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Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide Part 2

Posted on by Amber

Welcome to part 2 of our Christmas Gift Guide where we’re helping you find something for everyone on your list. 

Part 1, which features our first 12 categories, was posted on Dec. 16.

With just a few days left until Christmas, we hope the rest of this guide eases some of your Christmas shopping anxiety. Here’s the final 12 gift guide categories:

The Christmas Obsessed (For the one who has had their tree up since Nov. 1)

Your Neighbor (Who you kind of know, but kind of don’t)

Your Boss (Who you need to approve your upcoming time off request)

The Workaholic (Who definitely won’t (wink) check their phone during Christmas dinner)

The Coach (Who has cheered on your kids all season, even while it was freezing outside)

The Plant Parent (Whose house is basically a greenhouse they happen to sleep in)

The Reader (Who keeps bugging you to read Fourth Wing)

The One Who Has Everything (And refused to make a wish list)

  • A Connells Maple Lee gift card

The Art Lover (Who always has their sketch book with them)

The Bird Watcher (Who can tell what type of bird it is based on it’s song)

The Rustic Look Lover (Who drives a vintage pickup)

The Snow Lover (Who still builds snowmen every year)

Connells Maple Lee donates $830 to Mid-Ohio Food Collective

Posted on by Neal
From left, Ethan Bradford, coordinator, corporate partnerships, Mid-Ohio Food Collective, and Andrew Royer, vice president of Ohio operations, Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts.

Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts has donated $830 to the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, which operates the largest food bank in Ohio.

Family-owned Connells Maple Lee earmarks $10 from every purchase of its Admiration arrangement for charitable giving. The arrangement has generated nearly $10,000 in donations since 2015.

Admiration features two roses, bells of Ireland, carnations, football mums, cushion poms, charmelia alstroemeria, hypericum and silver dollar eucalyptus. 

“We are grateful for the support of our customers and organizations such as the food bank for the wonderful work they do to improve lives in our communities and beyond,” said Tom Royer, president and CEO of Connells Maple Lee.

The food collective, which is based at 3960 Brookham Drive, Grove City, serves 20 counties.

We can’t promise eternity, but these steps will make your Christmas wreath last longer

Posted on by Neal

A circle has no end, which is one of the reasons why a Christmas wreath is a symbol of eternity.

One made from natural evergreen won’t last forever, of course, but you can take some simple steps to get the most out of it.

Make a noble gesture: Just as not all Christmas trees are created equal, the same holds true for wreaths. They have different characteristics, one of which has to do with needle retention.

Balsam wreaths are among the most fragrant, but they have a reputation for shedding needles. It has to do with where they are grown: Canada, northeastern states, the upper Great Lakes and Pennsylvania.

Noble fir wreaths, on the other hand, hail from the Pacific Northwest, where they are tested by high altitude, heavy rain and frost, and high winds. That makes them hearty in the face of what the holiday season throws at them.                          

The noble’s blue-green needles are rounded, giving them a fluffier look than the flatter balsam branches.

While noble fir might cost more than balsam because of growing time and shipping costs, it more than makes up for in longevity and construction.

Soak it: Any plant is on borrowed time once it is cut; however, keeping it moist will delay the inevitable. You can soak it in a bathtub or utility sink filled with room-temperature water for 24 hours to give it a deep hydration before you hang it.

Spray it with hairspray: You can seal in the wreath’s moisture with hairspray, which acts like glue and holds the needles on. To avoid a mess, it’s best to spray outdoors before hanging the wreath on a door, window or wall.

Mist it: Every day or every other day, lightly mist the wreath to keep it moist. To avoid getting walls wet or creating streaks on glass, remove the wreath from where it’s hanging while doing this.

Keep it shady and cool: Avoid direct sunlight and hang it on the outside of a door; otherwise, it can get cooked behind glass if hung between a main door and a storm door. The space between the doors suffers from reduced airflow, lower moisture and heat.

These steps will keep your Christmas wreath delivering joy throughout the holiday season.

Connells Maple Lee celebrating veterans with free red, white and blue bouquets on Nov. 11

Posted on by Neal

Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts will salute military veterans on Nov. 11 with free red, white and blue bouquets.

The Veterans Day bouquets – featuring a red carnation, a white carnation and a blue bow – will be available in-store only at 3014 E. Broad St., Bexley; 2033 Stringtown Road, Grove City; and 8573 Owenfield Drive, Powell. Click here for store hours.

“Honoring the men and women who protect our freedom has become a favorite tradition in our stores,” said Tom Royer, president and CEO of family-owned Connells Maple Lee. “We are forever thankful for the dedication and sacrifice that our veterans and their families have made for all of us in our great country.”

Non-veterans may purchase the bouquets for $2.20 each.

How to make a boo basket

Posted on by Amber

It’s spooky season, which also means it’s boo basket season.

If you’re not familiar with the popular trend, a boo basket is when people give loved ones a gift basket filled with goodies and treats that are typically halloween themed. It is most commonly gifted from a boyfriend/husband to a girlfriend/wife.

