History of the Friendship Bracelet

Friendship bracelets are as old as friendship and crafting. There’s no way of knowing exactly who created the first friendship bracelet or when the tokens of friendship were first handed out, and since these bracelets are meant to be personal gifts from one friend to another, there’s no telling how many of these items are made and gifted each year.

We know that colorful woven bands of fabric and other items were used by native peoples in Central and South America thousands of years ago, and that the tradition of tying a bracelet to the wrist of your friend has been a part of many cultures since that time. In some cultures, the tying of the bracelet is associated with a wish: as you tie the bracelet to your friend, they make a wish for something they want or for a closer relationship with you.

Every culture on Earth has some form of friendship token, and friendship bracelets (since they’re easy to make and don’t require expensive materials) can be found all over the world. The tradition of friendship bracelets in Central and South America continues strong to this day, for example: in those cultures, the friendship bracelet is worn until it falls apart and falls off the friend’s arm. When that happens, the wish made at the time of the gift is said to come true.

How to Make Friendship Bracelets

Friendship bracelet patterns are easy to find online. These patterns are generally repetitive and colorful, though you should choose the colors of your friendship bracelet based on colors that your friend likes.

Here’s a guide to making the most basic of friendship bracelets.

Simple Striped Friendship Bracelet

Start this simple striped friendship bracelet with two different colors of yarn or thread. Choose colors that you and your friend like or colors that compliment each other, such as blue and orange.

Start with eight strings of your yarn or thread in alternating colors: one blue, one orange, one blue, one orange, etc. You’ll want to start with strings of cloth or yarn that are about 30 inches in length for this simple striped friendship bracelet project.

Starting with the thread on the far left, make a right-hand knot between this thread and the alternate color thread next to it. Tighten the knot. Then continue to make right-hand knots using that first thread and the other threads. Once you’ve tied all the right-hand knots you can tie (across all eight strings) you will have the first row of your simple friendship bracelet.

Notice now that the thread on the far-left side of your bracelet is the opposite color of the thread you started with. For example, if you started with blue, the new far-left thread will now be orange. Use this orange thread and make right-hand knots across all the remaining threads.

You should continue starting with the thread on the far left of your future friendship bracelet and tie right-hand knots all the way across until your basic friendship bracelet is the desired length. Trim the bracelet, leaving a little thread to tie a knot in the bracelet around your friend’s arm, and you have an easy and beautiful token of friendship.

Other Friendship Bracelet Ideas

This pattern for friendship bracelets is the easiest way to prepare a bracelet for a friend, but is far from the only way to weave your own bracelet for your friend. You can customize and personalize your friendship bracelet any way you want.

Adding beads is an easy way to dress up your friendship bracelet, since making a bracelet involves tying simple knots in thread or yarn. Tossing in a bead or two here and there will improve the look of your bracelet without adding too many steps. You can choose beads in complimentary colors to your friendship bracelet yarn or thread, glass beads that shine in the light, or any token you can find that you think your friend will love.

A big part of the friendship bracelet tradition comes when it is time to give your friend the bracelet. Depending on your culture or what you and your friend decide, you can tie the bracelet around their wrist yourself, have your friend tie it, or even recite a little poem or sing a song together to celebrate your friendship.

According to some friendship bracelet customs, making a wish when the bracelet goes around your friend’s wrist is the most important part of the friendship bracelet experience. Make sure to tell your friend not to tell you what the wish is: superstitious people believe that telling someone else your wish means that wish won’t come true.

Friendship bracelets are small tokens of affection given from one friend to another. They have existed as long as the practice of weaving garments and other tokens, and are especially big among young girls. But don’t let tradition hold you back. There are no rules when it comes to making friendship bracelets. As long as you and your friend are happy, your friendship bracelet is a success.

If you’ve always wanted to work with flowers but didn’t know where to start, these suggested books for beginning florists will help you on your way. I’ve read each one of these fabulous books, and I can attest to their quality.

Five Suggested Books for Amateur Florists

Succulent Container Gardens: Design Eye-Catching Displays with 350 Easy-Care Plants – From bonsai pants to glazed pots, this book features a wide array of ideas when it comes to making your own container garden. The pictures are breathtaking.

The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers – Want to quit your job and make a living growing flowers? This book will get you started.

Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide – A comprehensive guide that will allow you to identify the various kinds of wildflowers. 490 pages in length.

Garden Bouquets and Beyond: Creating Wreaths, Garlands, and More in Every Garden Season – No matter what time of year, this book will help you create beautiful floral bouquets.

Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful – A fascinating look at the floral industry and its impact around the globe.

Five More Books for Beginning Gardeners

The Art of Floral Design – An illustrated text that will take a floral design student from basic to advanced levels. Learn the anatomy of a flower, the principles of flower arranging, and the basics of color and design.

Paula Pryke’s Flower School: Mastering the Art of Floral Design – Instructions and photographs from one of the world’s most famous floral design experts.

The Judith Blacklock’s Encyclopedia of Flower Design – Step by step advice on the art of floral arrangement from an author of five best-selling books.

Wedding Bouquets: Over 300 Designs for Every Bride – If you ever plan to try your hand at designing a wedding bouquet, this is the place to start. Plenty of photos are devoted to each bouquet from every possible angle.

Flowers: The Complete Book of Floral Design – Contains more than 80 projects that allow readers to learn from hands-on experience. Learn about color and design choices.

These suggested books for beginning florists will help you get started on the right foot, whether you intend to approach flowers as a hobby or a future career path. Working outdoors is a great excuse to commune with nature and get some sunlight, and it’s even more enjoyable if you have a clue what you’re doing.

Some people see a gift of flowers as exclusively female. The natural beauty and delicate fragrance of flowers lend themselves to the feminine, to be sure, but just because something is attractive and easy on the nose doesn’t mean it can’t be an appropriate gift for men. In fact, I know many men who love a gift of flowers or other plants as much or more than women.

The trick in finding good flower and plant gift delivery for men is focusing on the individual you’re gifting and the sort of flowers or plants they like. When it comes to floral gift delivery, there are three kinds of men: the softy, the gardener, and the collector. We’ll take a look at each type of guy and a list of good floral gift delivery ideas for each.

Gift Delivery for the Softy

The softy is a difficult creature to identify in the wild. In my own experience, the toughest looking and hardest working men are often softys at heart. The only way to know if a guy is a softy is to get to know him.

The softy will often cry at particularly sad commercials. Remember the ketchup commercial where the young boy can’t get the ketchup out of the bottle and a single tear runs down his cheek? That commercial is the perfect way to identify the softy. Anything sad is an opportunity for the softy to well up with tears and show his true colors.

You won’t recognize a softy until you’re in his natural environment. A softy has keepsakes from his childhood around his home and tends to be the kind of guy that gets drunk on just a couple of bottles of beer. Thankfully for people looking to give the softy a gift, he is the easiest type to choose a floral delivery for.

The softy in your life is the only type of guy who will really appreciate a gift of cut flowers. Cut flowers tend to be the domain of the female–single-stem roses, arrangements of cut flowers, and bouquets of fresh flowers just aren’t masculine enough for most guys. But not the softy. He may work in construction, he may have played a little ball in college, but when it comes time for his birthday, an arrangement of beautiful fresh flowers is all his soft heart requires.

Here are the best flowers and plants for gift delivery to the softy:

• Chrysanthemums—these flowers are attractive, available in many colors, and stand for friendship
• Daisies—it may seem a little too feminine, but these flowers are symbols of loyalty
• Red roses—the softy loves gifts of romantic red roses from his wife or daughters
• Yellow roses—yellow is the color of friendship, and the yellow rose is a symbol of strength
• Alstroemeria—this flower is a bit on the rare side, but is perfect for men and stands for devotion
• Bamboo—in Asia, a gift of bamboo is a way of telling someone “Good luck”

Gift Delivery for the Gardener

It may seem like the gardener would be the easiest type of man to find the perfect floral gift delivery for, but this isn’t necessarily true. Men who garden take a very masculine approach to this normally sedate hobby, running their gardens with the iron fist of a third-world dictator. Men who garden are more likely to plan their garden to within an inch of its life, and won’t be likely to add anything to their garden or display of flowers without thinking about it and planning for months ahead of time. That makes a spontaneous flower or plant gift hard to swallow.

Still, a little bit of planning and a little bit of cash and you can find a wonderful floral gift delivery idea for a male gardener. Here are some ideas on what to buy the gardener that won’t put a burden on him to put your gift in his precious gardening real estate right away.

To relieve the gardener of the burden of having to put your gift in his garden, present him one of the following masculine plants and flowers in a nice pot. Some of them can be kept inside, some outside, but none of them will encroach on his gardening space, and they’re all wonderful plants for gardeners who like to get their hands a little dirty.

• Bonsai–many plants can be turned into bonsai, including cryptomeria. Gardeners will love the amount of care that bonsai require, and a bonsai in a pot is an automatic conversation starter
• Money Tree (pachira aquatica)–the cultivation and care of this plant, usually three stems braided into one, comes from Feng Shui and is thought to attract money and good fortune.
• Ponytail Palm–like a bonsai palm tree, the ponytail palm is a great conversation piece and a nice addition to a tropical or island garden
• Bromeliads–these tough and long-lived plants are great filler for deck gardens and require little care. This is a good “go to” gift for the male gardener if you’re unsure what else to give him

Gift Delivery for the Collector

Like men who garden, men who collect do it very aggressively. Most of the time, a man’s collection is less about the beauty and meaning of the individual items in his collection, and more about the size of the collection and its monetary value. Thankfully, that makes floral gift delivery for the collector an easy task. Men who prize rare things–be it 21 year old single male Scotch whisky or postage stamps–offer the floral gift giver lots of options.

• Orchids–There are more orchids on Earth than any other type of plant. Some of them are so rare that they can only be found in the most dense jungles and swamps. A gift of a rare orchid will put a smile on any collector’s face.
• Bleeding heart plant–This rare tropical plant grows flowers that look like, well, bleeding hearts.
• Caper plant–Capparis sandwichiana is a very delicate species of flower that grows around coastal areas in the Hawaiian Islands. Related to the plant that produces the capers we eat, the Caper plant’s flower is rare and not very hardy. A true challenge for a flower collector.
• Voodoo Lily–Sometimes called the Corpse Flower, the Voodoo Lily is a smelly and strange-looking plant that only blooms once every few years. A true rarity and a great addition to any collector’s home.

Christmas is the busiest time of the year. Sandwiched between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Christmas is a time when family and friends gather at each other’s homes for celebrations, meals, and gift-giving. Christmas also comes with a very specific set of decorations and ceremonies, many of which involve flowers and plants.

Typical Christmas colors are red and green: a tradition going back to the 14th century. Back then, Christian churches put on religious plays to teach an illiterate public about the church’s history. At Christmas time, the most popular play was the story of Adam and Eve. Since churches didn’t have access to apple trees during the winter, pine trees were substituted, and apples were hung on pine tree branches to simulate that tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden. 

That’s where we get our Christmas tree tradition and the red and green colors of Christmas. You learn something new every day.

Here are some Christmas flower arrangements and ideas for using flowers and plants to decorate your home for Christmas.

