President's Club

The girls who are enrolled in Flower Center this semester participated in making the corsages and boutonnieres for the honored guests who are members of President's Club. Members help to contribute financially to the growth and heritage of BYU-Idaho. Last Saturday, there was the President's Club banquet which is an annual banquet, hosted by President Clark, where he gives his annual report on how their donations have been helping the school and the students.

As part of the preparation for the banquet, the Flower Center girls learned how to pin on corsages and boutonnieres (a very important skill) and the basic construction of those. The girls as a whole needed to provide about 150-200 of each for the banquet guests, as well as a few design pieces for the room to show off the skills our department is developing.

The students were also there during the reception of the guests before the banquet to pin on the corsages and boutonnieres they made earlier. This was definitely a success and a great chance to give back a little to the school and the many people who have invested in our school. We thank you.

"The seeds we are planting today will grow and become mighty oaks,
and their branches will run over the earth."
—Jacob Spori, at the dedication of the Bannock Stake Academy, November 12, 1888

"You never can foretell the consequences of a dollar invested in
education. It goes on multiplying itself. It becomes not an expenditure, but
an investment which pays returns far and wide and through generations to
come..."
—President Gordon B. Hinckley, "Lighting the Way" public announcement, April 4, 1996

Elder Dallin H. Oaks Devotional

Elder Oaks came to the BYU-Idaho campus Tuesday of last week. His address was about our religious freedoms being threatened. If you missed it, you can read the full text of his talk by clicking here. The Church also put out a news story about his devotional on the Church website's newsroom.

This is the photo that the Church used for their release and those are the flowers that our floral department does for every devotional. Make sure you watch each week for the new arrangements we provide at devotional.

A few members of our community also saw these flowers and wanted our department to do their flowers for their stake conferences! This was a great opportunity for us to show off our talents to the whole world. The devotional flowers each week are provided by the Floral Portfolio class taught by Sister Bass.

We are going to Pasadena!!!

We have a new float company who is willing to work with us located in Pasadena, California! They are accepting help from students and we have arranged to go and help them with the floats they are going to build for the 2010 Rose Parade. This is the 121st year of the Rose Parade in Pasadena and the theme is A Cut Above the Rest. We would be gone from December 26th through January 2nd (since the parade is on the 1st). More details to come. Contact Sister Bass at bassm@byui.edu if you are interested so she can get an idea of how many students want to participate in this great experience!

Look at previous pictures of parades we have done by clicking on the label on the right hand side.

Successful Horticulture Internships

This last seminar was great and really fun to attend. We got to hear from four of our very own about the internships they served over the summer break. We learned a lot about how to get internships. One main concept was to be persistant. Most of them had to check back with the various companies a couple of times to make sure they were considered for the job.

First, we heard from Rachel Arnold. She got an internship at Every Blooming Thing in SLC. They were the 2009 National Florist of the Year! They are a high end florist and try to do everything different and unique. Once Rachel would do an arrangement, her supervisors would say, "Now make it different." They always go the extra mile and are really creative. Every design they do is different than anything else they have done before. Rachel learned some great ways to be creative with just moss and to make the design have a totally different feel than before. She said about her experience there, "When I look at my first arrangements compared to now, I can see a tramendous difference. I don't think I would have learned as much if I went anywhere else." You can check out her internship blog at everyrachelsthing.blogspot.com.

Next, Jane McNaught told us of her internship in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia working at Helen Olivia which is also a very high end floral shop. Some of their clients include the Vice President's residence and the State Department of Protocal. Most of their advertising is through word of mouth. The Helen Olivia style is very compact, tight, roundy-moundy arrangements in a square vase wrapped with satin ribbon. You can see some of their designs at their website, http://www.helenolivia.com/. A few things that Jane pointed out that she had learned was to be very personable with your clients and that floral design is a trade and the best way to learn is to do it and learn from advanced designers. She said that no amount of formal education can teach you the art of floral design. You need hands-on experience and that is what she got this summer. You can check out the actual designs that Jane put together at her blog, janelillianflowers.blogspot.com.

