The Flower Blog

 Sweetest Day is Oct. 15th!

Sweetest Day was first observed in 1921, which I found surprising because I thought it was a much younger holiday. Like many people, I thought it was a holiday made up recently by retailers to boost up October sales.  The holiday came about with what I believe is good intentions.

Sweetest Day was originally meant to be a day to remember husbands, boyfriends, elderly, sick and orphaned children. A committee of 12 confectioners planned the first Sweetest Day and they distributed over 20,000 boxes of candy orphans, the elderly, and the poor. They used the tag line “ The Sweetest Day in the year”.  I like the fact they gave away all of that candy to well deserving people.

 But today it focused more on remembering husbands, boyfriends, wives and girlfriends. There is nothing wrong with showing your appreciation for someone special in your life! Sometimes it does take a holiday like this to remind us to thank those we love.  But in a perfect world, I would like this holiday to return to its humble beginnings. It should be about the other people in our lives everyday that we appreciate very much but don’t say it.

This Sweetest Day remember someone special in your life and remember those who may need a little sweetness in their lives. Drop off some candy at the local shelter or bring your grandparents some flowers and chocolates!  Honestly, your grandparents will just be happy to see you!

Watch this video with gift ideas for your “Sweetest”.

Want to remember someone special in your life this Sweetest Day?  Click Below!

 Early Beginnings  

Prior to 1895, my (3 times) great Aunt Clara, Uncle Al Grande and family owned andoperated John Grande Greenhouse on Grande Avenue between Michigan and 10^th Streets.  In 1895, the greenhouse operation was expanded to include a full service florist shop on the same property:  John Grande and Sons.  In the late 40’s, the retail florist business was moved to a house at 2401 W. Washington Street (near George Washington High School).  In 1951, John Grande and Sons built a new facility at that same location, where it remained for 27 years.  The Gillespie Family, a generation removed from Aunt Clara and Uncle Al, purchased the business in 1960 and changed the name to reflect the current ownership in 1975.

The store front is pictured here facing East towards downtown on Washington Street.  The address was 2401 West Washington Street (near George Washington High School) which housed John Grande and Sons until 1978.
This picture of a casket spray was taken in the late 1960's and represents the style of that era.  Jim Gillespie, who owned John Grande and Sons at that time, was well known to his customers for this style of design.  Notice the carnation bloom attached to the end of each ribbon.

Two designers are pictured working at the front counter.  It is interesting to note the decor of the day, which has changed a lot. The traditional style of design has remained largely the same through the years.

Flowers For Life

When the business name changed in 1975, my father developed the idea of “Flowers for Life”.  This motto articulated the presence of flowers during the important occasions of our lives: birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, new babies, illness and sympathy expressions- all are enhanced with the gift of flowers.

To celebrate the grand opening of the business with the “new” name, a contest was held in which the winner would receive “Flowers for Life”.  The winning contestant received flowers on the first day of each season (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) for over 30 years.  When she passed away, her daughter shared with me how much her mother looked forward to receiving her flowers each season.  Gillespie Florists was honored to be a part of her life for many years.  We are proud to be a part of your life for years to come.

Get the flowers for your life! Click below to shop now!

  As some of you may know, I love watching HGTV in my spare time. I think that flowers relate to interior design quite a bit! You are dealing with color pallets, textures, and patterns and more, I’m sure.  I wanted to get a chance to check out an episode of the new show HGTV Great Rooms because I really like the new Design Star Meg Caswell.

Divalicious Kitchen

I tuned into a great episode!  I watched a new episode titled “Divalicious Kitchen”. This was a great episode to me because there were tons of flowers in the design of Meg’s client’s kitchen. Not fresh flowers though. I think she should have had a small vase of flowers to tie everything together instead of a carafe of water with lime slices. Meg used a floral pattern window treatment that was bright and fun. She also used a mid-century chandelier that she repainted and kind of looked like it had a flower feel. But my most favorite part of the design was a wall sculpture of flowers she commissioned a local artist to do! It was amazing and beautiful! I tried to find a picture of it but couldn’t which is too bad because it was the best part of the kitchen. So, I guess you will have to tune into HGTV to see this great design!  The picture I did find is just an example of decorative flowers for a wall but this is not nearly as cool as what is seen on the show!

Something More...

IF Meg had added a small bouquet to her design, I think it may have looked something like Baroque Garden.  This is a small cube filled with gerbera daisies, purple iris, hypericum berry and other flowers.  The only thing this bouquet is missing is some orange to match Meg’s design.

Flowers (of any kind) brighten any room. It livens up the space with a splash of color and they smell great too!  You can “commission” Gillespie Florists to make you a lovely bouquet for your home or office and I promise it will change your mood for the better!

We sell tons of purple flowers! Purple in general is a very popular color in everyday life so it's not that surprising it is also popular in flowers!  Purple comes in a large range of shades and can be found on the color wheel between red and blue. People like to match purple up in bouquets as a complementary color most commonly but will also use it for monochromatic color schemes.  Typically when a florist creates a monochromatic bouquet, they use several different shades of the same color.

Top 5 Purple Flowers

1.  Purple Rose

It is technically a lavender rose called Cool Water.  This rose is more on the pink side of lavender and sometimes customers request we get a shade that has more blue in it like Ocean Song. We use lavender roses in weddings all the time but also in everyday bouquets because customers love them so much! Customers stop in and hand pick them in our cooler as a wrapped dozen special that is just $19.95 at the moment. We get lavender roses multiple times a week!

2. Iris

We always have purple Iris in stock! It is a wonderful and versatile flower! Customers love Iris because of it deep shade of purple and love how the iris opens over the course of a day or two.  We get multiple shipments a week of Iris to be sure we can keep up with demand.  Iris has a touch of yellow on its petals that show off a great contrast and many times customers will match iris up with yellow roses or gerbera daisies.  Iris comes in the following colors: purple, blue, white and yellow.

3. Daisy

There are gerbera daises and daisy mums. I would say that gerberas are more popular in how much customers like them but we actually sell more stems of daisy mums. The reason for this is: gerbera daisies are $2.50 a stem and daisy mum are a $1.00 at stem.  That is our wrapped Take Out Only price.  Because of the value of the daisy mum, customers like to use our lavender daisy as a complimenting accent flower when creating their bouquet. Customers like to use the Gerbera daisy as feature or focal point flower.

4. Lily

The altroemeria lily is a smaller lily we keep in stock at all times and comes in a large variety of shades of purple. One of my favorites is a white alstroemeria with purple stripes! Customers love this value flower at just a $1.00 a stem (Take out only). It works as a great accent flower in any bouquet! A lot of our DIY brides love to use this flower in their wedding because of the variety of colors and versatility.  Customers can special order large hybrid purple lilies, just call 317.273.1100 for details! A hybrid lily is typically the size of a Star Gazer lily.

5. Larkspur

Larkspur comes in a large range of colors but we order more purple and lavender larkspur than any other shade.  Our designers like to pair up purple larkspur with blue delphinium.  They are very similar flowers in looks with just a slight difference in shade! Customers love this flower because you get a lot of bang for your buck! It is a very tall and skinny flower that will tower above the rest so it will give you great height to your bouquet.

I have customers ask me all the time if we even have any purple flowers. I tell them not only do have purple flowers but we have tons of them! All of the flowers mentioned above are on order every week!

You can also find the following in our cooler in a shade of purple in our cooler:

Carnations, mini-carnations, liatris, statice, limonium, gladiolas, dendrobium orchids, wax flower, stock, tulips,  monte casino aster,  spray rose, heather and so much more!

You never know what you will find in our cooler! Stop by sometime and tour our 500 square foot cooler. If you cannot make it in the store that’s OK! I made a video of all the purple flowers we had in stock.

Click below to view our purple flower video!

Click below to shop Purple Flowers on our Website!

Buy One, Get One Free!

This is the sale you've been waiting for! BOGO!

Buy one candle or mum and get one of equal or lesser value FREE! But you must come in the store to get this great deal! It's worth it though, with mums at $6.95. You can't find high quality large mums like we have at two for the price for one!

Where else can you find Woodwicks, Northern Lights, Colonial, Village, Time & Again Candles at Buy One, Get One? No where!

Some things to remember:

This is a Limited Time Only

Take Out Only - Not for delivery.

If you want to make sure the sale is still going on, give us a call!

317.273.1100

Check out this great video of the inside of our store where we not only show off our mums and candles but also some other great gift items!

Nature's Wedding Colors

As I was driving to the flower shop today, I noticed a gorgeous sunrise on the horizon. It’s not often in the hustle and bustle of life that we get to enjoy one of life’s simplest joys: nature. I observed the natural hues of oranges, reds, yellows and even plum colors as they faded into the early morning blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds.

