Whimsical Chuppah

This weekend the Hidden Garden was honored to do the wedding flowers for Lindsay & Adam, at The Four Seasons Los Angeles. The bride loved the look of a natural and whimsical chuppah design. She said, "I want it to look like it just grew there...". Lindsay also loved orchids. So, her chuppah was created from natural curly willow branches completely covered in green and white dendrobium orchids.

Since blossom branches aren't available in October, the combination of the curly willow and the small blooms of orchids created a magnificent and dramatic display. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the chuppah, including Lindsay, Adam, and their whole family. Lindsay's bouquet was in all green and ivory flowers, with orchids, roses, stephanotis, and hydrangea. The bridesmaids all carried beautiful fall tones of rust and orange, including golden cymbidium orchids, leonidas roses, and orange makara orchids.

The centerpieces were a tall, dramatic display of orange, yellow, and green orchids with green hydrangea, orange/rust toned roses, and curly willow. More pictures to follow...

Carolyne Roehm Luncheon

We were honored to participate in a table top presentation at Carolyne Roehm's luncheon held at the Los Angeles California Club. Carolyne Roehm happens to be the author of the first floral book I ever purchased "A Passion for Flowers". It's still my favorite to this day!

Her 9th book is coming to bookstores on 10/28, "A Passion for Blue and White". The California Club in downtown Los Angeles hosted a lunch for Carolyne Roehm promoting the release of her new book.

The Hidden Garden was one of the few Los Angeles based florists invited to design a gorgeous table top display to honor the special occasion.

We designed "Seaside Romance" for the luncheon. We used a steel blue gray linen provided by Tabella (as well as their chargers and chairs). The top of the table was covered in a 48 inch round mirror with an array of seaside elements and florals helping tie our theme together.

Michelle and Julie get Married

Today we had a great wedding at Shutters of the Beach. Michelle & Julie (die hard Red Sox fans by the way!) chose Shutters as the perfect location to showcase their love for orchids and each other. Our brides were not afraid of color so the Hidden Garden designers had lots of choices. From the vibrant tones in the ceremony (blue, purple and green) to the rich pallet of burgundy and celadon in the bouquets, the wedding decor really popped!

One of the really unique touches to the wedding were the brides' centerpiece selection. Each of the tables were adorned with 3 various orchid plants (flown straight from Hawaii) ranging in colors such as magenta, yellow, purple orange. Each plant was arranged in separate glass containers. Michelle & Julie thought it was a great treat for their guests to be able to take something home at the end of the evening. The table linens were a Tiffany blue tone with the orchids and candles intermixed in the center of the table. It was truly a spectacular combination of color.

The Bridal Bouquet was also designed with magnificent orchids (cymbidiums and lady slippers), dahlias, eggplant Callas and hydrangea. Again, the color selection was rich and vibrant. (photo attached)

If you are a Red Sox Fan....they even had a special Red Sox wedding cake made for the special occasion! (courtesy of Cake Divas)

Please Vote for Hidden Garden at MyFOX L.A.'s Hotlist

The Hidden Garden team was thrilled last year when we won Best Wedding Flowers on MyFOX L.A.'s hotlist, and we are just as excited to be nominated again this year. We know that we would not be on the list again without the great word of mouth from our loyal customers. Thanks so much for your continued business and interest in everything flowers.

It is no secret that we truly enjoy transforming spaces and commemorating events with flowers, but what you might not know is that all of you and your lives are our endless source of inspiration. We would love to have your vote again this year, please take 2 minutes and follow these easy steps:

1. Go to MyFOX L.A.'s hotlist
2. When prompted, complete a brief registration (user name/email/password/gender/DOB) I know, it’s a bit more info than last time J
3. When you receive an email confirmation simply click on the link to confirm your vote and you're done!

Deadline to vote is November 8^th and you can only vote once per IP address.

