure that those are gonna be fragrant, you know? Yeah, yeah. Because uh, you know, it's but but sometimes there's beautiful colors that don't have any fragrance at all. Oh there's a there's a rose called turtle that we're thinking about concepting a show about turtles. Oh, cool. Yeah, uh, because we have turtles in the backyard and stuff. And so then, but there's a rose called turtle and it's beautiful and it's yellow, but it has no fragrance. Oh, okay. And because it's been bred to be this unique yellow green coloration and look like a garden rose and everything, but it doesn't have a fragrance. Oh so Alexandra Farms.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yeah, so tell me about that, Jay. So it looked beautiful there. So I wanted to know how to do it. It is. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

It's outside of Bogota. Okay. Bogota is very crowded, very populous. We took our bus ride there. It took us like two hours to get there. Okay. And when we left and came home, it only took us like 20 minutes. So I mean, it when when there's traffic, it's like California. Okay. Bogota's like Bogota and Columbia are like California. It's there. Joey started that, and Joey has been around the industry forever. I've known Joey Azut for probably 10, 15, 20 years, maybe long, maybe longer, not really sure. I think I knew Joey, his Alexander Farms is named after his daughter, Alexandra. Oh, okay. So and he that's when he started, and I think Alexander's grown and she may be married, who knows? I don't know. But yeah, okay. It is extremely functional. And I think one of the things that he brought up in this discussion when we went there is that he has a rose farm that is filled with rose-loving people. Yeah. When we went to Euphloria Flowers the first time, that was the first farm that Kelly and I ever went to and visited. When we were watching the people pick the roses, they would pick them and lay them in their arm like a baby. They would cut them on a graduation so that the heads weren't laying against the heads, that the head would lay below the next one, below the next one, below the next one. So you'd have different lengths of stems in the in the collection, and there would be a cascading look to that collection. That these massive men who are very strong and very viral were just carrying these like little babies. And it's the same thing with Joey, except that Joey has some very interesting mechanics. They used to actually use, they would cut all the roses and put them in these satchels and then fold the satchels shut and then hang two satchels over a burrow and have a burrow take it to the next place. Oh, cool. Now they have that as a mechanical thing. And so still those rolled up pieces and they go on this thing on these hooks, and then these hooks are travel all through the farm. So wherever they cut, then then they can take them and then send them on to where they will be.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Wait, so are they on like a like a line then? Or how are they traveling?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah, it's almost like like a little like a little like a monorail thing. Almost kind of, right? Yeah. They're moved by inertia, not by, I mean, somebody just has to grab it and pull it along. I gotcha. But they can hook them together and then they can pull a whole string of them. Oh, that's cool. And take them there. So that is, and you kind of see that a little bit in this one. In his cases, they run down the center of the greenhouses too. Cool. Some places they're just on the outside. And Joey has an event every year, and this is at the Pro Flora, or excuse me, the Pro Flora land is every two years. So at the ProFlora event, then he takes brings people there. He has an incredible lunch or breakfast for people. It is like going to, you know, the four seasons. It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's all created by his people who work there, who are amazing chefs and cooks who cook all this authentic food for everybody. And then you have tours of the property, and then you go, and that's the party you want to be invited to. That is the party in Bogota you want to be invited to. Cool. It's amazing. And then they have all the samples set out of all the different roses that they have and what they look like open. Oh, cool. That's a big deal too, because we see the roses tight. We want to ship them tight. He cuts them tight so that they will get to you and then you open them up. And he was the predecessor for our flower industry of saying, you need to get your garden roses for weddings 10 days to two weeks before the wedding. Oh, okay. Give them the proper flower food, Chrysal Flower Food, obviously. Then they will progress and open and be those voluptuous roses that you see in the David Austen catalogs and stuff like that. So he has he grows David Austin roses, which are all in one part of the farm. And those are all trademark David Austin. He has to pay a royalty on every single bud that a plant shoots. Wow. And so like when they disbud one, he's already paid royalty on that bud anyway, in case that would have made a rose. Whoa. Then he also has his own line of garden roses as well that he has hybridized and created that do not hold the David Austin variety, but are other ones that he wants to have. And then he also does some Japanese roses now, too. So there's some Japanese ones that he has, and there's spray roses that he has, and it's it is phenomenal. Oh wow. Joey is he's a funny guy. He's from Bogota, he speaks perfect English, and he is completely fluent in Spanish. He's probably fluent in several languages, as far as I would know. I don't know. Yeah. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

He was a character. He was so much like you looked like you guys had a lot of fun. He was so interesting to just listen to him tell stories and speak. So it made for an awesome interview.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

And it's interesting that you it's like 50,000 for 50 varieties of roses and 300,000 stamps per week. This was 10 years ago. It's much bigger now. Whoa. I don't even know what it is. You know, I mean, it's just incredible. And he still is the biggest garden rose farm in the world. In the world. Wow. I mean, and that is that is the one that everyone competes with. Everybody want competes with Joey. It is important to him that the people handle it. And everything is branded. Every single bunch of the David Austin roses has to have a little tag in it that is attached to one of the roses that designates what that flower is and its name and all of those things. So I mean, it's a very, very important branding operation for him too. But at the same time, then he's innovative with all of these types of things. And he showed the little bags.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So what happens is when a rose grows, it secretes all these sugars. Okay. Okay. And it's giving off sugars on that bud as that bud starts to open. Well, those sugars are yummy. And so it aphids will go and just, and like out in the garden, sometime we'll go out there and the entire stem is just covered with aphids.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

One on top of another, on top of another, on top of another, on top of another, and they're all just out there and they're all just going and going and going and going and going. You know, you have to spray to get rid of them. Well, that's why he puts that bag on. Okay. It is a surgical bag that they create on the farm, they sew on the farm, they wash them and reuse them. Okay. And it fits over the top and then it's just cinched. Now it's also vapor permeable, moisture permeable, and sunshine permeable because you can't put it in a dark spot. So it's like a mesh almost? It's a mesh, but it's so fine. Oh, okay. It's so fine that a bug can't get through it. Okay, cool. And so they do that along with integrated pest management, which means that they bring in like persimilis, or they bring in ladybugs, or they bring in wasps that eat all of the other thing like thrip and aphids and things like that, too. So he has really, really been the forerunner on making sure that they're doing integrated pest management or things that don't use pesticides. That's so cool. All of the rain that comes down onto the greenhouses is captured. Wow. And then it's reused again. Okay. So that's one of the things that they do. So is that when that comes off the roof, then it goes to these retaining ponds where it's filtered and then can be used again. And all of the flowers are grown hydroponically and they're in bins. So then that water can also be reclaimed, recycled, and back and put back onto the onto the flowers again. So I mean, it's it's a very, very important thing to conserve your water in in Columbia.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Oh, okay. So yeah. Wow, what an amazing operation. It was just really cool to see all that. It was.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And he's hysterical in the outtakes. Oh, yeah. Because he was like, because he was like, he was like, I am the challenge is ready. The talent is ready. I'm going to go to my trailer. Come get me when it's when dinner time again. Yes. And I just think that that's funny because my guys do, you know, they're perfectionists, so that they want to make sure that they had everything, you know, set up exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

They were getting like the focus just right or something. And he was ready.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I'm ready to go now. Because he also, when we were filming that, there's 500 people on his farm. Oh, okay. And he doesn't want to be messing around with film and with us when he needs to go talk to those customers who are going to buy hundreds of thousands of roses. True. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And he ships them all over the world. Oh, yeah. He is not just shipping them to the US. He's shipping them to Japan. He's shipping them to Russia. He's shipping them to Europe. He's shipping them everywhere in the world. Wow. His roses are the most popular. So yeah. That's so cool. It's amazing. All right. So then we used some of his roses to create everyday arrangements. And that's one of his things is, and I think it's a very good sentiment, is that roses shouldn't just be for something special. His goal was to produce roses at a low enough cost that they could be available at grocery stores. Okay. So that people would just pick up his beautiful roses and enjoy them for no reason at all. Oh, yeah. And I think that there is a stigma in the US, especially in the US, because we're the only place in the world that sells a dozen roses. It's a weird number.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

