valentines flowers ideas 2012 - Sweetheart Deals

With a bit of love and attention, your valentines flowers ideas 2012 promos can boost biz beyond February. Take these ideas to heart!
If you want more new clients by February 14, and want to show existing ones the love, too, start marketing now, at least four weeks in advance. It doesn’t matter if you are snail mailing or posting on Facebook, you need to build awareness and direct clients to specific offers.

Identify your “sweetheart” services you want to focus on. Many clients will want to come in before February 14 for fresh cuts, color, smoothing and manicures. And of course, they’ll buy gift certificates. For the big day itself, get creative! Think beyond the typical spa couples’ package and other pampering services. Consider leveraging the current popularity of blow-dry specialty salons by setting up a special blow-out area within your salon. Staff it with your assistants or junior stylists. Let current clients know they can book pre-evening styling. E-mail an offer to your top spenders first!

Lots to Love Hopefully, you’ve already asked your distributor about gifts with purchases, bath and body care sets, and seasonal red, pink and white nail polishes. But what about special edition appliances and tools (a red-hot flat iron, for instance, makes a great gift or gift-card companion).

Check your cosmetics, too; there’s no better time for a Kiss and Make-Up promotion that kicks off with a complimentary make-up application.

Other check-list musts: order extra gift certificates, bags and red tissue paper; gather ideas from your staff; plan your window displays and set up your system to track results.

Put extra effort into events and promotions that will achieve higher response rate or pay off more in the long run. Many salons report great success with promo messages that include or focus on before-and-after hair color makeovers. Consider an idea like this: promoting the fact that “Red is the New Blonde” or some other color trend twist. Easiest place to do it? Your Facebook page or Twitter. Tie in current celebrity makeover mentions, and leverage the merchandising and info your color product partners provide. Promote temporary color changes, too—especially red and pink—right before V-Day.

More Engaging Ideas Ten percent of marriage proposals in America happen on valentines flowers ideas 2012. Clients anticipating that big event might like special occasion hair to match. Promote your updo specialist as well as your blow-out pros.

Other ideas that have been highly successful: Teach couples to give one another a scalp massage at your back bar. Tie-in hair treatments for the full effect. Before the clients leave, suggest a buyfour- get-one-free treatment package.

Beauty packages and full-fledged events are also big, especially for singles. Think “Be Your Own Valentine” parties. Show current clients they’re your Valentine by letting them draw red envelopes, which each include a special offer for the future. Give more and add value, as opposed to discounting, and they’ll remember who loves them most.