Then, we heard from Jackie Nielson who actually had the opportunity to serve two internships throughout the summer. First she worked at Signature Landscapes out of Redmond, Washington. Signature is a big time supporter of our horticulture program. They are actually setting up a scholarship for our students because of the students like Jackie that have been so valuable to them. Signature does large residential landscapes and commercial. One of their trademarks is seasonal color and they love to display that in the landscape. Jackie was a labor hand for them in installing some landscapes but she also learned some managerial techniques. Once she finished up with Signature, she had time left in the summer before school. She got set up with T&L Nursery down the road from Signature. T&L is a wholesale only nursery so they don't sell product to the general public. They use recycled water and propagate a lot of their own product. Here she learned to work in the greenhouse and out in the fields. They gave her a field to care for and grow during the time she spent there. She loved feeling in charge of caring for those plants.

Finally, Kyle Steadman ended the presentations with his internship at Heads Up Landscape out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are a full service landscape company that does commercial design, build and maintain. The way that he got this internship was when they came to campus to recruit. They had a pizza party and he started talking to them, networking and then following up. Heads Up is an amazing company and they were rated #54 in the Lawn and Landscape magazine. Since the recent 'green' movement and with their location in New Mexico, they have worked a lot with xeric landscaping and drought tolerant material. During his internship, Kyle was given the chance to do an outdoor paver project from start to finish which included designing and installing the area. He had a great experience and was given some great opportunities.

This was a great seminar to learn about what our peers are doing and learning. One main ideato take from this seminar was to "get out of dodge" whether it is New Mexico, Washington, Utah or Virginia. There are great opportunities out there for amazing internships and to be able to be representatives for the school. Great job guys!

2009 Portland Rose Festival

Photo courtesy of www.oregonlive.com/rosefest/

Brother Romney, Sister Bass, Kristin Wheelwright, Shae Hunter, Christa Beaty, and Liesel Hirschi helped out Studio Concepts, a float company located in Portland, by building and designing their floats that were entered into the Portland Rose Festival. They had three days to work on the two floats. One of the floats was the largest float entered this year which was about 10-12 feet wide and 60 feet long. To prepare for this great opportunity, the students made large scale arrangements and researched the best techniques for securing them onto a float. Sister Bass said that some of the designs can be five to six feet tall! This was definitely a great chance to practice the horticulture skills we are developing and also get our name out into the world for companies in the horticulture fields. Great work guys!

Modern Design

Today in Horticulture Seminar, we were pleasured by hearing from Raelynne Johnson, a manager in the floral department at the Salt Lake City, UT location of Modern Display. "Since 1940, Modern Display Service, Incorporated has been the leading provider of exposition and event related services and decorative products in the Intermountain West." Their retail store sells home decor items, collectibles, even store fixtures, and their motto is, " If we don’t have it, we’ll find it for you. And if we can’t find it, we’ll make it."

Another specialty of theirs is event planning services that cater to corporate events, bar mitzvahs, weddings, or any celebration. Or, if you'd like to throw your own themed party, Modern Display has rentals items available for just about anything from the 1950's, to the wild wild west and arches to urns.

An additional dimension to Modern Display is their home and holiday decor services. Their trained staff can transform a home into a warm winter wonderland, filled with scents of cinnamon and pine cones. For more information about Modern Display, give them a call at 801-355-7427, or check out their website at, www.moderndisplay.com.

Rose Bowl Parade

Over the Christmas holiday, Sister Bass and three students, Christa Beaty, Tyanna Jones, and newly graduated Crystal Lyman, spent part of their vacation in sunny southern California. After doing such a great job last summer in Portland decorating a few floats for the Rose Parade, they had been invited to decorate a float for the Rose Bowl Parade on New Years Day.

This is what the float looked like when they arried. All the prep work had been done, as far as gluing seeds and such to it, but all of the floral elements had to be designed, secured, and it all had to have unity as an entire design.