The name “boo basket” is a double entendre that refers to the “boo” spooky element of halloween and “boo” as in the term sometimes used to refer to a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Boo baskets have also traditionally been given as anonymous presents to neighbors and many close-knit neighborhoods have traditions of “booing” each other with a basket.

These baskets make great gifts for friends, family and coworkers too. It’s a fun and seasonal way to brighten someone’s day and show you care.

To give you some inspiration for your boo basket this year, we put together our own version. Watch the video below for boo basket ideas:

Shop the items in our boo basket:

Behind the scenes of our new everyday selections brochure

Posted on by Amber

The everyday selection brochure, which highlights many new products, is finally here!

The 41-page booklet features photographs of our current selection of flower bouquets, arrangements, plants, gifts and more. It’s designed to help flower lovers find the perfect arrangement for every occasion and mood.

There’s many different collections featured including the nautical-inspired “Nantucket” and “Cape May” collections, the thoughtful “Memories” rose collection, the loving and cheery “Tranquility” collection and more.

The Nantucket Deluxe featuring hydrangea, two roses, delphinium, Bells of Ireland, football mums, carnations, daisy poms, viking poms, and solidago graces the cover, evoking memories of beach days from this past Summer.

Our direct ship options, which ship anywhere in the Continental United States and include the arrangement, vase and flower food, are highlighted within the book as well as our direct ship succulent container.

Some of our snack and tea offerings are featured, including the Chocolate & Mug Gift Set and the limited edition “Jubilee” tea collection from Tea Forte featuring 20 tea infusers comprised of 10 different blends. Some of the flavors include Strawberry Hibiscus (Oolong tea), Cherry Blossom (Green tea) and Mango Citron (Herbal tea). 

Our funeral offerings and sympathy gifts are also included. There is a double urn arrangement showcased along with a red rose open heart standing wreath for funeral and celebration of life services. The double urn arrangement is in all whites including hydrangea, roses, stock, alstroemeria, carnations, and daisy poms.

There are also flowers specifically curated to be given as gifts to grieving families.

Gift arrangements for all of life’s occasions are also highlighted. The “Baby Girl” bouquet made of mini green hydrangea, charmelia alstroemeria, a football mum, carnations, daisy poms, baby’s breath is shown. The arrangement comes with a pink stuffed unicorn to help welcome the new baby girl. A “Baby Boy” version featuring a blue and white stuffed cow and a blue and white arrangement is also available.

The “Beary Happy Birthday Vase” arrangement is shown, which includes a “Happy Birthday” stick-in and a tan bear with a party hat. A general celebration arrangement is also pictured, which includes a party horn and noise maker, and is perfect for all of the happy moments.

Plant mom and dads can peruse our new plant offerings, including our vibrant Triple Orchard Planter and tropical-style Bromeliad Planter.

We hope the new look book helps you find exactly what you are looking for. These books can be picked up at your local Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts and are complementary.

The history of Grandparents Day

Posted on by Amber

Grandparents Day is a time to celebrate our mom and dad’s parents and the significant impact many of them have had on us. 

On Grandparents Day people often visit their loved ones, give them a phone call or send them a card. Others use the time to reminiscence about their late grandparents, possibly remembering the days cuddled in their laps listening to their stories.

According to Reader’s Digest, Marian McQuade of West Virginia created the holiday in 1956 after realizing a lot of senior citizens in her local nursing home were not visited by family while she was trying to plan a community celebration of the elderly.

McQuade then made it her mission to ensure they were not forgotten by creating Grandparents Day. It became an official holiday in 1978 when it was signed into law by former President Jimmy Carter.

However, the purpose of the holiday is not meant just for grandchildren to celebrate grandparents, but also the reverse. The National Grandparents Day Council says that the holiday is also meant for grandparents to celebrate their grandchildren.

The holiday is always celebrated on the Sunday after Labor Day in the United States. This year the special day is on September 8. 

This year the official theme is “Grand Minds: Learn, Love, Legacy”. Generations United is encouraging people to #DoSomethingGrand this year with their grandparents and have a list of activity ideas on their website.

Grandparents Day Gift Ideas

We put together a Grandparents Day gift basket for those looking for ideas for Grandparents Day. Check out our basket below!

Here’s the items we included in our basket:

You could name Connells Maple Lee’s new holiday arrangement

Posted on by Neal
Participants in Connells Maple Lee's name-the-arrangement contest in 2024 are asked to give a name to this holiday design. It features carnations, poms and a rose with noble fir and boxwood, ribbon and berries, all in a silver and red tin.

Christmas in July is giving way to the holiday arrangement of August.

This year’s Conells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts name-the-arrangement contest focuses on a new holiday design.

The arrangement features carnations, poms and a rose with noble fir and boxwood, ribbon and berries, all in a silver and red tin. What it lacks is a name.

To view the arrangement and enter the contest, visit cmlflowers.com/contest. Limit one entry daily per email address, through Aug. 18.

