Wedding show for Visser's

It's a big weekend here at Visser's Florist. We are taking our wedding crew and hundreds of spectacular flowers to The Great Bridal Expo. It will be Saturday 4/26 at 12:00 in the Anaheim Convention Center.

Debbie, our head wedding designer, has also been asked to create the bridal bouquets for the fashion show. I guess word about Debbie's talent travels fast!

The tickets are $9.00 at the door. If you are planning to get married in the near future (and you are in the Anaheim area) I highly encourage you to attend.

And if you do, stop by the Visser's booth and say hi to Debbie--and to me! By the way, I tried to get a picture of Debbie but she is too busy. Here is just one of the bouquets she is making--black magic roses and black calla lilies.

Columbian Free Trade Agreement

The Colombian Free trade agreement is effectively dead—for now. Congress decided not to vote on an agreement that would eliminate trade barriers between the U.S. and Columbia. Congress is concerned about how workers are treated in Columbia, so they decided to put them out of work by reducing the amount of flowers shipped to the U.S. from their country.

Now, I know what you’re saying—“why should I care about that, we have enough problems here to worry about”. The answer is that it makes our flowers more expensive.

A very large percentage of our flowers, especially roses and carnations, comes from South America. The cost of these flowers is already going up because of the decline in the value of the dollar and because of skyrocketing fuel costs. Do we really want to make them even more expensive?

In addition to making flowers cost more and putting agricultural workers in Columbia out of work, there is another issue. Columbia buys our products—beef, vegetables, cotton and other agricultural products. The agreement would have made those products more attractive to Columbians and helped our farmers.

I do realize that more and more flower production is shifting away from my native California and moving to foreign soil. This reality reflects our high cost of labor, and the recent housing boom that took farmlands out of production to build houses. However, putting tariffs (or taxes) on products will not change the economics of flower production in California. It’s just too expensive to grow flowers here.

Congress needs to “wake up and smell the roses” and stop playing politics with this issue.

Administrative Professional’s Day

It’s next Wednesday so you better start planning. For some reason, maybe because the “bosses” have faulty memories, the holiday has been expanded into an entire Week. (I tried the same thing with my birthday but it didn’t work).

Anyway, the “real” days to send flowers, plants or go out to lunch are Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. If you wait until Thursday or Friday, your assistant is going to be embarrassed, and frankly, you will end up spending more just to make up for your little lapse.

The best thing to do is to call Visser’s Florist today and schedule something to be delivered. We have flowers, plants and balloons in all price ranges. Have it sent early in the week and make all the “other” bosses in the office look bad. Or, if you’re really a nice person, get together with all of the other bosses in the office and place one order. Talk about a win-win situation!

Our Flower shop’s Subprime Mortgages

It seems that you can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the news these days without seeing something about subprime mortgages. It’s especially interesting to listen to the politicians talk about the subject.
Politicians on one side of the aisle say that this is some big conspiracy by evil mortgage companies and they must be punished. The politicians on the other side say that the borrowers were just too dumb, or were financial speculators and nothing should be done.

I’m not advocating either point of view. I just want to share the story of two of Visser’s employees that were caught in this mess to show that it’s not as simple as the politicians make it out to be.

The first employee is a middle-aged, married woman. She has owned her house for a number of years. Her and her husband raised their kids there and everything was going along fine. Then, serious medical problems hit, and even though they had insurance, the out of pocket costs were big. They were stuck—couldn’t pay. The only way they could make it was to refinance the house. Needless to say, they got an adjustable rate mortgage and now the interest rate has reset. The medical bills are mostly gone, but sadly, they are going to lose their house in the process.

The other employee is a single mother, working hard to support her kids. After years of saving, she was finally able to get her piece of the American Dream. It was a modest house, but I have never seen anyone that was more proud. Unfortunately, her mortgage rates have also risen substantially, and she may also lose her house—along with her life savings.

As I said before, I’m not pushing any particular solution, or trying to place blame. My point is that when you see these stories, remember that they are really about real people going through the worst time of their lives.

Flowers in Hot Weather

It's 96 degrees here in Southern California. While we can sit back in our easy chair and drink beer to stay cool (ok, that may not work but it makes me feel better), flowers aren't so lucky. Visser's Florist & Greenhouses has two, 6,000 sq. ft greenhouses full of plants. We also have 100,000 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of cooling power to keep the plants cool and the humidity up.

Your plants and flowers may not be so lucky. If you are blessed enough to have some beautiful flowers in your house, you need to do a couple of things. First, try and keep them cool. I'm not saying run the air conditioner just for your beautiful Visser's roses, but keep them in a cooler part of the house, and not by a window where they can get direct sunlight.

Next, if you do have air conditioning, don't put your flowers or plants right by the vent. Air circulation is important, but if they are by the vent the air will dry them out. Next, make sure they have water. You drink more when it's hot and so do flowers and plants. In fact, occasionally misting them with a little cool water is a good thing also.

Finally, if you have any questions about your plant or flower care, please call us at Visser's at (714) 772-9900.

Secretary's Day Flowers

I guess I just don't get it. When I was younger, things seemed a lot simpler. Secretary's Day was one day a year, and business people all over the country sent flowers to the person that helped them out throughout the year. That person was called a secretary. Frankly, secretary was a pretty darned good office job.

Somewhere along the road, "secretary" became a menial job title. It seemed to happen about the time that businesses switched from typewriters to computers. Maybe the first secretaries to learn a word processing program wanted to distinguish themselves from the mere mortal typewriter users.

Anyway, things have gotten so out of control, that now, nobody even knows what to call the holiday. Secretary's Day, Administrative Assistant Day, Administrative Professional Day, etc. Plus, it isn't a day anymore. Apparently business execs are too dumb to remember one particular day, so now it is a whole week.

Isn't the whole thing a little silly? Most admin assistants I know work pretty hard doing the legwork for their boss. They deserve to be recognized for what they do, but for goodness sake, let's get rid of the political correctness.

On Wednesday, March 23, call Visser's Florist in Anaheim and order something special for the person that makes your life easier. Don't call the holiday anything--just say thank you.

Visser's on TV

Monday morning--let's say you're not doing anything around 6:00. Turn on local TV channel KDOC (for me at Time Warner cable it's channel 6). Ron Caro, one of Visser's Florist's top notch drivers will be featured on the morning show called Daybreak OC.

They have a segment called I love my job and Ron will be the star of the day. The picture at the top plays a special role in the show also--so watch for it.

By the way, for those of you who may not get up at 6:00, it's also on at 7:00 a.m.

Lilacs in the OC

It's here, it's here. Lilac, that hard-to-get (in Southern California) fragrant flower has come to Visser's. It is only to available to us for about three weeks out of the year.

They tend to be most popular with transplanted "East Coasters" but almost everyone loves their fragrant beauty. Order now and you can reserve your vase of fresh lilac.

This item is for local Orange County delivery only, as most flower shops do not stock this hard to get flower. Prices start at $14.99 for a bunch of these beauties and $49.99 for Lilac arranged in a vase. The vase pictured above is our $69.99 price point. Don't wait--time and lilacs wait for no one!