That's a strictly American thing?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah. In Amsterdam, they sell 10. And, you know, in Asia they sell 10. In Europe, they sell 10. Or they sell 20s, but they don't sell 12s because we're the only people on that system. You know, everybody else is on the metric system. So, you know, and it's challenging. So, like with a bunches in Europe are 10 bunch stems or 20 bunch stems. Okay. In the US, the we demand that they're 25. And so then you get two dozen and one more left. And it's just a it's a it's a weird, it's a weird thing, you know. But I like the avenue of making six roses into a bouquet that you just set in your house. That would be fragrant or and and that's what this was. This was just trying to get people to think outside the box and thinking, you know, because also if you ask women ever, you say, you know, oh, what did your husband buy you when your child was born? They bought me a dozen roses. Yeah, for my anniversary, a dozen roses. For you know, and it's it's just like I don't understand the the hype around.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Oh, yeah. It's become like the default thing almost, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Correct, correct. And I think it's interesting too, because like, and as we've talked before on this podcast, women prefer peach or pink. Oh, right. Men think that women's favorite rose is red, and it's not. It's men's reflexiveness that makes them purchase red roses. Yeah. So I think that, you know, just think about that too. I mean, that's the other thing. And and it's very unusual for a red rose to be fragrant. It's very unusual. Okay. But it is not unusual for a peach or pink rose to be extremely fragrant. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that's another thing that guys should remember. Okay. You know, is does this rose smell good? Because it doesn't matter too. When you hand someone roses, they put them to their nose.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Sometimes they smell like I would I would say vegetables, like fresh vegetables. When they don't have a fragrance, they smell like fresh vegetables or maybe fresh cut grass.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Okay. Not exactly what you're picturing when you're going in to take a whiff.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah, not that rose scent that your grandma had in her garden.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Right now, right. So yeah. That gold vase that you used in that segment. Me and Amanda have that same one. So I use that to arrange in all the time. I was like, hey, I know that's a good one. That's awesome. That's an accent decor base. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

So that means that they have good reach. That's a that's a wonderful thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

That's nice. It was funny. I saw that and I was like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

It is smart to grab something and put it in a bundle. You know, I think that that's so cool. That's just a really fast and easy way to do something and control it a little bit more. And you're not frustrated with flowers falling out because roses can be heavy. Oh, and that big heavy head can pull a rose out of a out of a vase. Oh. So if you've got them bound together, they're gonna hold together.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And that bind wire is a great thing. So that bind wire works really well.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Cool. Should we go to the rose parade?

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yes. So yeah, this is a lot of stuff for one piece. I know, yeah, yeah. So Fiesta Floats creates about a dozen, a dozen floats every year. They can range in price from hundreds of thousands of dollars to a million or more. Wow for those. And it's depending upon length, there's different sizes. And Fiesta is uh one of the places that owns chassis. So they own chassis and then they can repurpose those chassis. So they give people a rental for the chassis for the rose parade and then they take it back. They strip off everything. I remember the guy who did dirty jobs. Remember the dirty jobs show?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Mike Rowe, I think was Mike Rowe.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One time he did a show about cleaning up the floats after Oh, I bet that's after the Rose Parade. And they're all moldy and everything, and he was shoveling everything off of them and everything. And it was like, I can just imagine how awful they would be. Because they take them and they set them outside for a week or 10 days and let people tour them in the park. Oh. Then they bring them back and then they have to clean them all off and start anew. Okay. And so, as I stated, this August, we will be seeing the roses that are gonna or the floats that are gonna be in the rose parade pre-made with their armatures and their pieces of of chicken wire and and forms and pieces. And everything that they create, they paint a col the color it should be, so it makes it easier when they're applying the roses or any other flower to that surface. Okay. And you kind of get a feel for that in this show. Yeah. I will put some links in here. I think we've followed three floats. Yeah. Maybe I'm lying. There was the for TikTok, the TikTok clock company. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or kit kit cat clock company, which is the cat whose eyes go back and forth. It was their anniversary. And Woody is the guy who owns that company. And he had sponsored this float, and the float was all American grown because his product is all made in America. So he wanted a float that would have all American grown flowers on it. Oh, that's cool. That's a challenge because of the quantity of flowers that are needed for the Rose Parade. So that's why Lane was there. He was the chairman of the American Grown Association of Flower Growers.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

I thought I saw Lane, but I was, he was just kind of in the background in a couple scenes.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