Basket of Light

Lights are a big part of Western Christmas tradition, representing the Christ child as the light of the world. Here’s a beautiful and easy Basket of Light decoration idea that’s perfect for the Christmas season.

You’ll need:

• a willow basket
• a dozen or so pine cones
• half a dozen fresh cedar branches or pine sprays
• LED string lights (use LED because they don’t get hot)
• poinsettia stems
• 1 1/2 yards of wire ribbon

To build your Basket of Light:

1. Fill half the basket with pine cones

2. String the LED lights in the basket. Hide the plug end behind or over the back of the basket so it isn’t lost among the pine cones.

3. Fill the rest of the basket with pine cones. Again, be sure to pull some of the lights upward as you fill so the lights don’t get covered up.

4. Add a few pine sprays to the basket. Try to use the pine sprays to hide the light strings.

5. Add your ribbon bow and decorate the rest of the basket to your liking.

Jute Twist Ornament

Country style Christmas ornaments using plants and flowers are a popular addition to any Christmas display. Using Jute twine to make Christmas ornaments will add a country touch to your Christmas tree.

You’ll need:

• 2 red berry sprays, 3-1/2 inches long each
• A hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Jute twine
• A tape measure
• Scissors

To build your Jute Twist ornament:

1. Bend both red berry sprays into the shape of a capital C.

2. Hot glue the stems of the jute sprays together, with the two C shapes facing each other.

3. Cut jute into the following lengths: 3 fet, two 10 inch, and one 8 inch. Make a loopy bow from the 3-foot length. Tie the center of the bow with both 10-inch lengths.

4. Glue your bow to the stems of the red berry sprays.

5. Fold the 8-inch length of jute in half and hot glue the open ends to the back of your stems for a tree hanger.

Evergreen Ornament

The evergreen wreath is the most common Christmas decoration, and it is easy enough to make on your own.

You’ll need:

• Ribbons
• A wire wreath frame (from the craft store)
• Floral wire
• Garden shears
• Gift bows
• Pine cones
• Scissors
• Wire clothes hangers

To make your Evergreen ornament:

1. Collect or purchase garden trimmings around six inches in length. The best trimmings are cedar, fir, pine, redwood, or oak. Pick up some holly or other red berries. When selecting trimmings, look for the ends of branches–the tip of a branch is the best part to use.

2. Attach #24 floral wire (also called paddle wire)  along the wire wreath frame. Tie the wire to the wreath frame and try to unspool it as you go, wrapping the wire around the frame along with your bundles of greenery.

3. Pick a handful of your best trimmings and place them together in a bunch with stems all at one end.

4. Put your bundle of trimmings on top of the frame where your floral wire is attached.

5. Holding that bundle in place, wrap your floral wire around both the bundle and the wreath frame.

6. Wrap more floral wire around the bundle a second time and pull the wreath tight. You’ll need to leave the floral wire attached to the frame.

7. Gather another bundle of greenage and place it so that it overlaps your first bunch, covering the stems. Make sure that the stems face the same way every time you attach a new bundle.

8. Continue doing this–overlapping greenery and wiring it to the frame–until you have completed a full circle.

9. Add pine cones to the wreath. You do this by tying a new section of paddle wire around the base of a pine cone leaving a piece behind between 8 and 10 inches. Tie this wired pine cone tail to the wreath frame.

10. Lift the first greenery bundle that you wired to the frame and tuck the last bundle of greenery underneath it.

11. Twist the floral wire tightly around your final greenery bundle. Knot the floral wire onto the wreath frame, leaving a one inch tail of wire you can use to hang your wreath.

12. Trim the hanging wire with scissors or a set of pruning shears afterwards.

Holiday Centerpieces

You can have centerpieces delivered from any of the big name online flower shops or even from your local florist. Some holidays are more difficult to find pre-fabricated centerpieces and arrangements for, but Christmas is not one of them.

A simple centerpiece to make at home if you don’t want to order one is to purchase or make a wreath, set it flat in the center of the table on a cream or white runner, and place a beautiful Christmas candle at the center.

The point of Christmas is to take time out of our busy lives, celebrate with friends, and take part in religious ceremonies as we choose. Decorating your home for Christmas should always include fresh plants and flowers, though you can buck the tradition of red and green if you want to break up the Christmas monotony.

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday based on the history of the settling of the country in the 17th century. Though our modern celebration of Thanksgiving has very little to do with the actual history of the country, it has become a favorite holiday for many Americans. Thanksgiving is the beginning of the holiday season that stretches from late November through the beginning of January and the new year.

Today’s Thanksgiving celebration has its roots in the Civil War, when President Lincoln declared a national day of thanks, in part to cool the tempers of his electorate. Since then, Thanksgiving has become a time of celebrating the settlement of our country by the Pilgrims and a time to stuff ourselves with turkey and watch sports.

Thanksgiving is a big time for decoration, crafting, and entertaining. That adds up to a big event for florists and people who want to design floral arrangements and display flowers in their home. Here are some Thanksgiving flower arrangements and ideas to help get your home into the Thanksgiving spirit.

Thanksgiving Flower Colors

Because Thanksgiving is in late November, just as the leaves are falling and fall is in full swing, Thanksgiving colors are traditionally the colors of fall. That means oranges, browns, and earthy tones of red, yellow, and even blacks trimmed with white  or white trimmed by black. The black and white motif comes from the Puritanical garb worn by the Pilgrims.

Flowers in good Thanksgiving colors include:

• roses
• miniature roses
• lilies
• sunflowers
• orchids in fall colors like yellow

Thanksgiving Floral Ideas

You can make an easy and inexpensive Thanksgiving centerpiece floral arrangement that, with a little alteration, will transition perfectly into a winter or even Christmas centerpiece.