valentines flowers ideas 2012 - Best roses for 2012

If your idea of the perfect rose is a long-stemmed beauty with stately, overlapping petals, then this year’s introductions may come as a surprise.
Of the 15 new roses that are sure to be the most widely available in valentines flowers ideas 2012, there’s only one classic hybrid tea rose. Instead, most are shrub roses in one form or another, designed to be planted throughout the landscape, rather than isolated in a formal rose garden.
As for the ever-important flowers — rather than formal and elegant, these newcomers trend toward clusters of loose, frilly petals, with some of the concoctions scarcely looking like roses. Two specimens making their debut are the first-ever of their kind. Several others combine crazy colors, including one called Ketchup & Mustard. Thankfully there are a handful of demure pastels as well.
Regardless of the style, breeders continue to emphasize disease resistance. Indeed, the valentines flowers ideas 2012
Hybrid Tea
These traditional roses bear long-stemmed flowers and grow upright, typically reaching 3 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide.
The lone hybrid tea rose making its debut this year is a vigorous rebloomer called Sugar Moon. Its white, long-stemmed flowers produce a strong, sweet, citrus and rose scent. Pointed buds open to reveal 5-inch full, classic flowers composed of 35 petals apiece. Disease resistance is ranked as very good, and the dark, glossy green leaves are a nice contrast to the bright white of the flowers.
Floribunda
These shrub roses bear clusters of flowers above lush, full leaves, and generally grow 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.
Two new floribundas, bearing distinctive red eyes, represent an entirely new look. While most modern roses are offspring of China roses (Rosa chinensis), these new shrubs are hybrids of Hulthemia persica, which is a thorny, sprawling bush that blooms once a year and is native to dry, windswept lands in Iran and Afghanistan.
What has captivated rose breeders is the red blotch at the base of each petal, which, surrounding the center of the flower, gives the look of a red eye. Breeders have spent decades attempting to conquer the rambling habit of the species, introduce repeat blooming and produce a consistent, visible eye.
This year’s two Eyeconic hybrids are the first hulthemias to become commercially available.
Eyeconic Lemonade bears 4-inch flowers that are bright yellow with a medium-red inner ring. Each flower is composed of 10 to 12 petals, and there are three to five flowers per stem. The bushes are dark green and grow 41⁄2 feet tall and wide.
Eyeconic Pink Lemonade bears 31⁄2-inch flowers that open in a pale shade of melon orange with a red ring, then mature to shell pink with a purple ring. The flowers are composed of 8 to 10 petals, with five flowers per stem. It grows only 3 feet tall and wide.
Both Eyeconics are said to bloom continuously, rather than in waves. They are self-cleaning, so don’t require dead-heading. It will be interesting to learn, given their geographic origin, whether they are drought-tolerant as well.
Equally distinctive, but in an entirely different way, is Ketchup & Mustard. Its two-toned petals are yellow on their back sides and red within. It’s love-it or hate-it combination when the pointed buds open and the petals curl back, revealing that bright red and deep yellow reverse. The 31⁄2-inch formal, spiraled flowers bear about 25 petals. They bloom above apple-green leaves. The shrub is round, bushy and offers good disease resistance.
Koko Loko is a classic-looking rose in terms of its fully double flowers, which are composed of 30 to 35 petals apiece. But its coloring is most unusual, with light chocolate flowers aging to a pinkish lavender. It forms a full, bushy shrub with deep green leaves and has above-average disease resistance.
Orchid Romance bears pretty, frilly, old-rose flowers that open pink, then fade to a lighter shade with a hint of lavender. Each fragrant, cuplike flower bears an amazing 75 petals, with three to five flowers per stem. The bushes are upright, growing 41⁄2 feet tall and 3 feet wide, and are very resistant to black spot, powdery mildew and rust.
Tangerine Streams also bears cup-shaped flowers, but in a sunny combination of orange, yellow and apricot. Each 3-inch flower is composed of 25 petals, with one to five flowers per stem. The shrubs resist mildew and rust, and grow 31⁄2 to 4 feet tall.
Tequila Supreme is multi-colored as well, but in darker copper and bronze tones. The cuplike flowers are similar in shape, size and petal count to Tangerine Streams. But the flowers are one to three per stem and the shrubs grow taller, reaching 4 to 41⁄2 feet.
Thrive! presents a wild rose look, with only 7 to 8 petals on each 3-inch, fire engine-red flower. Five to 10 flowers bloom on each stem, all at about the same height. The vigorous, bushy shrubs grow 41⁄2 feet tall and 3 feet wide, and have very good disease resistance to black spot, and excellent resistance to rust and mildew.
Grandiflora
Basically floribundas on steroids, these shrub roses can reach 5 to 10 feet tall. They bloom prolifically and produce clusters of flowers on short or long stems, depending on the hybrid.
The new Sunshine Daydream bears rounded, cup-shaped, pastel yellow flowers above dark-green, glossy foliage. The 2012 All-America Rose Selections winner was tested in 21 gardens across the country under the group’s “no spray” rule and offers excellent disease resistance. A vigorous bloomer, it bears 25 petals on each 31⁄2-inch flower, produces one to eight flowers per stem and grows 5 to 51⁄2 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
English
David Austin English shrub roses combine the shapes and fragrances of old roses with the colors and repeat blooming of modern roses. Both newbies for 2012 are smaller than many older David Austins, and are good choices for the fronts of planting beds or even containers.
Princess Anne bears deep-pink, ruffly flowers that stand up much like a water lily. The clusters of plump, double flowers mature to purple-lilac, providing a multi-colored effect over a compact, bushy shrub that reaches only 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide.
Skylark bears semi-double, apple and clove-scented flowers that open deep pink, then relax to reveal a small, white center while aging to lilac-pink. Skylark grows 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide as well. But its habit is lighter and the flowers feel somewhat airy, perched on taller stems.
Miniature
These petite versions of full-sized roses feature diminutive flowers and foliage.
All a’Twitter bears pure orange flowers above clean, green foliage. The small, 11⁄2-inch double flowers bear a light fragrance, are composed of 15 to 20 petals apiece and retain their sparkling color as they age. I tested one in a pot on my patio last year and it was the perfect foreground plant to a Satsuma tangerine underplanted with white sweet alyssum.
Itty Bitty Pink bears scads of tiny, 3⁄4-inch bubblegum pink flowers on bushy plants that reach only 11⁄2 feet tall and wide. The cuplike flowers retain their coloring as well. Itty Bitty Pink offers very good disease resistance and is a great, long-blooming edging plant along a walkway or patio.
Climbing
These roses produce lateral branches to train on a fence, trellis or arbor.
The new Stormy Weather looks a lot like a wild, rambling rose, bearing clusters of smoky purple, open-faced flowers with yellow centers. The 4-inch flowers are composed of 15 to 20 petals apiece and carry a moderate spice scent. It is a mid-sized climber, producing canes that grow 6 to 8 feet long.
Seeds of Wisdom
The new year kicks off bare-root season. Roses are dormant, which makes them easy to transport without soil attached to their roots. They’re also easy to plant. In January and February, you’ll find the biggest selection and the best prices.