And the other growers that you know, like Mel Recendez was there from the Protea Grower, the Milanos were there, and a couple of the Milanos wrote on the float. You know, so that was really interesting. And then the skateboarders performed on a skateboard, I don't know, what do you call that thing? They have to get special permission for that half pipe to be on the float and not covered in flowers.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Oh, okay. Because everything should be, every surface is supposed to be covered with flowers.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Supposed to be covered with flowers. And so then it also, I think it also negates them from being in certain categories for judging. Oh, okay. That particular one was when they had the surfing bulldog on the perrina dog float. They had a wave pool on the float, and that bulldog was surfing as they went down the so I mean there is crazy stuff that people do, you know. So that was and then like that giant TikTok or that giant Kit Kat float, the clock, was all covered in black poppy seeds because that's one of the only things that is black that they can cover something with. I remember you explaining that on the show, and I was like, I couldn't believe that that was actually it's like and so what happens is they take little brushes and paint like Elmer's glue on, and then they pour those on, and then when they're done, they have to go back and put them put more again and fill in any spaces. Wow. You will notice this she this, if you can remember back to this year, it was raining. Yes, which is horrific.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

So, Jay, I never told you. I was I was in Pasadena this past year. So I actually, but I did not make it to the Rose Parade. But so I went to the Rose Bowl, the football game.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

When we were there that year, we we also went to Cal Poly. Oh, and Cal Poly is really unique because they have the two Cal Poly colleges. They each build half of the float and then they bring them together. Oh, that's cool. And make it into one giant. And here's my interesting thing about that. The Cal Poly float is made by students. And I don't mean this in a bad way. It's made by children. Yeah. It is made by people who are 18 to 22 years old. Fiesta Floats for many years had a designer who was a world-renowned designer who had designed hundreds of floats throughout his entire life and won awards for them for years. Wow. That year we were sitting behind the judges and they had had superheroes for the cop Hollywood. And I loved it. And they let me go work on that one. And I got to do a little section, a little penny section, and do that, you know. And the and they were so sweet, and the kids were wonderful and they were amazing. And then we could hear the judges, and they were like, Well, that one doesn't look as professional as the other one. No, and I leaned down and I said, No, because it's made by children. Right. It's not made by artists, it's made by children. That infuriates me because it it shouldn't be a particular, you know, and some of them are put together by a city. Oh, right, right. A whole city will get together and everyone volunteers and makes it. Right, right. You know, so and there are different categories for those different things, I get it.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

But they shouldn't be held to the same standards as someone who's been doing it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

You know, a decade plus flowers lasting as long as possible, I always choose Chrysal Flower Food. Flowers benefit from food and keeping the water clean. In my experience, Chryselflower Food does the best job. It's formulated by scientists. My favorite product is Chrysal Professional 3. Chryselflower Food products are available at their website, chryselflowerfood.com. That's chrysal flowerfood.com. And be sure to use our discount code UBloom10 for 10% off your purchase. Support the Joy of Flowers. The Life in Bloom Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to flower education and inspiring the love of flowers in everyone. The foundation helps fund the production of Jay Shwanki's Life in Bloom on public television, making it possible for viewers across the country to enjoy the beauty and benefits of flowers. The Foundation also provides free flower education to high schools, colleges, and floriculture programs through uBloom.com, helping students and future florists bloom in their own careers. Your donation in any amount makes a difference. Plus, all contributions are 100% tax deductible. If you'd like to help us continue sharing the power of flowers, visit the LifeandBloom Foundation.org to donate today. Thank you for your support. But this year, you know how much it rained because you went to the game.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

I thought they were going to cancel it. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

And so everything was washing off.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Any of the seeds were washing off, and you could really see how they were put together. So it's very interesting. Oh, yeah. And they claim it rains only like once every 20 years or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Also, when we went, they had given us wonderful seats, and so we got to film from our seats in the stands right there under where all the announcers sit and everything. You know, it's a very great place to be. And then they gave Kelly and I like two 50-yard line tickets to the Rose. Oh, okay, cool. We aren't sports guys.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

I was gonna say, did you guys did you go?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So we gave them to Keith and Chris.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Oh, nice. That was nice.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

And we went and dropped Keith and Chris off, and they went to the Rose Bowl, then we went and took a nap, and then we came back and picked them up. Oh. And then we went to dinner, you know, and it was great. It's a big deal. Yeah. You know, and you can like take tours where you can tour the rose parade stuff and then you can go see that. Oh, yeah. One of my favorite interviews of my entire career was the one with the lady who was talking about the bird of paradise. Oh, yeah. She has worked on the Rose Parade forever. And it was just so interesting to hear her take on what it's like. And she's just effervescent. You can just feel it, right? Yeah. And then we also talked to Modesto Busto, who does all the faces.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

