1800flowers works to deliver convenience and alternative to their customers. They do this via offering bouquets, plants, gourmet baskets, balloons, and more in many varieties and price points. 1800flowers, through their international affiliations, also furnishes international shipping. In addition, they provide a special line of Martha Stewart floral designs, with same-day florist delivery available as one delivery choice.
With today’s consumer having a penchant for culinary delights, 1800flowers furnishes their line of cakes and cookies gift items. They provide selection to their shoppers especially when it comes to cheesecakes. An example is their 8-inch cherry crumb cheesecake, their 7-inch devil’s food cheesecake, and their 8-inch NY original cheesecake offerings. They also sell an 8-inch triple chocolate cheesecake.
The same-day delivery option is not limited to flower delivery. It also applies to balloon arrangements, their balloon Thank You garden, birthday flower cakes, and happy birthday goodie baskets, among other items. In addition, it encompasses their Get Well fruit and gourmet baskets with balloon. The same-day delivery selection is also available for a wide array of plants they offer. These include dish gardens with fresh cut floral arrangements, blooming plants, and floor plants, among others.
In the orchid line, they have orchids in crystal vases, orchids in a vase with premium chocolates, and their Martha Stewart White Phalaenopsis orchid bouquet offering. In addition, they supply orchid plants. These include their mini phalaenopsis orchid, orchids in a black and silver planter, and modern orchid plants.
It’s more than floral arrangements at 1800flowers, with numerous other gift selections available for different occasions. They perennially evaluate the needs of their client base to present them the gift buying selections they require. While floral arrangements are their core product line, they are always adding those unusual specialty gifts that address clients’ needs for a multitude of occasions.
Mention the topic of working from home, and you’re likely to experience a heated discussion. On one side, people opine that telecommuting is wonderful, there’s no car drive required, no office politics, no clock-watching, no purposeless group meetings, no dull chatter that offices are well-known for. On the other side, others say they simply could not find the self-control that’s essential to work at home. They might be a tad emabarrassed to send any customers to their house. There’s simply too many things going on in the house to even get started. Finally, the office is great just because they wish to get away from home life.
Naysayers of home working now have something that may actually make them think twice : garden rooms. Garden rooms (or garden studios) are built in your garden, not adjoining your house. A garden office offers a chance to get work done in a serene, creative environment, with the natural garden all around you, and a quiet place to hold group meetings.
The fact that the garden room is separate from your household is a crucial one. It gives you an opportunity to escape from home life to your business. Utilising technology like the web and VOIP, it’s simple to get a separate telephone number only for the garden studio.
Think about other plus points of a garden office:-
- They’re eco-friendly : the journey from home to garden office takes only human footprints (as opposed to carbon footprints)
- You can work anytime of the day. Creative juices don’t automatically run from 9-5PM, so if you have a new plan, or simply need to complete a job in good time, step into the garden studio
- It’s a comfortable, bright, natural surrounding. No sick building syndrome here. No glaring lights, grey partitions and cubicles
Garden offices can pay for themselves fairly quickly, and loan repayments for a garden office are often comparable, or even cheaper than, office rental costs.
Have you noticed how everything looks great at the moment - in the garden and parks I mean. Everything seems in bloom, full of colour and life. This is a great time of year for biking as well but that’s another story.
Can you remember last years new development along your street that now seems a little more integrated into the landscape or street scene?
Planting….Its all about planting and using plants and trees to soften new buildings into their environment. In the seventies and eighties this was a very low priority for residential development schemes & even today, poorly landscaped developments look just that unless their new owners have had a sympathetic hand.
Landscaping normally falls into two distinct categories - hard and soft. The hard stuff is the walling, paving, steps and edges for example and the soft is the planting from mixed shrubs to exotic trees.
It is the interrelationship between these two elements that can often make or break a scheme especially at the Planning application stage. You see most Planning Authorities are now wising up to how important this aspect of urban design is & how it can have an effect on people’s future living and environment.
Look though any councils empire list of departments (Planners are the worst for this) and you are guaranteed to find terms like ‘urban design team’ for example. The old terms of parks & trees department has now virtually disappeared with all this new rebranding jargon from the States…somebody please tell me how on earth we let the good ol’e ‘personnel dept’ be reinvented for ‘human resources’? New fangled ‘management speak’ has a lot to answer for in my opinion.