valentines flowers ideas 2012 - YEAR IN REVIEW: Air cargo dreams fly away with Pan Am executive’s arrest

It sounded too good to be true, and maybe it was.

In 2010 a company that would soon call itself Pan American Airways Inc. moved into the original 1930s Pan American Western Division headquarters building at the Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport.

Bob Hedrick, the new PAA’s former chief executive officer — now jailed and awaiting trial on child pornography charges — talked a big game. In 2011, for instance, PAA would begin 70 cargo flights a month between Brownsville and various Latin Ameri-can destinations, he said.

“We will be announcing the reopening of Pan American Airways,” Hedrick told The Herald in November 2010. “We will also be announcing the reopening of the gateway to Latin America, started by Pan American back in 1929. Then they’re going to rededicate this building at the same time.”

A rededication ceremony did in fact take place the same month, complete with mariachi band, vintage aircraft flyovers, box lunches, and local luminaries taking turns at the microphone to praise PAA and Hedrick’s vision.

Hedrick had identified the South American floral industry, which ships billions of dollars worth of valentines flowers ideas 2012 a year into the United States, as a natural market for a Brownsville-based air cargo operation. He reasoned that flowers and other perishables arriving by air could be trucked to central U.S. buyers from Brownsville faster than from Miami.

In 2011 Hedrick expanded his plans. He envisioned Brownsville as the future gateway for air cargo flowing into Latin America from China via Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in Missouri. Lambert officials had spent years attempting to nail down a deal with China Cargo Airlines to make the airport the U.S. hub for Chinese cargo flights.

Hedrick, with Brownsville officials in tow, traveled to St. Louis to meet with Lambert authorities and discuss a potential St. Louis-to-Brownsville link. He spoke of St. Louis-Brownsville as if it were practically a done deal, though Lambert officials stressed that everything was preliminary. St. Louis actually did get a China Cargo flight from Shanghai in September. It was supposedly the first of many to come, though China Cargo has canceled every scheduled weekly flight since then.

This is likely due in part to the Missouri Legislature killing a tax credit bill — dubbed “Aerotropolis” — that would have made the route financially competitive. A smaller volume of air cargo coming from China is another probable factor.

Hedrick said PAA wasn’t intended as a passenger service but that it probably would fly passengers at some point. He identified Monterrey and Mexico City as possible destinations. When Hedrick found out that then-Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. and some city commissioners were pushing financial incentives to lure another carrier for passenger air service to Mexico — dubbed “Fly Fron-tera” — Hedrick cried foul, insisting PAA and other carriers be allowed to submit proposals for Mexico air service, rather than sneaking Fly Frontera in the back door.

He submitted his own proposal and went so far as to register the name “Fly Frontera” to prevent the firms behind it, Public Char-ter Inc. and Charter Air Transport, from using it. Apparently the principals hadn’t thought to register the name themselves. The city commission, meanwhile, voted to slow down and take a closer look at the Fly Frontera deal. In April, a less than glowing due diligence report by the Brownsville Economic Development Council caused crucial political support to evaporate, which prompted Fly Frontera’s principals to withdraw their proposal.

Hedrick appeared to enjoy his public battles with former commissioner Charlie Atkinson, a vocal Fly Frontera proponent openly contemptuous of PAA’s capacity for flying anything anywhere. Hedrick’s response was that big things were in the offing for Brownsville, and Atkinson would see.

In May, Hedrick received a boost to his credibility when the governor’s office bestowed upon PAA and Hedrick’s other Brownsville-based firm, World-Wide Consolidated Logistics Inc., the coveted Texas Enterprise Zone project designation. The des-ignation was awarded on the strength of Hedrick’s plan to make Brownsville the air cargo gateway to Latin America and connect with St. Louis for Chinese cargo.