As I contemplated the beautiful palate of colors before me, I thought about how often people “force” color combinations together to make a statement or appease all parties in the decision making process. For example, my favorite color is purple and my husband’s favorite color is orange. When planning our wedding, we each wanted to incorporate our personalities into the color theme (without looking like a stereotypical Halloween party!). Taking color combination cues from nature helped us to develop a color scheme that suited both of our tastes. My husband and I chose a more plum shade of purple with accents of peach, sage and cream, which reminded us of a sunset fading over a grove of trees. With only slight alteration to our personal favorites, we chose colors that blended together nicely by envisioning an element of nature.

What other color combinations can “Mother” nature bring us? Imagine ocean waves breaking on a sandy beach (tan, pale blue, white). Or what about the Grand Canyon, showcasing its natural hues of reds, rusts, tans and browns? Don’t forget the night sky, with the moon and stars (cream, charcoal, grey). When developing color schemes for the special events in your life, consider letting nature, with all its wisdom, guide you.

Need help picking out your wedding flowers? Click below to ask a question or schedule your wedding appointment!

There are a few days in our lives that we can remember exactly where we were and what you were doing. With the 10-year anniversary coming up in a little over a week, it brings back the memories of that day.

I was going to Butler University as well as being a high school senior. I had just gotten out of an early class at Butler and was driving back to my high school when the radio DJ announced the World Trade Centers in New York had been hit by a plane. Honestly, I thought it was a joke. It took a few minutes to realize this was no joke, this was for real.

When I got to school, there was a somber atmosphere.  Every classroom had TV’s on watching the news.  There was no way the teachers would be able to get our minds off the terrible tragedy that went on that day.

I asked my sister, Sarah Gillespie, to tell me about that day because she was working here at Gillespie Florists. 

As was usual every morning, I had the television on the local news, quietly in the background. As I was preparing to head out the door to work, an anchor broke in suddenly with news that a plane had crashed into an office building in New York.

Details were scarce, but it appeared to be a horrible, unthinkable accident. I put my things down and watched the events unfold before my eyes. When the second plane hit the World Trade center, it became apparent to the media that this was no ordinary accident. I became uneasy; worrying what other places might be attacked.

I finally tore myself away from my television set because I was 20 minutes late leaving for work. When I got into my car, I turned on the radio to continue listening to the latest on the events unfolding that day. As I traveled, I heard about the plane crashing into the pentagon. Suddenly, I was overcome with fear that the plane flying above me might suddenly crash into a building here in Indianapolis!

When I got to work, surprisingly, the two or so people who had come in “on time” were not aware of what was happening on the East Coast. We turned on the radio so we could all listen together. We worried, waited and prayed as more details came across the airwaves. We do not have a television set in the store but someone brought one from their home during their lunch break so we could listen and see what was going on all around us. Once the planes were grounded, it was oddly quiet, as our store is located within a few miles of the airport. There was less traffic. It was very eerie and stayed that way for a few days beyond the attacks.

We have no record of any sales that day… we did have deliveries that were previously scheduled that we delivered, but no actual new sales in the twelve hours that we were open. Only one sale the next day (the 12th) and no sales again on the 13th.

We at Gillespie Florists want to thank all of the firemen, police officers and other emergency crews who risked their lives to save others.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones on that day. 

Where were you on 9/11? We’d like to know. Leave a comment on our blog.

Cascade Comeback!

What is a Cascade?

What is the difference between the cascade and hand-tied clutch styles? Well, many differences, actually! From a design standpoint, the cascade style bouquets require more skill and time to put together. The designer will use more supplies and generally design in a holder for better shape and flower placement. Hand-tied bouquets are made just like they sound… hand-tied! Not to say that this is an easy task, by any means! The flowers are gathered and placed carefully in a bundle to balance color and variety (care must be taken not to shatter the flowers against each other). Once the desired shape and color balance is achieved, the bouquet is bound with floral tape. The floral tape is topped off with an attractive ribbon to cover the mechanics of the binding.

Another difference between cascade and hand-tied styles are the basic shape of the bouquet. Cascade style bouquets tend to be “teardrop” shaped (round and full at the top, then tapering down towards the floor). The bride holds the bouquet handle on the holder that the designer uses to build the arrangement. Hand-tied style bouquets are generally round and full, with the natural stems of the flowers left long where the bride places her hands to carry the bouquet.

Another difference can be price, depending on your flower choices of course! Cascade style bouquets take more time to design, thus increasing the labor cost. Often, more stems and blooms of flowers are used in the design of a cascade bouquet, especially if cascading greenery AND flowers are used.

The bottom line is personal preference. I chose a traditional cascade for my traditional wedding. Your wedding should reflect your personal style and taste too!

Schedule your wedding appointment today!

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Fall Mums are in at Gillespie Florists!