FLOWER EXTRAVAGANZA
The flowers from two weddings at the Biltmore Estate were both creations of Stacey at the Bloom Room. 
Totally spectacular! Just look at the photos of some of the flowers in the truck. I picked up from a wedding at the Conservatory on Saturday morning, but kept most of those for Sunday morning, to be added to another wedding from Deerpark. Two huge buckets of flowers from Saturday made their way to Brooks-Howell and they were stunned by the beauty of them - I love doing that! I walk in with buckets full of beautiful flowers, get lots of kudos for it when all I did was go pick them up and drive them over. This is a job you gotta love!
Flowers from both weddings, and more even from The Fresh Market, were distributed to Care Partners Rehab Hospital (shown here), as well as the Solace Center, McCune Assisted Living Center and The Laurels of Summit Ridge. At Rehab we had a Hands On Asheville project and Clare and Leslie showed up to help. Clare and I did the pick up and managed to get them all in the pickup. And you can see some of the arrangements on the cart as Leslie wheels them around to the rooms at Rehab. They give the patients and the staff a real boost. To see more photos and to find out who are new hairy volunteer is, click here.
ROSES FOR ALL
It was a rose colored Sunday morning as Second Bloom volunteers, one of whom I’ve never met, picked up over 100 dozen roses donated by the Rhododendron Brigade. They transferred the flowers to buckets 
and went off in several different directions: To the McCune Center, Deerfield and Courtyard.
I was out of town but heard from every facility about how gorgeous the roses were. What a generous donation that spread joy to literally hundreds of residents and their families.
FLOWERS A PLENTY
I received a call Saturday afternoon from Asheville Event Company about a wedding they were having at the Inn On Biltmore. Becca said there would be plenty of flowers left fo
r Second Bloom. And she wasn’t kidding. The room was full of arrangements and within a short time everything was loaded in the truck, filling the inside and out.
Sunday morning proved to be a delight for five facilities! Flowers went to Deerfield, McCune, 
Shadybrook, Golden Living and Highland Farms. Above on the right is a photo of the flowers with Loretta and one of her trusty BLT volunteers. They took in 4 of the large arrangements and rearranged them into small bouquets for the entire assisted living section of Deerfield Retirement Community.
On the left is a picture of Rose at Highland Farms making some beautiful arrangements for the tables and nurses’ stations. All these flowers were from Clements and they were spectacular!
WEDDING FLOWERS SPREAD JOY
The flowers from a beautiful wedding in Morganton on Saturday night became the joy and afternoon pleasure of over 500 residents at 6 different facilities in Asheville and Black Mountain. With plenty of help the work went quickly. We knew it had been a bit wet because the ground was quite soft…..then we heard 
tales of wild weather….rain, hail and lots of wind. But today was sunny and warm. We loaded up a van and the back of the truck, inside and out, and headed off for a bit of shade to take a short break.
Then it was up the mountain with the truck going one direction, the van another and by early afternoon everyone had their flowers. One of the facilities called me later to say h
ow much they all appreciated them, but it was especially sweet for 3 residents that had just returned from the hospital. And then of course with it being Mother’s Day, everyone was especially happy.
Flowers went to Mountain Ridge Wellness Center, Golden Living Center, The McCune Center, The Swannanoa Christian Ministry, Courtyard Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and Deerfield. Over 500 residents were touched by the flowers this one bride donated to Second Bloom - quite remarkable!
LAST MINUTE WEDDING
It wasn’t a last minute wedding for the bride and groom, but it was a last minute wedding pick up of flowers for Second Bloom. A call this morning from the mother of the bride and Second Bloom’s Flower Exchange Train rolled out of the station. I pulled up to Homewood to find 4 buckets of gorgeous flowers and several other stunning arrangements as well. Check out the photos.
I drove straightaway to The McCune Center and they got to have their first flowers from a wedding! Many oohs and aahs as they came into the room and set to work. I don’t even know how many arrangements we made. We just kept going until we ran out of flowers. It was good to be with all the folks at McCune. I’ve mostly been dropping flowers off and they’ve been doing the flowers on their own. But today I had the time to stick around and I was happy to be there with all of them again. And yes, they really can put a lot of flowers in those cups. And no, the upper left photo is not one of their creations…….
MEETING MICHAEL
Michael wasn’t the only one doing flowers today at The McCune Center. But he was the main attraction, playing the piano and having quite lively conversation. Emily helped out and everyone got beautiful flowers from Fresh Market for their rooms. To the right is a photo of Emily and Michael as they’re getting ready to take off down the halls. And below is a picture of Michael offering an arrangement to Deniece, the Activity Director at McCune. 
