Am I a Flower Geek?

I love a parade. I love the horses with silver saddles, I love baton twirlers, I love a marching band with drums so loud they make your heart beat a new rhythm. I'm not so hot on clowns throwing candy to the crowd but I love little kids waving to the crowd. I love a military color guard and a good Sousa march. Most of all, I love the Rose Parade. There were years when I wanted to be one of the folks who set up camp on the sidewalk to get the best free view, there were years when I thought getting a hotel room with a balcony on the parade route would be the absolute best. Now I think I'd like to get a good seat in the grandstand someday.

This year I watched part of the Rose Parade at a friend's home during a New Year's brunch. That's when I realized that I may qualify for the title "flower geek." When I was younger I'd listen to the descriptions of the floats as one might listen to a coded message sent to a spy. Now when I listen I actually understand (and worse yet, get excited about) phrases like, "accents include pincushion protea, queen protea, pink ginger and pink Asiatic lilies" and "The large bear is covered with palm fiber, corn silk and strawflower, and his red ti leaf canoe floats on a stream of irises and orchids. In addition to the real pine trees on the float, manmade trees feature paperbark trunks and foliage of roses and orchids. The float's deck is decorated with roses and daisies."

Oh, dear. I get it! I love it! Think I can talk a bride into using "thousands of roses, carnations, irises, gerbera daisies and gladiolas?" The description of that float continues... "Thousands of gladiola stems create large flowering blooms in the garden, while cut marigold petals are used to create the large orange poppies, which are three to four feet in diameter. Six hundred pounds of macaroon coconut is used to create the mother duck." Hmmmm, maybe the bride wouldn't go for the mother duck thing.

From the HGTV site: "Rose Parade rules require every square inch of float surface be covered with "flowers or other natural botanical materials." According to Hynd, natural botanical materials are defined as substances that "have grown, are growing or will grow." So flowers, seeds, mosses, barks, dried leaves, vegetables and grains can all be employed on floats as long as they’re used in their natural color. Dyeing is not allowed.

"Flowers are affixed to floats in various ways. Some, like roses, hydrangeas and irises, must be placed in individual water-filled tubes to prevent droop and death. Blooms that can survive without water, like marigolds, strawflowers and mums, are mounted on thin metal picks and stuck into floral foam. In a technique called "petaling," flower petals are stripped from the blossoms by hand and glued one by one onto the float. Dry flowers are often placed into blenders and reduced to a fine powder for shading sculpted forms on the float." Blenders! Who knew?

One of my friends commented that is was more fun to watch me watch the parade than it was for her to watch the parade herself. I feel loved, glad to offer amusement, but truly loved. Ha!

Here are a couple of my favorites...

City of Cerritos (#56)
Float Theme: Nature Rocks

Nature Rocks is an exuberant expression of the joy and fun that can be found in nature and creative expression. The first rock concert in history is about to begin as the Dino Mites, the architects of rock and roll, take center stage. Lead signer and guitar player, Elvis T. Rex, gyrates to the latest beat, sending two excited fans into an earth-pounding frenzy. The wonders of Stevie Ouranosaurus on electric piano will excite parade watchers, as will the drum rhythms of Ringo Deinonychus. Imaginative musical and stage equipment is artistically re-created with prehistoric bones, shells, flint, sticks and stones.

The dinosaurs are colorfully decorated in yellow and bronze chrysanthemums, green Kermit button mums, dendrobium orchid florets, dehydrated carrot and red bell pepper, and accents of limes, lemons and kumquats. Steel grass and oncidium orchids create Elvis's unique hair. Abundant gardens of over 50,000 fluorescent orange Mercedes roses cascade through floral clusters of bromeliad plants, heliconia, ginger and protea with accents of green cymbidium orchids.

Downey Rose Float Association (#96)
Float Theme: Springtime Treasures

The Downey float depicts vibrant hummingbirds and butterflies in a natural floral setting. The hummingbirds are brought to life with sweet rice, carnation petals, seaweed and strawflower, while the butterflies flutter with orange lintel, statice, onion seed, strawflower and red thistle. The garden and deck feature 18,000 roses, 12,000 orchids (including cattleya and oncidium), yellow thistle, yellow roses, tulips and a variety of live plants.


Photos are from the Pasadena Star-News website.
Flower/float descriptions are from the HGTV website.