Whats it like at a flower shop at Valentines: Bridgnorth's The Petal Bar spills the beans.

Shropshire Star

The Petal Bar in Bridgnorth are putting in the hours as Valentines approaches. We catch up with the owner for a chat to find out more.

Transcript

00:00So we're here at the Petal Bar in Bridgnorth on the High Street and Kim you're the owner.

00:05Yes, welcome. How are you? Yeah really good thank you, nice and busy. Yeah good that's what we want

00:11coming up to Valetide. So just first off, how long have you been in the flower game?

00:17Around five years, so started off growing at home and got all my qualifications from college

00:23and then opened my first shop. And this is actually, you were just down there, is this

00:28slightly bigger premises than your first one is it? Yeah slightly bigger premises,

00:32lots of nice open space, means we can have all the flowers and lots of gifts. And you live not

00:37too far away, just kind of over towards Kidderminster there. So Bridgnorth is a lovely town,

00:43how's it doing for business? Yeah it's good, I mean it's like all high streets, we all have our

00:48difficulties but there's lots of lovely tourist attractions around, so yeah it's still nice and

00:52busy. Yeah good stuff. So speaking of Valentine's Day, so how busy have you been? I mean as I came

00:59in the shop I saw this isn't your regular display, you know how busy has it been this year? We are

01:06fortunate to be very busy, our customers are really good so we get lots of pre-orders

01:11and yeah still taking walk-in orders and yeah really busy. So I guess you build up that

01:17reputation over the years don't you? I guess that's how it works. Yeah we have lots of repeat

01:20business and returning customers. So going back to kind of that first Valentine's Day you

01:25would have been open to now, is it bigger and better now? Bigger yeah, bigger, busier,

01:32really good, really good orders. Yeah and what are the top five flowers that people are saying

01:37right we want this in our display? So our top five flowers are Red Naomi Roses,

01:44which is just a beautiful rose. They are nice aren't they? They've kind of got like a matte,

01:49almost like a velvety. Yeah they're velvety, they're gorgeous. White Avalanche Roses,

01:57White Lilies and then a nice mix things like Lysianthus Gerberas. Fantastic and you sell

02:06gifts here as well, so in terms of the gifts I can see clothing, scarves, eye masks, cards,

02:13vases, what's the most popular gifts that people are kind of adding on as well? Yeah a really good

02:17mix. Candles are really popular, vases to go alongside bouquets. Very sensible. Everyone needs

02:26a vase. So is there any romance in your life? Are you single? Have you got a partner? I'm married,

02:32it's our 10 year wedding anniversary this year. Is it? Yeah. Oh okay well congratulations for that.

02:41Do you celebrate Valentine's Day or as a flourish are you in the thick of it and you're like look

02:45don't even mention Valentine's? Well it's like all peaks. We work hard up until the end of play

02:51on Valentine's Day and then we'll celebrate probably Saturday. Yeah so what will you do?

02:56Do you kind of market? Do you go out for a meal or is it just kind of a cozy night?

03:01Friday will probably be a little bit of a recovery day and then Saturday will be a nice meal.

03:06Fantastic and what does your husband do about flowers then? Because you know there's a standard

03:11to be met here isn't there? He obviously can't come in here and get them can he? I mean sometimes

03:15he might be sneaky and ask one of the girls. Will he? Yeah and it'll be like a code name on the

03:21order. We love that, we do that a lot for each other. Oh that's good. Yeah or we support other

03:28florists and he might pop to somewhere more local to us. Yeah and any particular flower that's a

03:34favourite of yours just as a florist in general really? Oh I love, I mean I love a red Naomi

03:40Rose. I'm a bit of a traditionalist so that with thistle. Yeah cool. So when do you clock off today then?

03:50Oh is it a long, is it putting the extra hours in? It is putting the extra hours in. Last night we

03:56finished at seven and this evening we'll probably go to about eight or nine-ish. So it's a full-on

04:02isn't it? Full-on day for us. It's good, it's a good peak period for us. How many

04:08Valentine's orders do you reckon, you know, come the end of the season you will have done?

04:14A few, yeah a few hundred. So we've actually sold out of all of the roses that we pre-ordered.

04:21Yeah. Which was the same as last year and we've put an extra in for today. I was going to say,

04:26so were you expecting to sell out of them or was that fine news to you? No we thought we would,

04:31yeah, we would just use those all up. Yeah. But no we've allocated them all and had to order

04:36an extra today. Yeah wow that's good going. Right well thank you very much for letting

04:41us into the world of flowers. Thank you.

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