MCCUNE MAGIC
Yes, it was once again a magical day at The McCune Center. The magic was the amount of flowers and the height of flowers that these ladies were able to put in our little cups. Today Joyce won the category of ‘abundance’ and Louise won the category of ‘height’. The flowers came from The Fresh Market and from Morris Funeral Home. Beautiful fresh flowers that we picked up from The Country Club of Asheville. Lots of carnations, daisies, lilies, baby’s breath and some roses. Very, very colorful…..just look at our cart! And that’s Judy and Joyce behind it with Leigh and Louise. And yes, that’s Lisa keeping the cups full of water - one of the 
things we do best….
We had enough flowers to put a small arrangement on each table in the dining room, which is where everyone was by the time we started wheeling our cart around. Here’s a photo of Henry and Elaina with their table arrangement. With 18 tables in the dining area and flowers on every one of them, it looked quite festive.
FLYING FLOWERS
McCune was hoping for flowers for Valentine’s Day and we were happy to satisfy their hopes. Not all that hard to do, thanks to Black Mountain Floral Center and Earth Fare. Boots, at Black Mountain Floral, pulled some flowers out of her cooler and she also got several buckets for us from her wholesale delivery! She’s been great at doing that.
With three volunteers: Emily, Joan and Alan, the work/play went quickly. Flowers were flying out of their wrappers and quick as could be, they were in the cups and ready for delivery! Click here to see some more photos of our volunteers in action. It was quite a crowd in the solarium - about eight residents came out to make small arrangements. Deneise was also here and look at her happy face with Wanda and Elaine (upper left photo). Joan and Alan are dressing up the tables in the dining halls while Emily was handing out the beautiful arrangements. Also here is a photo of Alan with Michael. Michael likes to play the piano and he also works at Ingles, you may recognize him from there.
Beautiful flowers, open hearted volunteeers, happy residents! All in a day’s blooming.
BEAUTY AT MCCUNE
We had a great assortment of flowers. Yesterday, I was out collecting them from The Biltmore House, Fresh Market in Hendersonville and Asheville and also Earth Fare. Every inch of the truck was stuffed with flowers. It was totally intoxicating to be driving with so many flowers - also slightly dangerous as I had trouble seeing out my side mirrors.
We ended up wtih enough flowers for 4 homes. And a good amount of them went over to The McCune Center. Jackie volunteered, amazed at the abundance of flowers and how 6 big buckets of flowers could go into just 50 small cups! On the right is a photo of Jackie keeping things moving along. And above on the left is one of Wanda, Louise, Leigh and Sam! And yes, that’s Leigh joking around with the spider mums!
Later that morning Jackie was at the Black Mountain post office where she ran into The McCune group doing some fundraising. Small town - great to be out and about and actually run into people we know!
JANUARY THAW
It was great to have Judy and Jackie volunteer with us once again. It was a beautiful, sunny 65 degree day - our January thaw. We set up in the solarium at The McCune Center. In no time, we were cooking. And I don’t just mean we 
were cranking out the bouquets, which of course we were. The sun coming in those windows was just short of a sauna. But we had all dressed in layers so it felt like a hot summer day. The photo above shows Louise, Judy, Joyce and Jackie basking in 
the sunlight streaming in. James also joined us as we were finishing up and he really enjoyed the flowers. He approached it as a competition that he was sure he was winning, but every little bouquet was overflowing with beauty - how can one judge? Take a look at Louise with just one of her creations and James proudly showing his. There were more than enough arrangements to go to every room, every table in the dining hall and as many staff as we could find.
WHAT SEASON IS IT?
McCune Center was flooded with beautiful flowers from Clements and Fresh Market. And they of course handled it with ease. There were flowers spread out across the table with several women busily making arrangements into our new little cups with our Second Bloom logo on them. There is nothing quite like flowers to help us forget about the cold winter weather outside. It was in the teens outside but like spring inside McCune.
