Boston Flora

Tag: Pat Riccardi

  • Wreath of the Day – Wreath Sourcing

    Our supplier, Pat Riccardi, has been a stalwart supporter of our annual Holiday Wreath Project, and this year was no exception. At the planning stage, we were not sure how many wreaths we should order. We were limiting sales of fully decorated wreaths, but we didn’t know if our customer base from 2019 would return, whether people had found alternatives and moved on to new suppliers (one actually did email to say he had ordered from LL Bean thinking we weren’t back in business but promised to return next year), or if inflation might create a general cutting back of non essential purchases. As it turned out, we did have quite a few leftover wreaths, and on Thursday were able to return those bundles we hadn’t untied. Pat reported he had sold all the wreaths we returned by Thursday afternoon! There were such supply and quality issues this year that there hadn’t been a 12″ base wreath in the flower market for three weeks. He had hidden ours in a truck at the Flower Market protecting them from marauders until our delivery date.

    The wreaths are made in small shops around Canada, and he purchases them from an aggregator for different suppliers, which accounts for the differences in sizes of some, and how tight, full, or loose some are as compared to others. Up until this year we assumed the wreaths all came from one source. Pat’s attention to detail and protectiveness underlines the advantage of dealing with one person for over twenty years. We thank you, Pat.

  • Wreath of the Day – Canadian Blizzards

    We kick off our 2018 Wreath of the Day feature with a very scary tale – our entire wreath project was endangered last week when winter storms blasted through Canada and the upper Midwest, leaving multiple feet of snow on the ground and blanketing the roads with ice and snow.  In fact, snow in Canada began much earlier than usual, and by October, many tree farms were buried so deeply that workers could not access the trees to prune.  The prunings are used to make the holiday wreaths we all enjoy. Even when wreaths were made, they still had to be transported to the lower 48, and trucking was stalled everywhere. Our masterful supplier, Pat Riccardi, had obtained a truckload of standard sized wreaths for us which he was keeping in a truck under lock and key to keep pilferers away, but larger sizes were basically unavailable. The phone calling began, and co-chair Margaret Pokorny ended up traveling to New Hampshire to “score” our 16″ large sized wreaths, which then had to be driven down to The First Lutheran Church. We are warning everyone to secure their wreaths tightly to doors, since wreath theft may be more of a problem this year. Wreath prices, and tree prices, are up by 30%, according to Chris Mitchell, who runs the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay tree sale, going on at the Clarendon Street Playground this weekend, December 8 and 9.  To illustrate the snowy near-catastrophe, we feature a silver, black and white flocked wreath which has been hung indoors by the purchaser. Check out our Instagram page @gardenclubbackbay to see it in its new home.