>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ ♪ >> Fields of flowers are the focus of today's "Life in Bloom" -- from the spectacular, world-famous fields in California to smaller fields to grow in your own garden, to hang on the wall, even on a field of flatbread.

♪ ♪ ♪ I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to "Life in Bloom."

Who hasn't dreamt of roaming through fields of flowers as far as the eye can see?

Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the Carlsbad Flower Fields in California to live out that particular dream.

And we'll take you there in this episode.

But we'll also take a look at ways to create our own fields of flowers -- literally and figuratively.

Why limit the imagination?

♪ ♪ Together, let's cultivate our own field of flower dreams, on today's "Life in Bloom."

♪ How large are the flower fields?

>> We farm approximately 40 to 45 acres here in the flower fields.

We're a little limited because obviously development has come in and kind of crept up on all sides.

Fortunately, this land is protected.

The city of Carlsbad, through the landowner, us, the growers, and the city of Carlsbad, this is protected to continue to be the Flower Fields.

So, we're very fortunate to have this location here.

>> How many stems of flowers are we looking at?

>> You know, I couldn't even answer that question.

We pick about 5 million stems because we produce about 500,000 bunches out of these flower fields.

We don't even touch 10% of what is here in the fields.

So, to calculate what's actually out here, in terms of stems of flowers, your guess is as good as mine.

♪ So, what we're looking at today is probably a hundred years in the making.

In the early '20s, a man by the name of Luther Gage moved to Carlsbad, and he was a traveler.

He loved plants.

He loved flowers.

And in his travels through Asia, through Europe, he had become familiar with the ranunculus and got some seeds.

So, he came here to Carlsbad and planted the seeds and fell in love with his ranunculus crop.

His next-door neighbor was a vegetable grower, and they were the Frazee family.

And the Frazee family had a young son, a teenage son, named Edwin, and Edwin loved these ranunculus crops that his neighbor, Mr. Gage, was growing.

And so, he would go over, and Mr. Gage would teach him about selecting seed and growing the ranunculus.

Edwin had to drop out of school and take over his father's farm after a while, and ranunculus became his signature crop.

The ranunculus didn't look back then as they do now.

And, really, what the ranunculus looked a little bit more like was more like a poppy, and you can kind of see in this flower.

This doesn't really look like the ranunculus we're used to coming out of this field.

There's less petals, kind of more of that poppy look.

So, over the years, what Mr. Frazee would do is he would basically select a nice flower and grab seeds from there.

And little by little, he would find fuller flowers.

Mother Nature would provide to him maybe a flower with an extra layer of petals.

And so, over the years, through this sort of selection, he produced a much fuller ranunculus.

So, the other thing that Mr. Frazee had to work with was less color.

There were just some shades of red, some shades of yellow, and some shades of white.

Again, through selection, he created color.

So, a lot of the colors that you're seeing today was thanks to selections that he made.

So, you're really seeing many, many, many years in the making.

What's different about these fields than most flower farmers is you get to see the color, and that's because most flower growers are growing the crop for a cut flower.

Our ranunculus fields are a little different.

Our crop are the bulbs.

And so, what we're doing is we're planting these fields from seeds.

We're letting the flowers bloom.

They're dying back, and we're digging up the bulbs.

Most flower growers would cut a flower before it's really open because it has to go through the process of the cold chain to the wholesaler to the retailer into the client's home.

Here, we're not so worried about that.

It's the bulb that is the crop.

♪ >> Why do you think the flower fields are so popular?

>> People love coming to be part of it.

And here, part of the community, people just get to come, walk around, and enjoy it, whether it's a bunch of schoolkids learning about it.

We have a ton of neighbors here in the community that come daily and do their power walking, and it's a beautiful thing.

Not very many people get to see fields of flowers like this, especially in southern California.

You kind of picture that being in Amsterdam or being, you know, so far away.

And here we get to have it right in our very own backyard.

♪ ♪ >> Who could resist arranging with ranunculus after a visit to those fantastic fields?