RELAXING MORNING AT McCUNE
The flowers were already in the car, held over from Fresh Market yesterday, so it made for an easy trip for the ‘bloomers’. We worked in the solarium at McCune, which was sunny and bright and gave us lots of room to spread out. We ended up with about 8 ladies who came to arrange flowers. The arrangements were what we like to call ‘The McCune Specials’ - arrangements that have both height and fullness. Many flowers in a cup. I gave one out to a resident 
that had 8 roses in it with lots of baby’s breath and other greenery. And they are definitely appreciated. Vernon always loves to see what will show up in the floral extravaganza we give him! Today he got a white spider mum and a huge red amarylis. We put it up on the bureau so both he and his roommate can enjoy it. That particular bouquet may very well be an arrangement that Angie made for 
him. In this photo you can see Angie working away with a relaxed concentration and an eye for color, height and fullness….yes, she’s in the process of creating another ‘McCune Special’.
FRIDAY’S FANTASTIC RIDE
It was a triple play today, in three separate innings. We started out with flowers from Boots at Black Mountain Floral Center and
Earth Fare. Yesterday Boots hijacked a truck full of flowers for us at the end of their run. It was great! Enough flowers for us to go to Magnolia Health Care Center first thing in the morning. There were poinsettias everywhere at Magnolia so we made some large bouquets for their dining room tables, activity room and nursing stations. You can see Nanette helping us out in the photo above. We finally got to meet her son Mike and his wife as they came to take her out for the afternoon. Then we were off to Fresh Market to see Louise and pick up some more flowers from her. So who do we see in Fresh Market? Check out the photo of Nanette, Mike and Louise. Mike used to be the manager at Fresh Market so Mike and Louise already knew each other. What a small world! But we had to keep moving….we had flowers to deliver now to The Laurels of Green Tree Ridge. 
Fortunately Marjorie was there to help us fill the 88 cups full of flowers and hand them out to the residents. Marilyn, in the photo to the right, was one of the happy recipients. She loves the baby’s breath so she chose an arrangement that had a lot of them. Then off we went again - we don’t have ‘Flowers on the Move’ as our tag line for nothing. We picked up 8 buckets of gorgeous flowers from the Biltmore House - look at those colors! Nothing quite like it. 
But what to do with them? Well, we moved along to The McCune Center. And although most of our help was out Christmas shopping, both Louise and Weezie were there to lend a hand. We managed to spill several cups of water on the floor as we delivered out beautiful floral arrangements to the residents, but everyone was happy to get them and happy to help us mop up the place. Three facilities in one day - a new record for us! Something only to repeated with more volunteers…..
ABC NEWS 13 AND SECOND BLOOM
What a day! Totally unexpected, a delightful surprise! As we were driving in to pick up flowers from both Fresh Market and Earth Fare, we got a call from ABC News 13. They wanted to do a story on us! And there we were, just minding our own business….. So they met us at Fresh Market and followed us to the storage room where we found a basket full of flowers. Louise was interviewed, talking about how glad she is to not be throwing the flowers in the dumpster anymore, but instead having them bring some happiness to people. And they definitely are. We met up again with News 13 at The McCune Center. We set up in the solarium, a beautiful and spacious room. The ladies were ready. They all showed up wearing something red, looking both beautiful and festive. They were as colorful as the flowers they were arranging. We had plenty of flowers to go around in all the residents’ rooms as well as the tables in the dining hall. This was an exciting day for all of us. You can be sure that the 5:30 edition of ABC News 13 was well attended at The McCune Center tonight. Want to see Second Bloom on TV?
ONE OF OUR TRAIN’S FAVORITE STOPS!
Fresh Market has become a regular contributor to Second Bloom and we couldn’t be happier! They’ve got beautiful flowers that have now been delivered to every facility we service. After picking up flowers from Fresh Market we went van shopping at the Asheville Ford Dealer on Biltmore Avenue. We’re still looking for the dealership that will donate to Second Bloom. So we met Robert Sessa, the Fleet Manager, who showed us a couple of used vehicles that would suit us just fine. He seemed quite amused by the buckets of flowers stuffed into the back of the Prius. Robert liked what Second Bloom was about because when he was a child he used to visit his grandmother who was in a nursing home. He didn’t like going there until one day he happened to meet a man that lived there. This man spent his time arranging flowers into small bouquets for the residents to have in their room. Don’t you love that? Perhaps that was the ‘first bloom’ and here we are now, Second Bloom.
Well, back to our Fresh Market flowers. We picked them up and headed to The McCune Center. Check out the delight on Lee’s face, top left photo. That can give you an idea of the welcome we receive whenever we show up with flowers. No matter where we go, smiles abound! At McCune, there are always plenty of residents that like to help make the floral arrangements. Today we had 7 residents filling their cups with an amazing amount of flowers! We had flowers for all the rooms, as well as some for the offices and the dining hall. 