Anyway, these newly invented departments are now having greater influence on what is finally approved so don’t treat them lightly. Some are even teamed up with the local crime prevention who also advice on the best type of spiky bush to grow under windows to prevent Mr. swag from entering your property.
As a guide, most residential extension schemes may not require any additional planting or landscaping to be indicated on the scheme plans to ensure approval unless you have a potentially dominant or overbearing wall due to the ground slope for example that would have its impact reduced & softened by some clever planting or adjustment to the surrounding ground levels.
Speculative residential development will most certainly benefit from a bit of thought put into a separate landscaping scheme at the Planning application stage - it also helps the drawings to look very ‘pretty’ as well. The degree of detail will vary from council to council & from scheme to scheme. Fortunately, most Planners will accept an ‘illustrative’ scheme without too much reference to exact species or surface materials as this can be reserved or conditioned for later approval.
However, many will indicate that you may wish to engage further supplementary experts to get involved such as ‘landscape architects’ even for an outline application but this really isn’t necessary unless the scheme is in a very sensitive landscaped area. Once you have your planning permission it doesn’t seem that hard to part with some extra money for these extra ‘expert?’ fees but until then just try & indicate what you feel looks nice & will enhance the drawings with the aim of softening the building into the natural environment.
Often, many councils will actually work with you & make suggestions for landscaping especially if you are Joe public rather than an Agent. For us Design Agents it can be very frustrating having to consider Planting at an early stage of the design especially if the scheme is speculative and who wants to spend time & money deciding what trees to plant for a site when there are far more important ‘first principal’ design issues to consider such as siting, scale, roof lines, window orientation and distances etc. of the main building.
In my opinion, Landscaping is very much the ‘chicken’ for most developments when the ‘egg’ is to get right the basic design of of the built structure first. Most councils urban design teams with their new army ‘jobsworth’ strips on their shoulders from the rebranding exercise from the Parks Dept. would see things differently and this is to be expected. So if you encounter this with your scheme do not be resistant and try to include for such hard and soft landscaping elements where you can otherwise the scheme may not be supported by the Councils Planning Officer.
Our ‘Maximum Build Planning Guide’ explains further the issues on landscaping and trees and how they can affect development approval when extending your home for planning permission.
http://www.planning-approval.co.uk
Often you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone! That can
really be true with water. Taken for granted when it is
plentiful, its importance is truly appreciated in the garden
once it becomes scarce. If you find yourself in a drought, there
are some things you can do to help conserve water and make the
best use of what you have available.
If you have not already mulched your plants, do it! Mulch will
help limit the amount of water that evaporates from the soil.
While organic mulches such as grass clippings or wood chips are
preferable since they add organic matter to the soil, plastic
mulches are useful in limiting evaporation from the soil. They
can be laid between rows in the vegetable garden and will help
limit moisture loss; however, they also will limit infiltration.
Place your water where it will do the most good. Sprinklers are
very inefficient for getting water to the roots of your plants.
Much of the water lands on the leaves and evaporates before
reaching the ground. A slow gentle watering at the base of the
plants, allowing the water to soak into the soil, will be most
efficient. Water those plants needing it most. Newly planted
trees, shrubs, and flowers with limited roots systems will most
likely suffer first from drought conditions. Give these plants
priority if water is scarce. Well-established plants, especially
those native to the area, are likely to withstand drought
conditions with limited damage. Water in the early morning
before the heat of the day. This limits evaporation and supplies
plants with needed moisture to make it through the hot, sunny
day. Consider using drip or trickle irrigation systems. Many
inexpensive, easy to install systems are available that provide
small amounts of water to the base of individual plants. These
systems place the water where it is needed most, rather than
applying it across the whole garden. Check with your local
garden center. Collect water from downspouts when it rains.
Roofs intercept significant amounts of rain. Collecting this
runoff into a barrel can help limit the use of city or well
water during dry spells.
————————————————————-
You May Use This Article On Your Site If You Leave This Notice
Intact. The Brand New “Homeowners Guide To Landscaping” Reveals
Time Tested Proven Landscaping Secrets Showing You Step-By-Step
How To Plan Before You Regret Wasting Your Money Like Most
People Do. Discover How To Increase The Value Of Your Home By Up
To 27% Or More. http://www.home-and-garden-decor.net