That was so cool. The animal faces. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

And so Modesto's skill as a makeup artist allows him to do the makeup on all the animals and the people that are on the floats. Yeah. And he does that with flowers and petals and spices. Wow. Modesto is so talented, just incredibly talented. So I think that that kind of stuff is really, really interesting about how all that comes together. You can tell how happy it makes people. I mean, and how proud they are of it. I mean, that's the other thing, too, is just I cried probably 20 times when each of the floats went by just because you know how much it means to those people who created that float. Right, right. It is an institution. It's an institution. We have gone back a couple times. We have a friend Donna who right on the corner has a front row of seats that she's her family has kept for years. Oh. So we've gone there a couple times and watched, and it really is an experience. That's a good idea. I mean, and it's really a wonderful thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I love them saying too, seeing the look on the people's faces, um, like how happy the floats made them. So not only the people that made them, but the people that are experiencing it, it just made me think of like what you do with your show, Jay. Like you kind of make, you know, put flowers out there into the world so people can see it, and it makes everyone else happy, and you get to see how much you enjoy it and how much people enjoy and like take it in. It was like this, I don't know, it just kind of reflected.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

And that's part of the synergy of sharing this type of a segment with people on the show too. Yeah. Because I mean it's true. Let's talk about my friend Kristen. Oh, yes, yes. Okay. So again, many, many things. Yes. So Kristen used to work at a place that we would go every Sunday for lunch. This was pre-pandemic, okay? Every Saturday we would go for lunch and she would be there. She would be the bartender. We would laugh, we would giggle. She's a wonderful person. She's amazing. She's married now. She's wonderful. I think she works for an insurance company. No, I'm not really sure. She had created this pillow talk cocktail as a cocktail. And so she even explained how to make the rose water. Oh, yeah. To like steep the roses. And it's it's like making tea. That's the other thing about roses. Scented roses, as long as they're grown organically, you can create different recipes, even rose water with them, that will have that scent as part of the flavor. We will put that on here too. And I I love that she loved the flower crown.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

And it was she had an awesome reaction.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

It was so funny. So here's the other thing that I remember. And this was pre-pandemic too, because this would have all changed. But she walked in, she goes, I am so sick this morning. Oh no. And I was like, You're sick.

unknown 28:37

She was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

And I was just like, Well, what's the matter? And she's like, I was out late last night and I was like, Oh, she was hungry. Oh, okay. Which was all great. After a pre-pandemic, if somebody the other day someone said to me, I'm sick. And I was like, Okay. Right. Yeah, yeah. And you just back away as hard as you can. You know, and I'm just like, I have to go. Bye. Yeah. You know, so I think that that was good. And so it has gin, it has a peppercorn. So there's a little bit of a hint of of spice and bite to it. Oh, cool. And the simple service to roast water, the lime juice. I love Kristen. We don't see her very much anymore. I mean, we don't, we after the pandemic, we don't go out to eat anymore. Um we cook at home. And uh uh and we love to cook. That's also part of it, is that we love to cook. I sometimes feel like I'm I would make it better.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Oh yeah. I know the feeling.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Every once in a while we still get to go to Terra and we love Terra. And we've we've been there uh for a couple of a couple of shows, I think, too. So, you know, but they they do an amazing job and it is a wonderful. So I'll put a link down here for Terra Grand Rapids because if you're coming to Grand Rapids, it's one of the best places to eat. Oh, okay. It is it is fantastic. Their chef is so talented, their crew is amazing. It's a beautiful facility, and it's wonderful. Okay, cool. So then we talked about roses as the flower. It's the national flower of the US.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yeah, yeah. And I loved you called out all the other places, it's the national flower England, Honduras, Iran, Poland, Romania. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. American beauty roses were bred and hybridized for the purpose of being the national rose. Oh, okay. And what happens is after we breed a rose and we breed it for a period of time, it starts to lose the traits that we bred into it. So a rose variety maybe has a 10 or 12, maybe 15 year lifespan because there's something better coming down the pipe. There are rose breeders who I've spoken to who said that you get like five chances to breed a rose in your lifetime because it takes so long. Roses are like thoroughbred horses. Okay, not like hamsters. Carnations are like hamsters. Okay. Carnations, you can breed and breed and breed and breed and breed and breed and breed, and you can get changes in each generation. Roses, it's very long. It's grafting and all this stuff. And so they generally have four or five attempts in their lifetime to create a rose that they would name. In doing that, they're always looking for a red rose, long stemed, big head, lots of petals, fragrant, no thorns. Okay. That is still the holy grail that no one has got.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's maybe gotten four or five of those attributes, but not all sensitive. Not all. Okay. And so they're all looking for that one. You know, and there's been people that I've talked to have been like, we did that, but the rose was pink. We wanted it to be red, but it's pink. You know, and it's like, okay, but I mean, you know, so I think that that's a very interesting thing about it, too, is just all of that. And Kell and I learned so much from our friends at Euphoria who took us to Amsterdam where we got to go see the rose breeders. When you're looking at a rose that has a number that they're offering for brose growers to try, there's a document with them that is posted there that tells you how long the stem is, how thick the stem is, how many petals it has, how long it will last, how long it takes to open, at what stage it gets cut. So they can determine. And like many times we saw roses. There was a rose called petrel that was like a chocolatey terracotta-y color that almost had like a purple undertone that looked like it was almost like oily. It looked like it was oily, and it was gorgeous. And I was like, You need to do and they were like, it only produces like six roses on a plant. And they were like, It's never gonna make it. Uh-huh. And I was like, Oh, we're pulling it out, you know, and I was like, Oh, okay, huh. And so there were many roses that we saw. Because I mean, you you want you want like 60 or more petals. You want you want a rose that's gonna give you twenty-eight to twenty twenty-eight to thirty-two roses per bush. You know, and it's like uh and you you want production. Okay. And so that's what they're looking for when they do that too.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