Fall Wedding Colors

Eve and Chris chose warm and rich fall tones of orange and burgundy for their fall wedding held at Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica. Although traditional fall design includes a variety of textures with a more full and lush feel, the couple wanted a more clean line and modern feeling for their wedding decor. The chuppah was created from natural bamboo with soft, sheer fabric draping from the sides, with an accent of floral decor for color. The aisle was covered wtih a criss cross design of orange and deep red toned rose petals. The centerpieces consisted of 3 glass cylinders in varying heights with submerged orange makara orchids, submerged sunset colored cala lilies, and a compact arrangement of burgundy roses, cymbidium orchids, and dahlias. The base of each centerpiece was adorned with 3 small glass cubes with floating orchid heads, and illuminated votive candles. The carried a bouquet of all burgundy cymbidium orchids and cala lilies, while the bridesmaids carried bouquets of mixed orange and burgundy roses, dahlias, and orchids.

Fall Centerpieces

It's that time of year when all of the fall elements from the outdoors become just as important in an arrangement as the flowers themselves. Here's a few unique tips in which you can incorporate your typical fall accents into the dining table arrangements and holiday decor in your home.

* use the small mini pumpkins and gords as a display on your center dining table intermixed with "flower heads" for pops of color

* sprinkle fall leaves down the center of your table and place a few vases of monochromatic groups of fresh flowers atop the leaves

* use a long wood box and fill with fall leaves and mini apples, pears or pumpkins

* actual pumpkins carved out in the center can become the floral vase for your flowers

Lauren & Zach - Hotel Bel Air Wedding

The Hidden Garden team were thrilled to design a wedding with Lauren & Zach Axlerod, who were married on Saturday, October 6th at the breathtaking Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles.

This location is one of my favorite wedding sites as it is adorned with lush floral landscape already and our decor is the icing on the cake. Lauren and Zach were such a pleasure to work with too. They are an amazing couple. I was honored to collaborate with Tracy & Jonathan (International Event Company) on the design of this lovely affair.

The Ceremony took place at Swan Lake (after many conversations with mother nature begging her to hold back on the rain!). We created a romantic setting using the soft white, ivory and lavender tones incorporting the use of hydrangea, tibet roses, polo roses, antiqued lavender amnesia roses, dahlias, curly willow, smilax and ivy. After the ceremony the guest wander through the grotto leading them to the upper lawn for cocktails under the canopy (just in case it rained!). We brought in the deeper purple and lavender pallette setting the tone for the dinner reception to follow. The Ballroom was adorned with tall gold candelabras designed with abundant arrangements consisting of burgundy dahlias, amnesia lavender roses, red amaranthus, camelia leaves, purple lisianthus and antiqued lavender hydrangea. Romantic candle light, floral napkin treatments, specialty linens and smaller floral accents helped tie the room decor together.

Rose Breeding

Have you ever wondered why some roses are bi-colored, speckled, more fragrant or less fragrant? It’s actually all purposefully created by a human being. There is a world of “breeders” out there that create different types of roses for farms to purchase. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the breeders while in Ecuador named Preesman (from Holland). They are actually the company that “creates” new varieties of roses each year for growers/farms to plant and sell to the public. The farms have the ability to decide which “breeds” they would like to plant at their farm and not all farms have the right to every breed. Some varieties of roses are exclusive to certain farms. At FloraCal they have a Greenhouse Showroom where they grow a few plants of each new variety to “test” them for breeders. Not all roses make it to the final stages of “wholesale”. They might grow well, might grow too small of heads, might not open perfectly, and might be too fragrant (which fragrant roses don’t travel/ship very well). There are so many variables to a rose and it’s impossible to say why some make and it some don’t. Although we as a consumer might find them to be beautiful the rose growers have their reasons for picking the variety of roses they choose to plant.
Carlos, the owner of Floral Cal & Flora Verdes breed a few of his own roses but a couple of his most popular are Latin Ambience, Pink Intuition and Bengala.

Love Orchids Plants? Watch My Orchid Plant How-To on Better TV

I recently showed viewers of BetterTV how to create a beautiful orchid plant. Watch it now: