Bay Area Visit 2014: San Francisco Wholesale Flower Mart

What's becoming almost an annual trip down to the Bay Area to visit friends, family, nurseries, and gardens, I had three destinations in mind for my extended weekend down in the Bay Area of California. One of my first stops was one of the country's largest flower markets!

"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair".... well, then you have to hit up the famous SF Wholesale Flower Mart on Brannan Street.

Composed of a MASSIVE warehouse where 60+ vendors pack the large facility with cut blooms, potted plants, branches, and other natural materials, the SFWFM also includes "stores" lined up one by one selling specialty products such as orchids, potted tropicals, floral supplies and other hard goods. It's the nucleus of the Bay Area's floral industry and you can basically get everything you need to run your flower business.

It was a little intimidating to go as I was renting a car for the very first time so driving into the big city was a little nerve-wracking (thank goodness for iPhone Maps)  and I was also testing out my new digital camera and entering a place that can be very fast paced and I was actually worried about vendors harping on me for being a disturbance. Perhaps I could have contacted someone and inquired about visiting and taking photos, but they did have public shopping hours so I thought I'd just go and ask the individual vendors if I could take photographs and all seem to say "yes" (although I did see a sign that said "no photography please", but no one said anything and I was pretty much finished taking photos when I saw it. OOPS.

This place was quite large and pretty exciting to see the product being offered.

These manzanita branches were to die for!

California grown!!

A baker's multiple dozens of already cut succulents!

 

Yes, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An assortment of Bromeliads sold here for floral work!

 

My favorite Tillandsia xerographica

Puffy hydrangeas including some unusual peachy types!

A close-up of these soft peach Hydrangeas that were probably dyed. =(

A most interesting manipulation of Phalaenopsis orchid spikes shaped into a heart

Fresh old-fashioned garden roses!!

 Another interesting observation was a business that I've heard a lot about in various publications. "Farmgirl Flowers" is tucked into a vendor stall within the SFWFM and boy is business thriving for them. What surprised me most were the multiple employees. Two long tables up front are flanked with Macs with 5-6 people at a table probably taking orders and in the background you can see all of their supplies and the arrangements being assembled. They supply locally sourced flowers throughout the city and often do special events.

 

 Their wedding inquiries are sent over to my next stop in San Francisco: the infamous FLORA GRUBB.

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For more information about the market, visit their website (which could use a reformat and update):


R

Love, Eat, Garden!

The first weekend of the new year was quite a treat as I spent it with close friends and family.

One of the highlights of last summer was watching my high school friend, Carol, get married and this weekend was the first time I had seen her since their wedding.

She invited me to their new home as she prepared for a hot pot dinner, which I couldn't attend because I had dinner plans with family (potential blog post, but there wasn't much plant/veggies involved and I was too lazy to take pictures). With her younger sister, we helped prepare for the evening meal and as a token of her appreciation, she prepared a light breakfast and lunch that was so simple, yet so comfy and delicious.






Carol utilized a green that I've just started to become fond of last year when I had so much of it when I was in England. There, it's known as rocket, but in the US, we call it arugula. As a uber plant geek, it's Eruca sativa.A native of the Mediterranean regions where it kind of grows as a weedy annual, the peppery foliage is often used in salads and lightly cooked as a vegetable.

Here, Carol lightly sautes the arugula with a bit of bacon jam she was given as a gift and in the same pan, she lightly toasts a half of an English muffin that's topped with the greens and finished off with a seasoned fried egg, sunny-side up!

In the garden, it's an easy plant to raise as even young seedlings can be sheared and used as needed and it flushes out new foliage each time it's cut. You can also plant the seeds in succession so you have a regular harvest throughout the spring and summer. Provide a full sun location and water regularly. It is a type of plant that can be very quick to bolt (produce flowers instead of the desired leaves) so they like it fairly cool, but the flowers can also be eaten and the seeds saved for future sowings.

After a second helping of this simple, but scrumptious dish, we helped Carol prepare for her hot pot dinner. Slicing assorted vegetables, fungi, and other ingredients, Carol arrange a forest of greens and enoki mushrooms for an easy and effective presentation.

Greens consisted of sliced banana petioles (Musa sp.), napa cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. pekinensis), baby bok choi (Brassica rapa ssp. chinensis), choi sum (Brassica rapa var. parachinensis) (chrysanthemum greens (Chrysanthemum coronarium), and garlic chives (Allium tuberosum), which she used for our lunch!

Lunch time rolled around and her husband came home to join us for another meal! This time it was a bowl of noodles in a broth of left over turkey drippings splashed with fish sauce, a few fish balls, sliced giant oyster mushrooms and a bundle of garlic chives left over from the hot pot veggie arrangements.

We reminisced about high school, the summer, the holidays, and the upcoming year and Carol suddenly remembered that she had orchids that were given as wedding/house-warming gifts and wanted to inquire about their care. On top of inviting her to attend my talk at Molbak's (that I just posted), we discussed their care and she seemed genuinely interested in caring for them even though I've admitted that orchids these days have become as disposable as Poinsettias after Christmas.



Next generation gardener? You betcha! As her friend, you bet I'm going to encourage her to pick my brain and introduce her and her husband to some garden basics as they settle in and feel more compelled to enhance their living spaces.

First, I need to convince them to talk to their landlord about taking out a hideous "boxed" Photinia up against their window. hehe

Hear my talk on ORCHIDS!!! February 4th at Molbak's!

After years of visiting, purchasing from, and admiring the institution that is Molbak's Garden and Home in Woodinville, WA, the lovely Karen Chapman helped get my name through the door for me to finally stand on their stage and present a talk!



It's going to be about ORCHIDS!

The last talk I ever gave on orchids was a scientific talk in flasking techniques and micropropagation of assorted genera in the Orchidaceae when I was an undegrad, but this time, we have to simplify it a bit and introduce folks to a most fascinating group of plants that simply mesmerize and draw us to them.

Once rare and only the wealthiest and most powerful could ever dream of owning and growing one, the orchid has come a long way from Greek testicles, Chinese aphrodisiacs to symbiotic sexual acts with insects and prom flowers at Trader Joe's.

My talk will cover the alluring and interesting history of why such a family of flowering plants have captivated us over the years and how we can take this fond curiosity about them and nurture them to grow and bloom in our homes.



The talk will be at 12PM at Molbak's on February 4th. A Saturday.

I do hope you'll come and be inspired to own and grow an orchid.


Riz