A traditional fall arrangement includes fall colors of red, orange, brown, and earthy earthy autumn colors. Mimic the colors of changing leaves and you can’t go wrong with your Thanksgiving centerpiece.

The secret to making a Thanksgiving centerpiece that works equally well for Christmas is in your choice of greens. The week of Thanksgiving, arrange your Thanksgiving centerpiece with evergreens for greenery and a little bit of of cedar wood and trimmings–cedar lasts forever and smells beautiful. Decorate your centerpiece for Thanksgiving with lots of fall flowers and dry wheat stalks.

Around December 1st, you can take off the Thanksgiving flowers, the wheat, and any other fall leaves you have on the centerpiece, and simply replace them with bright red flowers, perfect for Christmas. Add a few Christmas ornaments, a golden or sparkling silver Christmas bow, and your Thanksgiving centerpiece will transition perfectly into Christmas.

If you make your Thanksgiving centerpiece floral arrangement in a long rectangular shape, it is perfect for a long table. We all know how long our tables can get on Thanksgiving, when family and friends show up out of the blue expecting Thanksgiving dinner. You could also make the centerpiece in a small round version for a smaller or round table.

The rustic look is another good fit for Thanksgiving, and is easy enough to put together. The idea behind a rustic country floral design for Thanksgiving is to use lots of wildflowers and homemade crafts to put together the perfect Thanksgiving/fall arrangement. Sunflowers are good Thanksgiving flowers for rustic arrangements because of their rich autumn color, their country appeal, and how well they last in an arrangement. With proper care, an arrangement built mainly of sunflowers could last as long as two weeks.

Thanksgiving Flowers and Food

For most people, Thanksgiving is all about food. Combining beautiful Thanksgiving flowers with food is a wonderful gift to start the holiday season. If you’re planning on making floral arrangements or gifts of flowers to friends for Thanksgiving, go one step further and throw in some baked goods or other food items for a unique and delicious gift.

Consider putting together a display of inexpensive fall-colored roses and combining it with all the ingredients necessary to bake cookies or brownies. You could combine a bag of dry ingredients pre-mixed (flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, chocolate chips, rolled oats) with a recipe drawn in calligraphy and neatly wrapped with a pretty fall colored bow and your rose bouquet for a very thoughtful and (eventually) delicious Thanksgiving floral gift.

Or make a batch of pumpkin bars, and wrap them individually or in small groups with a fall colored single stem flower like a dark red lily or orange rose. Here’s a quick pumpkin bar recipe that will impress your friends, and the flower it is presented with can be displayed as part of their Thanksgiving decorations:

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 15-ounce can pumpkin
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Icing:
• 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Using an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until it is light in texture. Stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add all of your  dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until it is combined and the batter is perfectly smooth. Spread this batter into a 13 x 10-inch baking pan. Bake the bars for 30 minutes. Cut them into bars of any shape and size you prefer.
3. To make your pumpkin bar icing, mix cream cheese and butter in a bowl until they are smooth. Add in your sugar and mix it all at a low speed until it is combined. Stir in vanilla and mix the whole icing batch again. Spread the icing on fully cooled pumpkin bars.

Whatever kind of floral arrangement or Thanksgiving decoration you make, just stick to traditional Thanksgiving colors and you’ll probably hit the mark. Remember that Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and food, and tailor your floral arrangements and gifts of flowers accordingly.

Rose bush diseases are most often diseases of the leaves on the rose bush, not the flowers themselves. There are some rose bush diseases that show symptoms on the flowers, such as black spots on blossoms, but diseases like powdery mildew and other fungus diseases are the most common problems for rose bushes.

In my experience, there’s nothing more frustrating for a rose gardener than a rose bush disease. Most rose varieties are fairly delicate, and we spend so much time tending to them, caring for them, and planning and organizing their maintenance that a diseased rose bush feels like a diseased part of our body. Our rose bushes are like members of our families. 

Besides diseases, there are lots of pests that attack rose blossoms and bushes. Even in the face of attack by pests and disease, rose bushes are worth growing and caring for. They add the perfect element to any landscape or garden, and the positive aspects of rose ownership far outweigh the potential headaches caused by rose bush diseases and pests.

Disease Resistant Roses

If you’re worried about rose bush diseases and pests, you should consider planting some of these varieties of rose known to be disease-resistant and sometimes even pest-resistant.

New Dawn climbing roses are large-flowered climbers, some of the most popular roses in the world. These climbing roses need a strong support for the twenty-five foot canes that grow. The flowers are a soft pink with a fruity fragrance that grow in clusters. Zones 5-10 only.

Blaze climbing roses produce a large blanket of two to three inch scarlet-red double rose blossoms. Plant these roses in a sunny area with good drainage and you’ll have beautiful red disease-resistant blossoms throughout summer and fall. These roses climb eight to ten feet tall.

Rugosa roses are naturally disease and pest-resistant and come in many different colors and varieties. They are weather-hardy and bloom a very long time, sometimes across three seasons.

Hybrid Rugosa roses are great disease and pest-resistant choices if you live in a zone too cold for standard Rugosa roses. They can also flourish in poor soil and in soil that isn’t very well-drained.

Knockout roses are the most disease-resistant roses on the market. There are seven different varieties of Knockout rose, some with double blossoms. They bloom from spring until the first frost and require very little maintenance.

Preventing Common Rose Bush Diseases

Taking control of your roses and protecting them from black spots and other rose bush diseases is a combination of choosing good rose varieties that are well-suited for your growing zone,  getting advice from your local nursery about which roses to grow, doing proper care and maintenance year-round on your roses, and knowing what treatments work for what diseases and pests.

