As a young girl, the annual planting of “the garden” was always special time spent with my dad. Now my dad’s garden wasn’t your ordinary garden, my dads garden contained gravy plants! That’s right, gravy plants! My love of mashed potatoes and gravy was indescribably large, therefore, dad made sure I was the one to drop the gravy seeds into the perfectly straight row he had hoed just for this special plant. I’m not sure when I chose to not believe that gravy didn’t actually come from a plant, but I do know that my dad and I to this day still joke and smile about planting those magical seeds.
My mom loved all things pink, including roses, (moss roses were her favorite), dahlias, tulips, petunias and sweet peas. I once told her that the fragrance of sweet peas reminded me of Hawaii, she smiled and said one day she would find out if that were true; she also shared with me that she called me “Sweet Pea” when I was a baby. I’m going way back in TV history for some of you by telling you that was the name of Popeye and Olive Oil’s baby who wore a sleep sack that cinched at the bottom, apparently I wore the same thing! I loved it when she would refer to me as “Sweet Pea” or “Petunia” growing up and it makes my heart happy to recall those days. Further into teenage years, whenever my sister or I had the dreaded ‘cramps’, mom would always pick pansies or monkey faces as she liked to to refer them as and place them in a very special small milk vase and set them beside our bed to make us feel better…worked like a charm every time.
The rock and flower garden that mom and dad planted every year was vivacious, so full of colorful flowers, herbs, trees, some of my grandpa’s driftwood that was collected over the years during camping trips and a fishpond that was fallen into every single summer by one of us kids or neighborhood kids! Many hours were lovingly spent by both parents weeding and pruning everything to perfection…my love of weeding was not so generous, but the fresh flowers that I was able to cut and bring inside to arrange made me so very happy! Dad is now 85 and still growing and tending his flowers that continue to be beautiful, he places them tenderly on my mom’s grave and makes sure her pink rose bush is properly watered. I miss her so very much but love that she was a huge part of my love of flowers.
At age 22, I moved to a small town in Kansas, the cutest flower shop named “Happiness Is” became my new employer, I was so excited that someone actually wanted me to make floral arrangements for them, that I would have paid them to let me work! I learned so much working there and ventured out on my own a few years later and began doing faux flower arrangements for friends, family and businesses, 33 years later I’m still at it.
My husband Phil and I have 3 beautiful granddaughters, Neveah Rose, Isabella Eve and Emma Jo. Like all moms who have more than one child, I called them every name except their own, this is especially true with Isabella and Emma! Emma was Isabella, Isabella was Emma, you get it, right?! One day I told my girls that I renamed Emma, she’s now going to be called Ella, the combination of Emma and Isabella. While pondering a name for my flower business, I knew I wanted to incorporate our granddaughters names, but Neveah, Isabella, Emma weren’t the easiest to combine! I new my mom loved pink roses, Neveah’s middle name is Rose, perfect…Ella Rose Petals came to be.
So from gravy plants to Ella Rose Petals, it’s been a beautiful journey, I hope I can become a small part of yours by making your vision come to life in creating your wedding florals.
