The more you buy, the greater your chances of winning!

Just place an order over $500 from now till September 25, 2010, to earn one chance to win a $500 plant credit at the nursery. For each additional $500, you get another entry. A $1000 order gets you 2 chances. $2000 order earns you 4 shots at the prize. $20,000 gives you 40 chances!

A few simple rules…

You must take delivery within one week of the order date, and the order must be paid within terms to qualify.
The $500 minimum is just for plants purchased, and does not include freight or sales tax.
The drawing will be held at the Landscape Show in Orlando on Saturday, September 25, 2010.
You need not be present to win. We will contact you.
The $500 Shopping Spree certificate must be used fully by November 30, 2010.
Employees of Grandiflora and their families are ineligible to participate.

Call the nursery for more details.

The Southeastern Horticultural Society, based in Atlanta GA and responsible for staging the Southeastern Flower Show there, has presented the 2010 Robert McGee Balentine Horticulture Award to Alan Shapiro, owner of Grandiflora. This award, established in the memory of Robert McGee Balentine, a founding trustee of the Southeastern Flower Show, is presented annually to the individual that the Awards Committee feels has made a significant contribution to the field of horticulture in the southeastern United States.  

Previous winners have included Tony Avent, Don Shadow, Dr. Alan Armitage, Dr. Michael Dirr, JC Raulston, Dick Bir and Ozzie Johnston.  

The award was made on February 3, 2010, in the Cobb Galleria Centre at the opening night reception, a gala black tie affair that offered sponsors and eager attendees a sneak peak of the Flower Show.

For more information on the Southeastern Horticulture Society or its annual Southeastern Flower Show, you may visit: http://www.sehort.org/flower_show

Extreme Home Makeover Site

Ty Pennington and the Extreme Makeover crew are in Gainesville demolishing and then rebuilding a new house for a worthy family – in just 106 hours!

Crews have been working around the clock since Ty surprised the family by knocking on their door on Monday. The family was sent to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to vacation while construction is taking place and will be back in Gainesville to see their new house next Monday. The crowd will be yelling “Move that bus!”, and the finished project will be revealed.

It’s quite an undertaking, but there is an army of local sponsors and volunteers to help with donations of labor, equipment and building materials. A canned food and blood drive are also occuring in conjunction with this event.

Grandiflora is donating a large number of plants for the landscaping, including all the annual color. Ellen and Alan will be down there planting on Sunday morning, starting at 6 a.m. Hopefully, they will see Ty and perhaps get his autograph.

Costume Contest

Thanks to the combined efforts of the crew at Grandiflora and its business partners, our United Way Fund Drive once again was a huge success. Despite the cutbacks needed in this tough economy, Grandiflora employees beat the record set last year by pledging $2,678 in weekly payroll deductions for 2010. Another $169 in cash was collected through one-time donations and as entry fees for games of skill (with prizes collected from the community).

Employees paid $1 to participate in each of several competitions including a Halloween costume contest, longest golf drive (with a rubber ball), 3-point basketball shooting, football toss (through a suspended tire) and a three-legged race. We skipped the golf cart races this year. After all that hard exercise, the crew feasted on a delicious Italian meal catered by Napolitano’s Restaurant.

To wrap up the festivities, there was a raffle for wonderful gifts provided by Grandiflora’s business partners: Alarion Bank gave 2 tickets to a Gator Basketball game, Colonial Supplemental Insurances gave a $50 dinner at Carrabas’ Italian Grill, Weinkle Financial Services donated two $25 gift cards for Shell gasoline and two $25 gift cards for Publix, Brown & Brown Insurance kicked in a $25 gift card for Applebee’s and one for Publix, AvMed Healthplans gave us tee-shirts for everyone and a $25 gift card for Publix, SBI Nursery Software sent a set of remote-control flying helicopters, New Horizons’ Computer Learning Services pledged two classes of our choice, White Ford of Chiefland gave a Motorcraft Car Care Kit, and BWI Companies Nursery Supplies sent a cooler on wheels. For every pledge of 50 cents, each employee got one raffle ticket. The higher the pledge, the more chances to win.

Lunch from Napolitano's

Special thanks to co-workers Alex Gillespie, Heather Blake and Chris Pyne for putting together such a successful event with plenty of fun, food and camaraderie – and all for such a worthy cause.