Powdery Mildew Rose Bush Disease

Powdery mildew is actually a fungus that grows on rose bushes that experience humid nights and hot days. The most obvious symptom of this fungus is a powdery white colored residue on rose bush leaves. This fungus causes the leaves to crinkle and grow into all sorts of odd shapes.

The best treatment for powdery mildew rose bush disease is a simple and non-toxic baking soda solution. Mix two tablespoons of horticultural oil with one tablespoon of mild dish soap (I prefer Dawn) and a heaping tablespoon of baking soda. Mix this oily paste into one gallon of water and stir until the ingredients are combined.

Now water the rose bushes that are to be treated very well, making sure to wet down all the foliage. Spray the baking soda mixture as soon as the bush is in full shade, such as the early morning or evening, otherwise the mixture could burn the blossoms and leaves.

You can also use this treatment as a preventative–spray your rose bushes once a week with the baking soda mixture as soon as the leaves first appear, then twice a month after the first treatment.

Black Spot Rose Bush Diseases

Humidity doesn’t cause black spots on roses, no matter what your rose gardening friends say. The actual cause of black spots is rain and overhead watering. When you use overhead watering instead of deep root watering, the leaves stay wet for so long that fungus grows on them. Rain can also cause black spots.

To treat black spots, use the same baking soda mixture you would use for powdery mildew, and pre-treat your rose bushes with baking soda to prevent black spots as well. The best way to prevent black spots is to water at the base of the bushes and not from above.

Rusty Rose Bush Diseases

Another fungus that loves rose bushes is what gardeners call “rust.”  Rust most frequently attacks hybrid tea rose bushes and other rose bushes that have large leaves. Rust on roses is most common on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, though it can happen anywhere.

The symptoms? Rusty looking spots on the underside of the leaves and yellowish rusty spots on top of the leaves. The only way to control rust on your rose bushes is to remove the leaves showing symptoms and totally destroy them.

To prevent rust on your roses, prune the bushes before buds break in the early spring to reduce the number of fungus spores on your bushes and pray for the best.

Common Rose Bush Pests and Insects

Insects love your rose bushes as much as you do, maybe more because they use them for food and shelter. Every rose garden is going to have some insect and pest presence, but there are things you can do to cut back on the pests and their effects on the bushes.

Aphids are the most common rose pest. You won’t find a rose in any garden without some aphids present. These nasty pests create a sticky sweet juice-like substance that attracts mold. The best non-toxic way to deal with aphids on your rose bushes is to blast your bushes with a hose and knock the nasty creatures off. You should also spray your bushes with a non-toxic insecticidal soap bought from your nursery. A terrific organic way to get rid of aphids is using a spray made from rhubarbs. Find this spray at your local garden supply store.

Japanese Beetles are most common east of the Mississippi River, though they thrive pretty much all over the country these days, except for the desert. Japanese beetles swarm in groups. You’ll never find just one Japanese Beetle on your rose bushes. To get rid of Japanese Beetles, just pull them off your roses and drop them in a bucket of soapy water.

Spider mites respond to blasts of water from the hose like aphids. Hit your rose bushes daily with the hose (after the hottest part of the day) to knock them off the underside of leaves.

I believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and this is especially true for roses and other garden plants. The more diligant you are in preventing rose bush diseases, the less problems with rose diseases you will have over the life of your rose garden.

Growing roses from seed is difficult, time-consuming, and probably not a task the amateur gardener should attempt. If you want to put in a rose garden, beautify your landscape with roses, or add rose cultivation and care to your life, you should start by purchasing rose bushes for sale and learning to take care of rose bushes.

Rose bushes for sale can be found everywhere, from your neighborhood nursery to online stores. The key to buying rose bushes for sale is figuring out which rose bush varieties grow best in your growing zone, which rose bushes match your ability to maintain and care for them, and the color and style of roses you want in your garden or landscaping project.

Easy to Maintain Rose Bushes

If you’re just starting out in your rose bush hobby, you should probably select rose bushes that are easy to care for and maintain. Some rose bushes are finicky, and require a lot of patience and care. Other rose bush varieties are hardy, flourish in almost any growing condition, and are naturally disease-resistant.

Here is a list of the easiest rose bushes to maintain, along with pricing and other information for the new rose hobbyist.

Hope For Humanity–This shrub rose is much easier to care for than a hybrid tea rose bush. Hope for Humanity was developed to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Canadian Red Cross. This shrub rose that produces clusters of five to twelve red blooms on a stem, so each stem is a bouquet. This is the first rose bush to bloom and the last one to quit blooming, with a growing season from Spring to Fall. Retails for around $25.

Carefree Delight–Carefree roses mix well with other shrubs and have blooming periods almost as long as Hope for Humanity. Created in England, Carefree Delight has five pink petals and a beautiful yellow stamen with a white eye. This is a landscape rose, so it flourishes just as well in a pot or in soil. Retails for around $18.

John Davis–This climbing rose, another Canadian variety, can hold up to 1,000 blooms at one time. Climbing roses tend to bloom in June. John Davis features clusters of double blooms in medium pink with yellow stamens. This climber is also thornless and has been known to bloom through mild winters. Retails for around $20.

William Baffin–Another hearty climbing rose, William Baffin climbers will bloom throughout the summer in big clusters of strawberry pink roses. Very little maintenance is needed, though this climber does have thorns, so it may not be the best planter for a yard with kids. Retails for around $18.