One winner and one runner-up will be selected from entries submitted to Connells Maple Lee and its sister company in Pennsylvania. Both the winner and runner-up will receive the arrangement (retail value $39.99) as their prize.

You’re going to fall in love with this year’s rose sale

Posted on by Neal
This is a photo of red roses.

Roses are most associated with Valentine’s Day in February, but June is National Rose Month.

In June, roses are in bloom, popular at weddings and a symbol of beauty and passion as spring gives way to summer.

They’re also a great value as evidenced by Connells Maple Lee’s annual rose sale, which runs May 22 through June 15 in our stores and online.

Natural growing cycle

Roses are available year-round, but they’re a particularly good value in June thanks to their natural growing cycle.

A rose farm typically harvests its crop every six to eight weeks, or about the amount of time between Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day in May. But while there’s another big crop of roses in late spring, there is not a corresponding holiday to absorb all of them.

The sale

That leaves a thorny situation in which supply outstrips demand, making roses more affordable for florists and, by extension, our customers.

Our sale comprises:

  • One-dozen rose bunch for $9.42 (in-store only)
  • A Rosie arrangement featuring one-dozen or two-dozen colored roses for $46.99 or $56.99, respectively
  • A Rose Delight arrangement with four-dozen colored roses for $99.99, or $15 off the regular price.
  • Three-dozen arranged long-stemmed red roses for $149.00, or $20 off.

Whether you’re giving them as a gift to someone else or showing yourself a little love, roses are ready and at an even better value through June 15.

Send love or welcome an early spring with fresh-cut tulips

Posted on by Neal

They inspired a speculative financial bubble in the 1600s and a hit song in the United States three centuries later.

Still today, tulips remain one of the most popular flowers in the world and a sure sign of spring when they rise from the ground in all of their beautiful bounty.

If you need a reprieve from the winter doldrums, one sure-fire way is to bring fresh-cut, colorful tulips into your home or workplace. What’s more, for their association with love, tulips are a popular choice as a Valentine’s Day gift.

Tulip mania

Royer’s Flowers & Gifts sources tulips from growers in the Netherlands, the world’s largest commercial producer of tulips. The capital city, Amsterdam, celebrates National Tulip Day on the third Saturday of January. The 2024 theme: Let’s Dance.

Part of the lily family, tulips arrived in the Netherlands in the 16th century from their native central Asia, where they grew wild in the mountain valleys where China and Tibet meet Afghanistan and Russia. The name “tulip” is said to come from a Turkish word for “turban,” suggesting a physical resemblance between the flower and the cloth headwear.

The arrival of tulips corresponded with Netherlands’ independence from Spain and what history.com called “a period of unmatched wealth” fueled by international trade. That wealth coincided with a fascination with so-called broken tulips, or bulbs that produced striped and speckled flowers.

If you experienced the fervor for Beanie Babies in the 1990s, you got a taste for the speculative fever, or tulip mania, that overtook the Netherlands, peaking in the winter of 1636-37.

Tulips with a “striated effect,” or that went from a single color to a feathery or flamelike pattern, became inexplicably valuable: The price of the most-prized bulbs matched the going rate for a nice house. It was only discovered in the 19th century that this unique feature resulted from a virus.

“But in the 17th century, this was still not understood,” according to the BBC, “and so, strangely enough diseased tulips, emblazoned with distinctive patterns, became more prized than healthy ones in the Dutch Republic.”

Tulip trickery

Tulip mania came and went, but tulips took root in the Netherlands. It’s what DutchGrown.com, a wholesale flower bulb exporter, credits to the country’s “beautiful sandy soil, and a century old tradition of being able to control water and make it do whatever we want.”

Specifically, it requires a bit of “tulip trickery,” making “bulbs believe they have been through a hot, dry summer and an arctic winter” and replicating their native habitat.

Tulips technically are perennials, but they struggle to act that way in the warmer United States.

“Plant a bulb in fall and even a novice gardener can expect to see a beautiful flower come spring,” according to AmericanMeadows.com. “But getting a tulip to perform well in the second or third year is another story.”

Because tulips are one of the easiest flowers to grow in a garden, most American consumers replant bulbs every year.

Several other tidbits about tulips:

  • Even as a cut stem, tulips will continue to grow in water, lasting seven days after they have bloomed.
  • They do best in full sun and, like sunflowers, are heliotropic, bending toward light throughout the day.
  • They come in a variety of colors rich in symbolism: pink, happiness and confidence; purple, royalty; yellow, cheerful thoughts; white, forgiveness.
  • Red is the symbol of everlasting love, which strikes at the heart of the 1929 chart-topping song, “Tiptoe through the Tulips,” which appeared in a movie called “Gold Diggers of Broadway.” (Cult artist Tiny Tim would turn it into a hit again in the 1960s.)

“And when I kiss you in the garden in the moonlight,” the song says, “Will you pardon me and tiptoe through the tulips with me?”