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Bloomers would only let me fulfill one order. But judging from the look on my fellow florists\u2019 faces, it was one too many. The order, placed by La Jolla resident Jolynn Deiro, was for a $69 bouquet of \u201canything.\u201d Apparently, even anything<\/em> can be screwed up. When I returned from one of the store\u2019s two flower coolers with my choices, I was told that butterfly ranunculus were good for the order since they were $2 each, but alstroemeria were not because they were $6 each. The two flowers appeared identical, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo you,\u201d<\/em> said florist Thomas Hoyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hoyle, a North Park resident, knows his flowers. Even Tebbetts defers to him when a man and woman walk in seeking emergency help for an ailing bromeliad that Bloomers sold them a month ago. (\u201cThe older they get, they less color they have,\u201d Hoyle replied, before agreeing to replace it with another live plant.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flowers are provided by a wholesaler in Carlsbad, who knows what Bloomers usually orders and reserves it. Tebbetts drives there from her home in Rancho Penasquitos most mornings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI fell into flowers,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was my first job at age 15. I wanted to be a veterinarian, but the schooling was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cutting the flowers to a size that appears right, I place each into a pot that has been \u201cpre-greened\u201d by florist Caitlyn Flannery. According to Hoyle, my placement is incorrect and will leave holes when it\u2019s finished, holes that could cause the bouquet to fall apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou have to have a structure to hold everything together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Phoenix, where he used to live, Hoyle remembered working for a florist hired to provide arrangements for a million-dollar wedding. As he and his co-workers walked the $1,400 arrangements in their 4-foot vases to the tables \u2014 after<\/em> the guests were already seated at them \u2014 Hoyle said that \u201call the flowers fell out everywhere because they were put together too quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Tebbetts, Hoyle said he fell into flower designing but grew to love it. \u201cIt\u2019s like creating little pieces of ephemeral art,\u201d Hoyle said. \u201cInstead of painting a basket of flowers, you\u2019re actually making a basket of flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n My arrangement was not the worst Tebbetts had ever seen but, she said, \u201cit\u2019s not good.\u201d Her biggest complaint was the pink and orange gerbera daisies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou never<\/em> have two of the same flower in different colors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not knowing anything about a subject has never stopped me from arguing about it before, however. So I suggested we put my floral skills to the test. I delivered the flowers to the customer to see if she would notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immediately, Deiro stared down and said, \u201cOh,\u201d followed two beats later by \u201cthank you.\u201d Then she stared up with a look I knew well, from its appearance on the faces of the hundreds of females I\u2019ve left disappointed in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Deiro closed the door, I told her that it wasn\u2019t the real arrangement, which Tebbetts emerged from her flower van with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s so funny!\u201d Deiro said, \u201cand good, because I know a lot of florists and I probably would have sent these back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still unable to admit defeat, I took it home and made the arrangement my wife\u2019s Mother\u2019s Day gift. And she loved<\/em> it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then again, what does she<\/em> know? She loves me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By COREY LEVITAN The last time anyone wants a yutz getting in the way at their flower shop is on Mother\u2019s Day \u2014 the mother of all flower holidays. (Kristen Tebbetts, owner of Bloomers of La Jolla for the past 10 years, said it\u2019s busier than Christmas or Valentine\u2019s Day.) Most of the three full-time florists … <\/p>\n
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