Double KnockOut–Developed to be naturally disease-resistant, this hearty little rose bush has shiny bright pink and red blossoms as big as three inches wide. This rose blooms from summer through the first frost, with fully double blossoms and an average petal count of 25. You don’t even have to deadhead or trim this rose to keep the blooms coming. Retails for around $30.

Inexpensive Rose Bushes

If you’re looking for inexpensive roses to start your rose hobby on, you’re in luck. Tons of inexpensive roses exist, in various styles from hybrid tea roses to Grandiflora.

Here are my favorite inexpensive rose bushes along with some details about the bush itself.

Lavender Simplicity–Simplicity roses are easy to grow and care for and are some of the least expensive rose bushes you’ll find. This is a container rose in a beautiful lavender color, a citrusy rose scent, and able to grow in a wide range of zones, from 5-10. My nursery has Simplicity rose bushes selling for as little as $9.95.

Simplicity–Essentially the same rose as the Lavender Simplicity but in a light pink color and a more traditional rose scent. This rose bush grows in zones 5-10, though it has been known to survive warmer weather as well. This is another rose bush that you can often find for under $10.

Beach Blanket–This groundcover rose works well in a container or in a landscape, and has wild tropical colors of pink and yellow-gold with a rich citrusy rose scent. Easy to grow in even the worst soils, Beach Blanket groundcover roses will thrive in Zones 3-10, making it one of the more adaptable inexpensive rose bushes. My nursery is selling Beach Blanket rose bushes in a container for $12.

Bubblicious–Named for the bubble-gum pink color and sweet candy scent, Bubblicious roses are a relatively new addition to the rose market, but since they are best as container roses, they aren’t very pricey. Disease-resistant with dark green foliage, Bubblicious rose bushes are great landscape roses or filler for a deck garden, and they will only set you back about $12 per bush.

Good n’ Plenty–The perfect rose for any American climate, Good n’ Plenty roses have dark pink blossoms and are ideal as a low hedgerow or bottom filler for any garden or landscape. Thriving in zones 3-10 mean you can stick Good n’ Plenty roses in just about any climate and you’ll have no trouble with their cultivation.

Double Delight–This hybrid tea rose isn’t the easiest rose to grow and is pretty fickle about its climate, but if you want to try your hand at more advanced rose bush cultivation and care, the $15 price tag shouldn’t be too much of a risk for you. Pink, yellow, and strawberry red colors make Double Delight the star of any garden, though there’s no disease or pest resistance and you’ll have to do a good deal of pruning and deadheading to maintain the bush.

Growing and caring for roses is a hobby enjoyed by millions of people around the world, but it doesn’t have to mean a huge financial investment or a ton of time spent cultivating, clipping, and perfecting the art of rose growing. Start small, with roses that match your climate, and you’ll eventually get the hang of caring for and maintaining roses.

Myths about keeping flowers fresh are as old as the tradition of keeping fresh flowers indoors. We’ve all heard about putting a penny in the vase with cut flowers, and the myriad packets of flower food we accumulate around Valentine’s Day could probably feed a forest floor. To further complicate things, some people swear that different water temperature keeps flowers fresh, while others swear they’ve discovered a trick to extend the life of their flowers threefold.

No matter what trick you use, your beautiful fresh cut flowers will eventually wilt. With a little luck and a few tricks of the trade, you can learn to keep your flowers fresher for a longer period of time. Using the tricks and tips below, some people keep their flowers from wilting for two weeks or more.

Cutting Flowers for Freshness

The best way to cut fresh flowers is to use a very sharp un-serrated knife, and to make sure to dunk the cut end of the stems in water as soon as the cutting is finished. What you learned as a child about cutting flowers is true: cut the stem on a slant to expose a larger surface area of the stem to water. You should also remove any leaves that will be under the water line, as they can rot and create bacteria that shorten the life of the flower. Never remove thorns from roses–this shortens the life of the rose dramatically.

If you are cutting flowers from your own garden, the best time to do so is first thing in the morning or just before the sun goes down. The reason is simple–it is cooler outside at those times. Also, in the morning your plant is full of stored food and the flowers are really fragrant, perfect for cutting.

If you really want to protect your flower from wilting early, hold the stem underwater when you make the cut. This will prevent air from entering the stem and blocking the uptake of water.

Flower Food Packets

Those little packets of “flower food” that usually come with floral deliveries are kind of mysterious. To understand the ingredients of these packets, you need to understand what happens to a flower when it gets cut at the stem. In layman’s terms, the flower is removed from its life support system. Those commercial floral preservatives are made up of the basics that flowers need to live–an ingredient called a biocide that kills bad bacteria, an acidifier, and sugars.

Bacteria in a vase or a flower’s water system grows in just a few hours, plugging up the stem that feeds the flower with water. Buds won’t open, the stems weaken, and leaves wilt. The acid in commercial plant preservatives assists water in moving up the stem, while the sugars are a basic flower food.

Natural Flower Preservatives

The old penny-in-the-vase trick can be combined with the aspirin myth to create a sort of natural flower preservative that’s healthier for the environment than the florist’s chemical plant food.

Copper from a (clean) penny will act as a natural fungicide to protect the vase water from bacteria and fungus, and the aspirin will turn the water acidic and help the flower take on water.

There are other natural ways to keep your flowers fresh longer. Here are some popular methods:

One part lemon-lime soda (not diet) added to three parts water forms the base liquid for the vase. For every one quart of this soda and water solution, pour in a quarter teaspoon of bleach.

One quart of water with two tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a single tablespoon of sugar, and a half teaspoon of bleach will also protect your flower from bacteria and provide the food it needs to last for as long as two weeks.

Take a gallon of water and pour in two ounces of Listerine brand mouthwash. Listerine contains both sucrose to feed the plant and a bactericide to protect it. As a bonus, Listerine is acidic and the water will more easily move up the flower’s cut stem.

