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"Oh you're a florist? So what's your favourite flower?"

This is kind of like asking a parent who their favourite child is. As well as never wanting to say just incase you offend the others (lets be honest - there IS always a favourite), the favourite is constantly changing due to mood or life events (applies to both children and flowers).


So what is my flavour of the month I hear you ask? *drum roll please*

POPPIES. Actually more specifically Iceland Poppies. Or Papaver Nudicaule.

Most people think of poppies as the symbol of remembrance for soldiers who died during the warfare in the Poppy fields during WW1 - but oh how they are that and so so much more!

As well as being (in my opinion) one of the coolest looking flowers while in bud form and to watch open up into the beautiful flower, they also have a bunch of crazy cool uses.
Prepare to be blown away guys, because I've totally done my research.

CRAZY COOL USE #1: The opiates in the drugs Morphine, Heroine and Codine are derived from Opium Poppies

CRAZY COOL USE #2: Poppy seeds are rich in oil, carbohydrates, calcium and oil. Sounds edible right? Well turns out they are - poppy oil is actually used as cooking oil, salad dressing or as an ingredient in margarine. Who woulda thunk it!

CRAZY COOL USE #3: Poppy products are also used in paints, varnishes and some cosmetics.

Now who said learning wasn't fun!

Another important thing to note when buying flowers (especially when purchasing as a gift) is if they have a specific meaning behind them. Nothing worse than being 'that guy' who gives his girlfriend yellow roses on an anniversary. Like c'mon.. this isn't a great grandmothers funeral.

Poppies have been long used as a symbol of sleep, peace and death, sleep because of the opium and death because of the common blood red colour. Poppies are often used on tombstones to symbolise eternal sleep.
Woah sorry, got a bit deep and intense there. Let's lighten it up shall we?

I'm assuming everyone has seen The Wizard of Oz at least once (if you haven't - i'm not sure how you're ready this blog as you're clearly living under a very small rock) so you'll know the scene with the field of poppies that threatens eternal sleep? That's a pretty good example of the meaning thats long been associated with the flower.

But look, as much as Poppies do symbolise all of these things, because of the fun colours the Icelandic Poppies come in - i'm prettttttttttty 97% certain any girlfriend/mum/friend would love these beauties as a nice change of pace to your average table centre piece.
Plus once you start telling them about all the crazy cool uses I'm sure they won't even remember the whole "eternal sleep" thing anyway.

Flower Crawl

So my Mum and I decided to be a bit rebellious and take a day off work last week. But we put it to good use, spending quality mother daughter time together - and what better, than an all day flower crawl.

We set out to Monbulk to see if we could find some flower farms (mind you i don't think they could have ever lived up to the expectation i had formed in my head of me running through fields of flowers picking until my heart was content while beautiful harps played in the background).

Once arriving at Lakeside Flowers, I realised my dreams of fields and harpists were unfortunately a bit far fetched. We were greeted by a lovely stall out the front of a small florist shop, full of a beautiful (but slightly more limited) range of flowers. We chatted to the florist there for a while who was lovely and helped us put together a bunch of purple Kale flowers.

We jumped back into the car and headed to the next stop - Flowers Vasette on Brunswick St.

But whats a girls day without a stop at a nail salon and delicious lunch, am-I-riiteeee?! 

So there may or may not have been a few delays before making it to our next destination..

(Side note - there were meant to be substantially more florists stops on this particular crawl but when you get stingy and buy a scoopon to get your nails done, expect a minimum 2 hour set back to any plans you had previously made)

Walking into Flowers Vasette I have never been so overwhelmed with such inspiration and awe. It was absolutely beautiful and smelt like heeeaaavvveennnn. They had the most spectacular range of flowers and COLOUR COORDINATED. Brilliant. Needless to say i had a field day and spent well over budget, but worth every penny.

They also stock an adorable range of vases and all sorts of terrariums and succulents.
I bought 3 brown jars and the cutest little white square bag/vase that is fabric but looks like crushed paper. You just pop a little glass jar inside and fill it with just greenery or whichever flowers you want and ta-da, easiest room decoration ever.

All the staff were really helpful and again helped us pick some incredible flowers to take home!


Honestly, if i could, I would have moved in and lived there for the rest of my life.

After a successful haul at Flowers Vasette we headed to a 24 hour Drive-Thru Florist in Preston. Yeah, you heard me, DRIVE THRU. Anyway turns out - not so great. Really nothing to report there. If you haven't ever been, you aren't missing out. Although we did buy some Baby's Breathe which is always a great staple to take home cause they smell delicious and are so easy to just pop into any old kitschy can/vase/jar to make your home look like a pintrest post.

Once i got home it was straight to work playing with all my new goodies and making an arrangement for every room in the house. I wish i had taken photos of the finished products but it was late and i got sleepy (and lazy) but next time i'll take be sure to take before and afters! (Possibly even a vine video - don't hold me to that).

Kim x