LoCoFlo Blog
Tags: At LoCoFlo BookClub Bugs Classes Farmers Flower Club Flower Profile Games Open Studio Hilarious Meet the Owners Nerdy AF Sat@LoCoFlo Stuff You Can Buy
January 07 2021
What We Do in the Winter
Tags: FarmersProcuring locally grown flowers is hard enough when conditions are optimal in our region. Winter really tests our mettle. Not only do we persist, we thrive! It takes some changes - for us, for our growers, and for our customers.
Hendricks is our main winter supplier
Supply, logistics, products, expectations all shift. It's only natural - a rhythm that brings new and wonderful flowers, foliage, branches, berries and more into our shop. It also brings, to borrow from Future Islands, a craving for what has gone away - the local variety of spring, summer and fall field flowers.
Ellen was a guest blogger for Botanical Brouhaha (and was interviewed on their podcast). She detailed all of her challenges and what life is like for a local-only florist when the fields freeze. Read all about what we do in the winter.
Tweet CommentsDecember 26 2020
Regal Moth
Tags: BugsThis handsome chap is a late bloomer.
Like a lot of us, the regal moth has a troubled youth. Known as a hickory horned devil before transitioning, this moth usually hangs out around nut-producing trees that we don't use in our arrangements. So, it's a minor mystery how it showed up at the shop.
Compare with our friend giant leopard moth.
Tweet CommentsDecember 14 2020
2021 LoCoFlo BookClub
Tags: Nerdy AF, At LoCoFlo, BookClubThe ocho, nerds!
Our book club is super casual - just drop in. Meetings are Monday nights at 7:00PM (dates below). The over/under on resuming the LoCoFlo BookClub in person is sitting on June 21. So, we'll be online for at least the first half of the year. Email Ellen (ellen@locoflo.com) for the link. We will let you know when the book club will be back IRL at the studio We’re always looking for more flower friends to join the fun!
- Feb 22 2021 Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica M. White
- Apr 19 2021 H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
- Jun 28 2021 (new date) All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Katharine K. Wilkinson
- Aug 22 2021 Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
- Oct 18 2021 Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
- Dec 13 2021 Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
September 17 2020
We Got Big Gomphocarpus Physocarpus
Tags: Flower ProfileHairy balls are, by far, our most talked about flower at the shop. Of course they are. Just look at them! They're hairy balls!
Gomphocarpus physocarpus is their botanical name (that's a mouthful). Their alternative names aren't any better: monkey balls (pass), bishop's balls (way worse), nailhead (why), balloon plant (not bad, but there's already a balloon flower).
Hairy Balls. Accept them. Celebrate them. Love them. They are a type of milkweed. The balls are full of seeds (of course). They burst open at the end of the plant's life and the seeds fly away on silky strings in the wind.
Monarch caterpillars munch on the leaves. We find them all the time in the shop and keep them in our terrarium for the metamorphoses. We name each caterpillar Gregor. (Second Kafka reference in the blog if you're keeping score at home. Or was it Breaking Bad?)
When John Waters was promoting his hitchhiking book, Car Sick, he gave a reading at a neighborhood bookstore (he also lives just a few miles from the shop). We thought, who loves hairy balls more than John Waters. So we walked over to the bookstore with a hairy balls bouquet arranged in an old motor oil can.
The pope of trash thanked us with a post card:
Your flowers were beautiful + rude and great!
That sounds about right.
Tweet CommentsSeptember 15 2020
Snacks!
Tags: BugsSay hello to our neighbor Snacks.
