What to get the new neighbors???

Summertime is just about here, and in my neighborhood I’ve noticed a few new families have been moving in.  Summer is the time when families move, since schools wind down and vacation time can be used to get reestablished in a new community. I’m blessed to live in a pretty ideal neighborhood in northern California with wide sidewalks and neighbors who gossip over the fence about local goings-on.  Everyone’s yard is fairly tidy and we make a point of introducing ourselves to the new arrivals.

This weekend a new family arrived on our block.  The moving truck pulled up as my wife and I were working in our vegetable garden. By late afternoon we were tired, yet wanted to welcome the new neighbors.  The thought of whipping up a batch of cookies or brownies was not a pleasant one, so my wife suggested flowers.  She zipped over to our local florist, getting there just before they closed and grabbed a great bouquet of California Grown flowers.  The Sun Burst Bouquet was all ready to go. It featured a big white Oriental Lily, bright Gerberas, Belladona, Lisianthus, Matsumoto Asters, a welcoming Sunflower and a host of fragrant greens including Solidago, Spiked Eucalyptus and Huckleberry.

The Sun Burst Bouquet from Sun Pacific Bouquet

  

As we walked over to meet the new neighbors we talked about how flowers are the perfect present for a new move in.  What if we had baked cookies and someone in the family was intolerant to gluten?  In today’s world people are more in touch with their health.  Are they on a special diet? Can they eat products with dairy?  Do they only eat organic?  With flowers, dietary restrictions aren’t an issue.

As we knocked on the door and were greeted by the new home owners, we saw pretty quickly that they had their work cut out for them.  The carpets were ripped up, the kitchen was being scrubbed with bleach and the stack of paint cans and supplies showed these folks would be working around the clock to get this house livable for their family.

Bringing a beautiful bouquet of flowers into this chaos was much appreciated.  The house smelled of cleanser, stuff was stacked in corners, and their teenage son was lugging in more boxes from the garage, looking less than thrilled.

“Oh, Flowers!” cheered the woman of the house, even though her clothes showed she had been cleaning, unpacking and sweating all day.  Her husband looked happy to have a few minutes reprieve from the work to meet his new neighbors, and quickly pointed me to the beer cooler, which he somehow knew would cement our friendship.

In all this, the flowers stood out as a symbol of the warm, loving household this house will become over the coming weeks.  The arrangement of the flowers also provided a little oasis of order among the stacks of boxes and furniture placed haphazardly around the house.  Since the flowers were already in a vase the new home owners, didn’t have to dig through boxes to find utensils, as they would have had to if we had baked a cake.

The wonderful scent of the Sun Valley Oriental Lily in the bouquet immediately changed the essence of the living room.  The strong scent of the Eucalyptus and Solidago cut through the smell of dust and mildew, lending a sweet scent of what is to become for this fixer upper.  The dark pink Gerberas and the radiant yellow Sunflower cut a sharp contrast to the stacks of corrugated cardboard boxes.

 

Malibu Gerbera and our Black-Eyed Sunflower

As we chatted with our new neighbors and found the connections we shared, two more kids came out of the woodwork to show us the treasures they had found in their new house.  The flowers were placed on the mantel over the fire place, beers were opened, and a friendship was made.  The flowers were a delightful message of welcome to the neighborhood and a sign of new beginnings.

Walking back to our house, I complemented my wife for thinking of bringing flowers. They really brought a level of elegance and hope to a chaotic situation, and did so effortlessly.  An old Dutch flower marketing campaign from the seventies said, “Flowers Like People.”  This great slogan really ran true last Saturday afternoon, so as you meet new friends and neighbors this summer make sure to have a bunch of flowers handy since they really are the perfect way to say, “Hello, nice to meet you.”