Beautiful arrangements that somehow manage to stay in the tiny cups - check out the yellow spider mums below that Louise has assembled! You notice she’s got her hand on the cup. Try getting those arrangements onto a cart and wheeling them down the halls without spilling any water on the floor. And people tell us we have an easy job…..
LOOK AT THAT FACE!
When you donate to Second Bloom, here’s the result in pictures! These are just a few of the residents from Magnolia Health Care Center and The Laurels of Green Tree Ridge in Asheville and The McCune Center and Highland Farms Retirement Community in Black Mountain. Priceless!
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THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD……
A morning call from Louise at Fresh Market and The Flower Exchange Train rolled out of the station. After gathering flowers from Fresh Market we headed over to Magnolia, fairly certain about how our day would unfold. But surprise, surprise…. we were wrong. We arrive at Magnolia only to find that they were in the middle of renovating their activity room. And the dining
room was just about to be in use for lunch. Okay, no problem, we’re flexible…..we decide to go to The McCune Center in Black Mountain. But it’s now late morning so we have to wait for them to eat lunch, since we love to have the residents help us with the flowers. So all right, we’ll roll with that - our 
Flower Exchange Train will perservere. After all, the flowers are beautiful and we’ve got 4 buckets of them! So we eat lunch and with renewed energy we head out. It took us over 3 hours to get the flowers to The McCune Center but only took the residents 20 minutes to assemble over 60 bouquets! Totally amazing to watch these women. It is always a joyous whirlwind of activity when we’re there. So that was our day, another successful one for our Flower Exchange Train!
ALL IN A DAY’S BLOOMING
Today started off with a visit to George ‘The Fern Man’ Pickering at his Lake Eden home. I had knocked on his door early one Sunday morning looking for the ‘Barn’, where a wedding had been held the night before. He was quite gracious and in the course of talking, he asked if he could donate some ferns to our blooming business. I’m not one to discourage any recycling, so I agreed. I had no idea how gorgeous they would be - or how many! We stuffed the truck full of them and headed off to the McCune Center where Tamara happily greeted us. In no time they knew exactly where they were going - these ferns had indeed found a good home. They can now be seen hanging in the dining room windows, in the large solarium and probably most everywhere you turn!
Well, this exchange would have been a fine blooming day all by itself, but when we looked in the rear view mirror we remembered that we’d also picked up 4 buckets of flowers from Fresh Market. Okay then….but before we went anywhere else we needed to refuel. After a much needed lunch at the Morning Glory Cafe in Black Mountain, we headed over to Highland Farms. Help kept arriving. There was a lot of joking around but also a fair amount of quiet concentration as the flowers got rearranged into our now famous cups. Within the hour we had made about 80 bouquets, enough for almost every room.
HOW MANY FLOWERS CAN FIT IN THAT CUP?
If you ever want to know how many flowers our little cups can hold, just come to the McCune Center and watch these women! They can put more flowers into a cup than I ever thought possible. Each one is truly a work of art. There is pleasure involved in every phase of it - the beauty of the flowers as they lay on the table, the creativity as the arrangement begins to show itself, the delight as it unfolds and the smiles all around as the cup is ready for the cart. From the cart they travel to the rooms where they can be enjoyed for days to come.
Today’s joy began with the generosity of two of our donors: Fresh Market and Earth Fare.
DOUBLE TIME AT THE McCUNE CENTER
Late Tuesday afternoon we got a call from Boots Glenn, the owner of Black Mountain Floral Center. A truck had just delivered her order and she asked whether there were any wayward flowers on board. Much to our delight we salvaged 4 buckets full of beautiful roses. I always thought we’d be able to go directly from picking up flowers to delivering, but not today. These ended up in the coldest room in my house. Plus, having been to five facilities already this week we needed to make a few calls, find another place to deliver our beautiful bounty. We found it right here in Black Mountain, the McCune Center. They greeted us with great enthusiasm and openness. Here is a photo of Deniece Hensley, the activity director, with Louise and Lee. 
There was a lot of help making arrangements for all the tables in the dining area. On the right is Louise, Kim (from the kitchen staff), Elaine and Lee. They made short order of the flowers I’d brought. As I was leaving the McCune Center, I got a call from Fresh Market and headed off to pick up more flowers. Decided to head back to McCune’s and this time there were 8 or 10 people crowding around the table, cutting flowers, making beautiful arrangements for everyone to enjoy. It was a whirlwind of activity!