There's no like it's like more exclusive, it only produces six. This is people would pay a premium for this special one, or so that is what Euphoria used to do.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Oh, okay. That's why I miss them being around. But they were a boutique grower. There was a rose one time called Marrakesh that was brown. Oh wow. And they did Marrakesh. Well, Marrakesh was beautiful the first year they did it. The second year they did it, its calyx had a flaw in it. And once it would get so far open, all the petals would fall off. Oh, okay. Then when all the petals fell off, the foliage would completely defoliate. Oh. And so then they had to pull it out. But for a year, it was a boutique rose that everybody wanted. Oh, okay. I'll put a link up about I did a JTV. This is way before, right? I did a JTV episode with some of the new varieties from Euphloria and Mirake was one of them. We made them in this spheres and had them on the table in in like a sphere collection. And it was when we were in the in a kitchen we rented, a commercial kitchen to film that had no air conditioning. Oh gosh. And yeah, so it was terrible. But anyway, but yeah, I'll put that in there too. But I mean, you know, there are varieties that just, you know, passed away, you know. And and when we went to see Sandra Lobenthal at Petercourt Roses, she still has a couple plants of every rose they've ever grown. Really? Wow. Just historical for her own entertainment. Whoa. Wait. And she's like, Do you want to see a Sonya rose? Yes, I do. Because Sonia was a huge variety when I was like in high school. Okay. And it was real long and it was real thin. The height of the of the bloom was probably three or four inches, and it was real skinny. Oh. And it kind of opened up flat. It opened up oddly, but it had an amazing cinnamon smell. And she was like, Oh, I got Sonia growing right over here. Took me over to show it to me. Whoa. And I was just like, Why do you have these? And she said, Because I can't tear them out. I just want to have them, you know, for the rest of my life. And I'm like, I love it. And I love that about her. Yeah, that is cool. You know, it's a hundred-year-old greenhouse, and she's got varieties that her dad grew. Oh. You know, and I think that that's a very cool thing as well. Okay, we did plant a fast round, so I can get lightning round. Okay. Lightning round. We planted a rose bush in our garden. Yes, that is our garden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Okay, I thought I recognized it.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