It meant Hedrick would be eligible to apply for $2,500 per qualified job he created, based on PAA’s projections of 426 jobs created and $95.5 million in capital investment over five years. The Brownsville Economic Development Council had gone to bat in a big way helping PAA apply for the TEZ designation.

And then it was over: Federal agents arrested Hedrick at his Brownsville home on July 18. The arrest was on a federal complaint alleging that he shared multiple child pornography images over a three-month period with undercover investigators from Louisiana and Wisconsin. Hedrick is still in custody awaiting trial.

For BEDC officials and others who dared to believe Brownsville was actually on the verge of launching its own air cargo indus-try, under the venerable Pan American name no less, Hedrick’s unmasking and downfall must have seemed close to a betrayal. The city’s recent history is marked by more than one episode in which officials have thrown their support behind business ventures only to be left holding the bag. Taylorcraft and Titan Tire come to mind. The PAA debacle provided a new twist to Brownsville’s catalog of disappointments.

That said, 2011 was a good year for economic development in other ways. Among the highlights, according to BEDC: the North Brownsville Industrial Park christening; CK Technologies’ $20 million investment in its Brownsville truck part plant; AeroMexico’s inauguration of Brownsville-Monterrey passenger air service; and groundbreaking on new road projects and the West Rail Bridge, which will provide infrastructure for future commercial and industrial growth.

Also, Brownsville was designated a “Competitive Ready” city by the site selection/economic develop firm CR Group; and the Port of Brownsville advanced to third place — only behind Houston and New Orleans — in steel importing and exporting.

Salinas said the recession gave the BEDC time to step back, assess its goals and work toward them, with the result that 2012 should bring more good news.

“Our pipeline is full right now with projects from South America and Asia,” he said. “We’re very hopeful we’re going to be mak-ing an announcement in the next few weeks. 2012 is going to be banner year for Brownsville. I usually don’t like to say such a thing, but I think all the work we’ve done in 2010 and 2011 is going to pay off in 2012.”

As for PAA, Salinas said BEDC has heard little from Richard Alaniz (formerly Hedrick’s number two and now head of PAA), though he believes Alaniz is trying to secure Latin American cargo contracts. Hedrick was eager for media attention when he was running PAA. The same can’t be said for Alaniz, who has ignored multiple requests from The Herald for comment concerning the company’s future.

Salinas said that whatever happens to PAA, Hedrick’s observation that Brownsville is ideally situated geographically to take ad-vantage of the U.S.-Latin American cargo market holds true valentines flowers ideas 2012.

“He figured out that if Pan American Airways had its Latin American headquarters in Brownsville 50 years ago, it was for a rea-son,” Salinas said. “Now that we’ve been made aware of that, we’re going to do everything we can as a business community to pick up where he left off. We should have been doing this 30 or 40 years ago. Why were we not doing what Miami was doing? We’re really playing catch up with that one. Hopefully (PAA) will continue with the plan they had set in place. If not, there’s an opportunity for somebody else to do exactly that.”

Valentines Flowers Ideas 2012 - Tickled pink with Deutzia offer

This week’s online offer is a Deutzia Strawberry Fields for just £2.49 – that’s half price.

It’s a compact Deutzia with deep crimson buds opening to a beautiful white flushed pink.

It will grow to two metres, but can be pruned to half that to make it suitable for containers. valentines flowers ideas 2012 appear between May and July.

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Edible Garden Show offer

Looking for the ­perfect ­festive gift for green-fingered family and friends? Then why not serve up a couple of tickets to the UK’s biggest grow-your-own show?

It’s the season of goodwill and ­organisers of The Edible Garden Show at Stoneleigh Park in ­Warwickshire have slashed ticket prices to next year’s event by a third – from £15 to £10 – to give Christmas shoppers an inspired gift option for loved ones with a passion to become more self-sufficient.

After its hugely successful debut in March 2011, The Edible Garden Show – recently named as the Most Popular Garden Event of the Year in a Horticultural Channel poll – returns in 2012. ­Scheduled for the start of the ­growing ­season, the show is crammed full of ­money-saving ideas.

And it also includes a mix of ­celebrity ­gardeners, chefs, ­livestock experts, growers, unique products, cookery ­demonstrations and fun-filled ­interactive events for the whole of the ­family.

Tickets to the valentines flowers ideas 2012 show will give the gardener in your life the ultimate grow-your-own experience.

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