When Nadia Colvin’s husband Ron died six years ago, a lot of people assumed she would sell her house and move. But Nadia couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but in Waldoboro, where, on any given day, she might run into friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. The daughter of WWII Russian refugees, she grew up in Philadelphia. Her father was an extraordinary gardener who grew dahlias as big as dinner plates and fragrant, old roses and a wisteria vine that grew in the shape of a tree. Flowers graced the dinner table every day of her childhood. But Nadia wasn’t thinking about flowers. She was focused getting good grades to get into college. A series of preference tests revealed an aptitude for being a florist. But Nadia wasn’t having that. She was going to be a teacher. She went to college and eventually went on to teaching reading to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. Her husband Ron retired first, and they summered in Waldoboro. When Nadia retired in 2003, they settled here permanently. Nadia had three goals: to volunteer (she joined the board of the library and helped raise the funds to build the new library); to grow closer to her Christian faith (she took on studying the Bible, reading much of the Old and New Testaments on her own and joined a church); and, to get a part-time job so she could get to know the community. An ad in the classified brought her to Shelley’s Flowers, where she’s worked as a floral designer for the last 20 years.
A lot of people think working in a flower shop is glamorous. It’s not. It’s hard work. Morning starts with making sure all the day’s orders are ready. And that the cooler has a variety of fresh arrangements. We are always unpacking the non-stop deliveries of vases and baskets and floral supplies. And taking care of customers at the same time. Later, when the flowers come in, we unpack their boxes, cut their stems and put them in water to hydrate them. And we remove the thorns from the roses. As new orders come in for the following day, we do those.
Your hands get dirty. They get pricked. Your fingernails break. You get cuts and scratches. In prom season, you get glitter on your face. In Christmas season, you get pine pitch on your hands.
When I first started working for Shelley, I was making silk flower arrangements, but as that demand changed, I began working with fresh flowers. But before I became a floral designer, I started with washing buckets and processing the incoming flowers which helped me learn the names of the flowers as I checked inventory. Somewhere along the line, I asked Shelley if I could re-arrange the displays in the store. So now I both do floral designs and am the display person.
This time of year, the bulk of our sales are Christmas arrangements. One thing we do is make small boxwood trees for people who live in small apartments or maybe they are elderly and can’t put up a Christmas tree. By putting boxwood branches into a foam cone that’s about a foot and a half high, we make it look like a Christmas tree which we decorate with lights and a star at the top. Some people want it festive with lots of balls and ribbons, others prefer it simple and elegant, and still others look for one that’s like a woodland, with greens, pinecones and statice. These little trees are very meaningful to people.
We all have our little things that we like to do and the flowers we love. I love calla lilies because they’re elegant. And I love carnations because they’re striking and add a pow of brightness to an arrangement. They come in so many different colors. And they last a long, long time. I wish people appreciated their beauty. Just because they’re economical doesn’t mean they are any less special than a lily or a rose.
A good day is when there are no complications. Everybody makes mistakes, and it’s a good day when you don’t. It’s a good day when things go smoothly — when you go out on a delivery, and you haven’t left something behind like the chocolates that were supposed to go with a certain bouquet.
A bad day is when a customer is not happy. Shelley takes that very seriously, and she will do anything, jump through hoops, to make sure the customer is satisfied. But my working at the flower shop only one or two days a week means I don’t always know a customer as well as Shelley or some of the others in the shop. Once, a customer was impatient because I didn’t know what his standard order was, and I didn’t know where he lived. But I had to fill out the work order. I’ve had to learn patience. Some of our customers have been dealing with Shelley for over 30 years.
Although it’s often unspoken, we all work closely together. If somebody needs a hand, we give it. If there’s a funeral or a wedding or a special event with a lot of pieces needed, we make a plan. Then we all work together to get it done. If it’s a wedding, generally Shelley or Lorielle will make the bridal bouquet, Leeanne and Margaret will work on the bridesmaids’ bouquets, and I tackle the boutonnieres and corsages. I really enjoy doing this, even when my fingers cramp up because of arthritis. We’re family. At the end of the day, we clean up our stations. Put the extra flowers back into the cooler. Wash and disinfect the buckets. Sweep the cooler. Sweep the floor. Take out the trash and the composting. We do it all without having to divvy up the jobs because we know what needs to be done. Then, when it’s time to leave, we turn out the lights, and we all leave together.
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