A Julia Child Rose, which was hybridized by Rose Story Farms. I will put a link down for these people in California. You can go into a rose story farms. It's right outside of Santa Barbara. And Julia Child used to go there and sit in their garden of the Julia Child Rose. Oh, cool. And there's a bench there dedicated to her, and you can see those roses in bloom. It's a fragrant yellow rose. It's like one point beyond a noisette variety. So if you remember back to the P. Allen Smith one, when we went to his garden, he grows all noisette roses, which is the rose that has a single layer of petals all the way around. Okay. Like the predecessor for most roses. And it it is fragrant, I believe, as well. But it's this one, this Julie Child rose, is a little step up from that. And we still have that. We still have that rose plant. It's in a different spot now. Okay. But we still have that rose plant. Again, I talk in this piece about being a hobbyist. We'll be clear about this one more time. It is not a gardening show.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Jay Schwanke's Life in Bloom is not a gardening show. Although they slap me in between family plots and, you know, all the other gardening shows that are on Saturday mornings and stuff, because that's where they put our show many times, which is great. And I'm thankful for that. But our show is about cut flowers and it's about gardening. If you want to plant some flowers in your garden for a cutting garden, that's about where we stand with it. But I don't know where, you know, what you can plant in an area that's shady in your garden or what you should do if your rose gets. I don't know any of those things. I really truly don't. And people are like, I find that hard to believe. And I'm like, I'm a hobbyist. And I go ask my local independent garden center about those tips and tricks. Because your local independent garden center will know more than anyone else about what your climate and geographic region needs. And not me. It is funny. Like we just had our marathon this past week, right? We're getting all these people who are like, who just discovered our show. Oh, yeah. I have a question about hydrangeas. Great. Go to your local independent flower center, you know, and see what they have, what they sell or what they sell in your area, you know? Yeah. Because I don't know. I had a three or four exchange with this woman who was uh who was a master gardener for hydrangeas in Cape Cod. Oh, okay. Well and she was trying to tell me what was wrong with my my hydrangeas. And she's like, it's impossible for those things to get 12 foot tall. Well, they were 12 foot tall. Oh, wow. You know, and I was just like, here's the picture. And she's like, why in the world? And I said, I know, because we live in Michigan and you live in Cape Cod. Probably, I live on Woodland Bluff, and Scott Woods Drive is across the thing. There's probably a difference between those two. Oh, right, right. You know? Yeah, yeah. It's not the same. Yeah. It's everybody has a different set of circumstances, different types of shade, different types of sun. Deadheading is also a very good thing because once you clip off those roses, it won't send energy to make a rose hip. Oh, okay. So if you've heard of rose hips, vitamin C is made from the rose hips that swell up after the bloom falls off.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

It takes energy for the plant to do that. So if you deadhead and remove those rose heads, you won't get those those rose hips and it will send more energy to because it wants to make rose hips. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

It really wants to make rose hips because that's the seed chamber.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

But if you keep deadheading it, you force it to make more blooms. Okay. And again, these are things that I've learned. It's funny. I'm talking to the Dahlia Society this, and they were like, you know, can you tell us how to grow dahlias?

unknown 39:02

Nope. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Okay. Craig can. Craig can, you know, or or Fran can or Idawell Farm can. But I can't. I don't, I don't know. I just they just cut them for me and I make arrangements out of them. That's what I do. You know, I'm about the pleasure portion at this.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

This was a lot, and there will be a lot of links.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I can't believe you fit all this into one episode.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

This was like this was as I said, it was still one of my favorite episodes. It's really good. And yeah, and the photography from this episode is really good too. There's some really beautiful stuff. It was yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

All right.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Cool. Well, thanks, RJ. Yeah, thanks, Jay.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Thanks for joining us this week on Behind the Bloom Podcast with Jay Schwanke and R.J. Pohl. If you loved what you heard, be sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. And share it with a friend to help us spread the joy one bloom at a time. Thank you for taking the time to slow down with us. And hopefully you left feeling a little lighter and inspired to try something new. Make sure to join us next week for a brand new episode. Thanks for being here with us, Behind the Bloom. Hey, just one more thing. If you love flowers, you've got to check out uBloom.com. It's the online home of Jay Schwanki's Life in Bloom, where you can stream every episode for free. Plus, you'll find Behind the Bloom videos, my blog, show recipes, and so much more. There's also a massive video archive, over 1,800 how-to videos, flower farm documentaries, and even my very first series, JTV. All Life in Bloom episodes, exclusive web content, and farm documentaries are totally free. Just sign up with your email. And if you're ready to dive deeper, there's a paid subscription option that unlocks the full library of how to videos. Everything from creating bridal bouquets to centerpieces, croissages, and more. Tons of content to explore. You're gonna love it.