Hair Spray for Flower Freshness

A small amount of hair spray can preserve your cut flowers for as much as two extra days. Stand one foot behind your bouquet and give the underside of the leaves and petals a blast of hair spray.

Refined Sugar for Flower Freshness

Since plants feed on sucrose, refined sugar makes for an inexpensive and simple plant food. Pour three tablespoons of sugar and two tablespoons of white vinegar into every quart of your flower’s water. IMPORTANT–when you add flowers to a vase of this preparation, check to make sure that the cut flower stems are covered by no more than 3-4 inches of the prepared food liquid. The sugar feeds your plants,  the vinegar inhibits bacterial growth, and the small amount of water keeps wilted or rotting foliage out of the water. Some people report flowers living up to three weeks in this solution without wilting.

Vodka for Flower Freshness

Vodka is good for more than forgetting about your awful day at work–vodka in the right preparation can keep your cut flowers fresh for a very long time. The trick with protecting flowers from wilt is to cut down on the bacterial growth in the flower’s water. Just a few drops of vodka added to a flower’s water will act as an antibacterial and a natural plant food, since alcohol contains sugar. The trick here is to change the water and add fresh vodka every day.

Other Tricks for Keeping Flowers Fresh

• Place your recently cut flowers in very cold water. Warm water quickly dehydrates fresh flowers.
• If you place recently cut flowers in the refrigerator for up to six hours before you arrange them, their lifespan will be two or three times longer.
• If your flowers have wilted, place them in very hot water (between 110 and 200 degrees F) can temporarily restore them, though you only have a day or two left after the hot water treatment due to dehydration.
• Never put stems under more than six inches of water. It encourages bacterial growth and is a waste of water.
• Retrim the bottom of your stems on an opposite slant every two days for maximum flower freshness.

The work of a florist is not often glamorous. Florists don’t make six-figure salaries, drive fancy cars, or get their own reality TV shows. Florists have many responsibilities to their customers and to the flower shop they work in. Far from mere floral designers, the job of a florist involves more than creating beautiful flower arrangements and providing good customer service.

A good florist is the life’s blood of the flower shop. The flower shop owner (if the florist does not own his or her own shop) usually takes care of the day to day operation of a flower shop, from payroll to paying the bills and advertising the florist’s services. The florist takes care of everything else, from keeping the flower shop clean, to placing orders and fulfilling customer requests. But a good florist knows the ins and outs of the flower shop as well as anyone, to take over in case the shop’s needs aren’t being met by another employee.

Here are the responsibilities of a florist, with details on every part of a florist’s job.

1. Ordering all necessary items to run the flower shop, create arrangements, fulfill any possible need of the customers, and to keep items in stock that are necessary for arranging and selling flowers. In many shops, this ordering process may be carried out by the flower shop’s owner, but understanding the ins and outs of the ordering process is important to be a successful florist. Ordering these materials usually requires a relationship with a flower wholesaler or flower supply shop, so developing professional relationships is also a big part of a florist’s job.
2. Receiving flower and stock shipments. Receiving wholesale flower deliveries involves more than signing off on an invoice–florists should know how to inventory, control backstock, and properly manage floral supplies and inventory. This is another duty that may be carried out by the shop owner or another employee, but a florist should know how to do every part of the flower shop business in case an employee is sick, the shop is understaffed, or if they want to someday own a flower shop themselves.
3. Unloading and stocking inventory properly. A business that doesn’t properly unload and stock their inventory won’t be successful long. Since flowers and other produce are sensitive to spoilage and shelf lives, properly maintaining inventory is essentially the same as maintaining profits.
4. Maintaining all flowers and inventory. This is why a florist needs to understand something about horticulture. Every plant and flower has its own unique needs in terms of pruning, watering, and light. If the flower shop a florist works in sells things like herbs and other produce, this part of the job is even more complicated. Maintaining plants and flowers is sometimes the main work of a florist, since even in a florist’s “downtime” there is always some sort of floral work to do.
5. Pricing the flowers and inventory. Again, some flower shops leave this job up to the shop owner or other employees, but understand inventory pricing and knowing how to place and set prices is crucial for florists who run their own shops or hope to one day run a flower shop of their own. Prices change based on seasonal availability of flowers and plants, and during holiday seasons, flower shops tend to change prices to meet demand and due to higher or lower prices from wholesalers. Pricing also means knowing how and when to use sale prices to increase profits.
6. Dealing with customers. That means proper phone and email etiquette, and knowing how to turn a walk in customer into a sale. Taking a correct order over the phone is a crucial skills, since a large portion of a flower shop’s business happens over the phone. A florist should also be able to answer customer questions on any of the stock.
7. Helping customers select flowers, plants, and arrangements for gifts or special occasions. Florists ought to have a natural eye for floral design and arrangement, but communicating that skill to a customer so they’re confident in their purchase is important too.
8. Understanding colors, sizes, shapes, and the other details of floral arrangement will help florists create arrangements and point customers toward appropriate purchases. This is where certification in floral design and floriculture becomes important for the florist. Florists should be able to eyeball an arrangement or plant and determine if it is appealing to eye and what sort of customer would like that flower or arrangement. Learning about new flowers and plant arrangements and hybrids is also important. Continuing education in floral design and floriculture is as important as selling and arranging flowers.
9. Creating flower arrangements to sell within the shop and the arrangements that are ordered by the shops customers is probably the most important job of the florist. Customer orders range from single stems, small arrangements, or entire floral presentations for weddings, funerals, or parties. This is the part of the job that most people think of when they heard the word “florist.”
10. Observing all of the shop’s bookkeeping activities, maintaining financial records, manning the cash register, and handling all the money coming into and going out of the shop is as important as any other one job in the flower shop. Florists are often charged with making bank deposits and withdrawals and alerting the shop owner of any inconsistencies or issues with the shop’s money.