A large portion of the flowers used were tropicals and roses, which created some pokey situations for those designing. Aside from occasionally cutting their thumbs with knifes, their hands and arms came in close contact with thorns and jagged leaves.

According to the Rose Parade website, the theme for the float the ladies worked on, "reflects NAMM's [The International Music Products Association] efforts to promote the fun and benefits of music making for people of all ages, especially children and young people who need music education opportunities in school . . . [the] theme builds on "Hats Off To Entertainment" with emphasis on music making and music education. NAMM actively supports and promotes the benefits and importance of music making for people of all ages; NAMM and it's partners, including Music for All Honor Band, work so that every child can have music education in their schools."

Here's the float nearing it's completion.

The float out on the road!

Tyanna, Crystal, Sister Bass, and Christa.



What an incredible float!


The float was a huge undertaking, and took three days to complete, but it was a great success winning the Presidential Award!

Graduation Flowers

For Graduation, the Flower Center students designed arrangements for display at the different Graduation locations across campus. Here is a slideshow with the creations:

The Hunt for the Christmas Tree Lane Tree

On November 18th, Kristin Wheelwright, a Horticulture major emphasizing in Floral Design, went with Morris Christensen from Outdoor Activities, and Layne Kinghorn from Service Activities to cut trees for the Christmas Tree Lane celebration on campus.

To cut the trees, they went North to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, near Harriman State Park. On the way up, this picture was taken overlooking the Island Park Caldera to the Tetons' in the East.

This shot is taken looking over Island Park Reservoir.

After hiking uphill in, at times, knee-deep snow about 100 yards, Kristin found the tree that she wanted. Here she is with Layne scoping out the plan of attack to take down the sub-alpine fur.

With a little bit of elbow grease from Kristin, Layne, and Morris, the tree was cut, and Kristin triumphantly drug it back to the truck. "It was my first time cutting down a tree for Christmas," she said, "so I hope it works well as our Horticulture tree this year!"

Plant Culture Field Trip

November 6-7th, Brother Dewey's Plant Culture class took a field trip to the Salt Lake, UT area for some hands on experience in different areas of Horticulture. On their trip, they visited eight different establishments, including: Thanksgiving Point, Meadow Brook Design, Cactus and Tropicals, Temple Square, Roots or Huddart Flower Shops, Mountain States Plants, the USU Utah House, and Willard Bay Gardens.

Starting at Thanksgiving Point, the students participated in "hands on learning," by walking through the gardens with the head gardener, Tony Latimir.

Here are the Rose Gardens.

During the tour, the landscape crew was blasting the excess water out of the sprinklers, making them look like they were still on, despite the snowfall.

The students spent some time with a former BYU-I student, Ginger Belnap, owner of Meadow Brook Design, who designed this landscape:

For the third and last stop on Thursday, the students went to the Draper location of Cactus and Tropicals.
Cactus and Tropicals began in the garage of the owner, Lorraine Miller, who retired a few years ago. Now, there are two locations, each offering different plant specialties.

At the Draper location, there is a section devoted to European Designing, which combines plants in one container, but still in separate pots.

As you see, the plants can be quite ferocious!

At Temple Square, the group was up bright and early for a dewey morning view of the gardens in downtown Salt Lake City.

At Mountain States Plants, this is a greenhouse full of poinsettias, preparing for their winter harvest.

Here is a greenhouse full of Cyclamen, also preparing for a winter bloom.

Lastly, at Willard Bay Gardens, a retail nursery specializing in herbaceous perennials and annuals, the students snacked on popcorn as the sun went down, and were given paper-white daffodil bulbs.

Tiffany Jacox, a freshman emphasizing in Floral Design, said, "It was a great trip! I got to know my classmates a lot better, and really enjoyed seeing the different aspects of Horticulutre."

All Horticulture majors are required to take Plant Culture, so an exciting field trip like this one is something to look forward to as a Hortie!