Shamrock Plant

Saint Patrick Day is not complete without a Shamrock plant!!

Otherwise known as oxalis, shamrocks has a spring feel and signifies good luck.  It’s a welcoming addition to any home.  This year at Bank of Memories & Flowers we are caring the traditional green and white flowered shamrock plant and also the burgundy-leafed with purple flowers (my favorite!).  

Shamrocks are easy to take care of and provide years of enjoyment with very little care.  These plants require a different watering schedule than most other houseplants.  The soil barely needs to be kept moist with watering once every 10 or 14 days. They prefer indirect light. The neatest thing about shamrock plants is that they react to light, folding up their leaves on overcast days or at night and opening them on sunny days when there is light.

Happy St. Patrick Day!

Vintage Garden Wedding

Vintage garden weddings are a new trend for 2013 brides in Wisconsin.  Here are a few simple tips on how you can create this look and make your wedding exstrodinaty with detail.

Adding flower clusters to the first few pews can really make an inexpensive statement.  This is a simply way to make the venue your own and to carry out your theme.

Having a unique details like your Grandma's broach or a heirloom ring will create special remembering moments.

Soften up the look of your cake with fresh flowers.  

Icing flowers are out, bring the garden in.  Flowers can also be a great way to bring your theme colors onto your white cake.

Just having simple vases filled with candles are not enough, flowers soften this look and are the key ingredient to Garden Vintage. 

(Great garden flowers: garden roses, miniature garden roses, freesia, hydrangeas, veronica, lisianthus)

Finish your place setting with detail.  Adding a few fresh flowers to each napkin can really get your guest talking.  

Project Prom Dress

 3^rd Annual Project Prom Dress Drop Off at 

Bank of Memories & Flowers, Menomonee Falls

Give back this year!!  The Pass It On Network through Elmbrook Church, 

is collecting gently used/clean prom dresses to be given to 

girls who can’t afford a dress for Prom.

COLLECTION DATES:  Now until March 20^th at 

Bank of Memories & Flowers in Menomonee Falls.

For anyone in need of a beautiful Prom dress the DISTRIBUTION DATES are:  

MAR. 23^RD  10:00 am- 1pm

   MAR. 26^th  6:00 pm-8:00 pm

    APRIL 10^th 6:00 pm -8:00 pm

At Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Menomonee Falls

Tulips Galore!!!

Come to Bank of Memories & Flowers and pick up a little spring for your home!  Our 10 stem colorful tulip bouquets are only $9.98.  Many people don't know that fresh cut tulips will keep growing in a vase, often gaining an inch or more in height!  The spontaneous nature of tulips always makes for an interesting display.  Everyday, tulips have a different look!!

Tulips are stunning when displayed on their own or paired with a variety of other fresh flowers. My personal favorite is tulips paired with long-lasting alstroemeria and colorful lilies for a bright spring look. They are the perfect gift to celebrate birthdays, congratulations, new baby, or send to family and friends. Except for the dahlia, tulips come in more colors than any other flower.

To maximize the life of your cut tulip arrangement, immediately cut the stems under running water (to prevent air intake) and continue to re-cut an inch from the flower stems every few days. Keeping fresh water in a vase will also help breathe life into your tulips. And, remember, tulips will bend and twist toward a source of light – to straighten bent tulips, wrap the stems tightly with damp newspaper, tie then with a rubber band or twine, and stand them in deep, lukewarm water directly below a light source. In a couple of hours, your tulips will be standing tall again.

Wedding Planning Tips

Brides, your wedding flowers are the second most photographed thing on your wedding day, beside you of course. If you're planning a wedding, here are a few flower tips to keep in mind!

Make sure you don't order your flowers too late. Flowers are shipped in from different countries all over the world and they need time to get here for your special day. Make sure you book your florist at least 4-6 months before your wedding and the sooner the better.

Also, keep in mind that the room that you choose for your reception will have people in it that day. Try and keep the big picture in mind. Taller centerpieces on the tables mean they will be in a lot of wedding photos, and who doesn't want beautiful flowers in their pictures?

When picking out your bouquet flowers, don't rule out expensive flowers. Yes, orchids and peonies are going to be more expensive, but they do cover a lot of space in your bouquet making it larger and more colorful. Also, whichever flowers you do pick, make sure you care for them. Your bouquet is a living thing, and it probably needs water. For instance, we send along vases with water for your bouquets, and you can set them on the head table as decoration while you're eating and dancing.

After you have picked out your dress colors, try and find a complementing color for your flowers. Having hot pink bridesmaid dresses with all hot pink flowers will lead to dissappointing wedding pictures.

Your wedding day is a day for you to not worry about anything, and do-it-yourself flowers is exactly the opposite. Once you start purchasing your own vases and flowers it starts to get more pricey.  Plus, after the big day is over, you're stuck with all that glassware. Consider renting vases, it is a lot cheaper, and a whole lot less stressful. At Bank of Memories & Flowers we offer many items the you can rent.

Lastly, make sure you communicate with your florist. Knowing what you like and what look you are going for is just as important as knowing what you don't like. Here at Bank of Memories & Flowers, we love when brides bring in pictures so we can get the exact feel for what kind of florals they want at their wedding.

Happy wedding all!

Countdown to Valentines

Valentine's Day is the busiest time of the year for us and we love it!!  Armies of our delivery vans will circle the entire Milwaukee and Lake Country areas surprising lucky ladies and even men with bragging rights for their desks at work or kitchen tables at home!  

At Bank of Memories & Flowers, it takes months to prepare for the absolute busiest day in the floral design industry. This is because it is only one day, and everyone wants something on this very special day (or else its the dog house!).  

We have to be prepared and do everything in a very short period of time.  While you are planning your Thanksgiving meal, we are calculating our sales from last year to see how many roses we will have to order (over 3,500 stems of red and 1,500 colored).  Our flower orders need to be turned in well before Christmas! A month out, a couple of the girls at the shop and I unloaded a total weight of 1549.46 pounds (to be exact) of glass vases off a huge semi truck.  The day before Valentine's Day, we are busy arranging hundreds of orders.  The night before, we route the delivery boards so 13 drivers can be delivering arrangements around the same area. 

The key to our success it to not only start preparing months before the big day, but to have a venti starbucks coffee in hand everyday leading up until Valentine's.  It's a great deal of hard work, but the satisfaction of filling someone's day with love keeps us going.
Happy Valentines Day!

Krista Roskopf
Manager, Menomonee Falls

Pinterest Intro

How many of you have caught on the Pinterest wagon?  
We have at Bank of Memories & Flowers and we love it!  We spend some of our nights "pinning" anything from recipes to finding (A LOT) flower inspiration.   Many of our brides have wedding boards with ideas of details for their weddings.  This is great tool because we can get a good sense of their style during or before their flower consultation.

Recently, we created "boards" on our Bank of Memories & Flowers Pinterest account with fun new ideas for wedding themes, baby showers,  to hot new color trends.  Check them Out!  Best part of this tool is you feel so organized.  No more cutting out clips from magazines, stuffing them into a file or trying to remember what website you saw that bouquet you loved.  You can create a file for it all.  Jump on the Pinterest craze and have fun seeing all that is out there.