These ten duties can be considered the main responsibilities of a florist, though every flower shop is different. Some of the above duties may be carried out by apprentices or other flower shop employees, and some flower shops will require even more from their florists. A flower shop’s size, location, and specialty affects a florist’s responsibilities as much as any other one factor.

Ordering flowers online is expensive. Even discount flower delivery websites tack on enough fees to drive up the price of a $19.99 flower arrangement to well over $35. Online flower delivery is convenient, and as with any convenience purchase you end up paying more for the privilege.

Buying flowers or ordering a flower delivery from your local flower shop is usually much cheaper than ordering flowers for delivery online. The biggest way you save when ordering from a retail flower shop is avoiding the middle man cost tacked on to every online flower order. You rarely have to spend more for flower delivery than the price you’re quoted for the flowers you’re sending.

Here are some other ways to find flowers under $10 at your local flower shop. Saving on flower delivery is easy when you deal with your friendly neighborhood florist.

Roses Under $10

Gifts of roses are a traditional way to say I Love You. There are roses for sending to a lover, roses for friends, and arrangements of roses that are perfect for Mother’s Day and anniversary gifts. Believe it or not, there are roses for under $10.

The cheapest roses you can find are miniature rose bushes. Your local florist can point you toward the perfect miniature rose bush for the occasion. Though a gift of a rose bush is not the traditional single-stem rose presentation or bouquet of roses that your lover or friend may be expecting, miniature rose bushes make a unique gift of love. Miniature roses are inexpensive, as little as $5 or $6 per miniature bush.

Miniature rose bushes are anywhere from six inches to two feet tall and come in all varieties and colors. Because miniature roses are a specialty item, your neighborhood florist may only have a few varieties to choose from, but if you have time to wait for a shipment, you can probably order any kind of miniature rose bush that the florist’s wholesaler has access to.

Discount Flowers

Many florists keep inexpensive flowers around for customers looking to deliver flowers at a lower cost. Walk into a flower shop and let the florist know you don’t have much to spend and he or she will be happy to direct you toward their less expensive flowers.

Often, single stems of flowers are available for much less than $10. You can pick and choose from your florist’s discounted flower stems to make an inexpensive arrangement of your own. A simple gift of a few single stem flowers will brighten the gift recipient’s day as much as a more expensive arrangement, and often a presentation of a single flower is far more romantic than a big boisterous presentation of a bouquet of roses.

The least expensive flowers at retail shops tend to be single stems. If you’re not shopping during February (when prices go up for Valentine’s Day) you can usually find roses around $2 per stem. Hydrangeas are another beautiful and relatively inexpensive flower, around $5 or $6 for a single stem which contains a large number of small but colorful blossoms on one stem. Gerbera daisies, mini Calla lilies, and various carnation varieties are also less expensive but still beautiful flowers.

Buy Flowers From a Wholesaler

If you’re lucky, there’s a flower wholesaler in your town. Buying from a wholesaler offers huge discounts on flower and even pre-fabricated arrangements, but you have to buy in bulk.

One year at Christmas, I made up my mind to send gifts of flowers to my entire Christmas gift list. People aren’t expecting flowers at Christmas, so it was a nice surprise. I bought boxes of different flowers from an online wholesaler and made my own simple arrangements. People who live nearby got hand-made arrangements in nice vases that I also picked up at the wholesaler for a discount. People in faraway towns got the flowers in a box–I made them tabletop arrangements for their Christmas dinner or New Year’s celebration.

Flower wholesaler’s prices vary, but here are some examples from the wholesaler in my hometown:

• 8 mixed mini Calla lily bouquets for $99
• 10 bunches of pink daisies for $89
• 1 wedding rose pack for $100 (includes 25 roses, 3 bunches of filler flowers, 1 bunch of tree fern)

Not everyone has a flower wholesaler in their area, so ordering from an online flower wholesaler is your only option. Generally, the prices of online floral wholesalers is higher than wholesalers with retail storefronts, but you still get great deals on bulk flowers.

Order Unusual Flowers

The next time you’re considering a $40 or $50 gift of roses, consider looking for rose alternatives that cost much less and leave as good of an impression.

Florists in my area are big on what are called desert roses–these are actually relatives of the plumeria plant, and not related to roses, though they look similar. Desert roses are available in many colors, and since they thrive on little water and lots of sun, are perfect gifts for people who aren’t very good with flowers. My florist sells bunches of desert roses for around $10.

Another alternative to the more expensive red roses are what are known as rainbow rose bouquets. These are made up of a small number of red roses filled in with other colors of rose. Red roses are more expensive around Valentine’s Day and other holidays because they’re in high demand. When red roses are in demand, other colors of rose are cheaper. That’s why a bouquet of rainbow roses is much more affordable than a bouquet of all red roses. My florist sometimes hooks me up with a half-size bouquet of rainbow roses for $10-$12.

Buy Flowers in Season

In America, we’re used to getting produce and flowers that we want regardless of the growing season. This is thanks in part to expanded farming in South America (why do you think we can get tomatoes year-round?) and improved storage and warehousing techniques here in the States. But all that specialized growing and storage costs money.

Buying flowers when they’re in season makes them cheaper. The easiest way to buy in season flowers is to send wildflowers. Wildflowers are beautiful and they’re always in season. Otherwise, ask your florist what’s currently in season and you can take your pick of cheaper flowers.