I had just the opportunity inside the Los Angeles Flower Market.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ How about a flower field inside a glass?

This cocktail's ingredients include elderflower, lavender, and rose.

We'll start this cocktail with a shaker filled with ice.

We'll add 2 ounces of lavender-infused vodka.

Then, we'll add 2 ounces of elderflower liqueur.

♪ ♪ We use an ounce of rose simple syrup... and half of a freshly squeezed lemon.

♪ ♪ We'll shake this and then pour it into a glass with flower-filled ice cubes.

♪ ♪ ♪ We'll finish it with tonic water.

♪ ♪ ♪ It's aromatic, slightly sweet, and refreshing.

♪ ♪ Here's a fun project using vintage flower pins, or more formally called "brooches."

I found a deal on this collection online, but maybe you have your own collection, or perhaps you know someone who is looking to rehome a collection.

There are pins on the back of all the brooches.

So, what I did was I used a wire cutters and cut off those pins so that the pins would lay flat.

♪ Then I laid them out on the background to see exactly where I wanted them to go.

I'm using a shadow-box frame because of the dimension of the pins.

I painted the background so that it would match my ribbon.

Then I started at the top, gluing the individual flower pins into place.

♪ ♪ I have this wonderful plastic rhinestone ribbon, and I split it so that I had single, individual strands.

It's gluable, and it's plastic, and it's never gonna tarnish.

So, it's great for this process.

♪ ♪ ♪ The process takes a little bit of time, but it's just like flower arranging.

It can be very relaxing, and it's fun to craft with flowers.

♪ ♪ ♪ I also found some butterfly pins, and this beautiful bee pin was a gift from a friend just for this project.

I'm using a low-temp glue gun because I don't want to burn my fingers.

But, also, it makes some webs, and I try and take some of those webs off with a bamboo skewer as I'm working along.

I'll remove as much as I can, but then I'll go back in with my heat gun.

A blow dryer works great, too, set on high.

The heat melts down those glue webs, and they completely disappear.

It's a great trick for getting rid of glue webs when you're crafting.

This is a beautiful dupioni silk ribbon, and I'm just gonna make two loops and glue it where the streamers come together.

Then we slip it into our frame, and we have a wonderful keepsake for years to come.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Sometimes, we can bring the field of flowers to our table, with an arrangement.

The container we're using today is a wedding basket, and it was sent to me by a friend.

She apologized because most of the silver plate had worn off.

But what I did was grab some gold paint and painted over it, and I have a brand-new container that's repurposed.

It's a simple way to repurpose and recycle a container.

So, for our arrangement today, we're gonna use different types of flowers, and when I think about fields of flowers, I think about the greenhouses that were outside our home.

And those greenhouses had roses and carnations and chrysanthemums that grew inside them.

We had fields where we grew hydrangeas and other types of field flowers that we could use in arrangements.

So, this arrangement is inspired by those fields of flowers.

We're gonna make it in flower foam.

So, I've soaked a piece of flower foam.

And I'm gonna bevel the edge.

I always do that, because beveling the edge makes it easier for us to insert flowers all the way around.

It's a lot easier with those smooth surfaces than trying to go into a hard, fast right-angle corner.

We're also gonna use some ninebark.

This is from my local field of flowers, right out in the backyard.

And it'll be a wonderful foliage to go with these other flowers.

♪ I grew up in a house next to our family's greenhouses.

That meant I could run through the flowers every single day.

We also had lots of land, about seven acres.

And everywhere you looked, there were flowers.

Even in the winter, I had the luxury of the hidden meadows inside the greenhouses.

In the summer, the back lot, which you couldn't see from the street, was filled with flowers, too.

So, this bouquet reveals the memories of those secret flower fields around my house.

♪ Many of the flowers I'm using today, like the alstroemeria or the chrysanthemums or the mini carnations, have long laterals.

What that means is, each individual flower has its own stem.

So, cutting those apart allows me to place them individually.

♪ ♪ In this arrangement, I was able to group the specific flower types together.

That way, when you're looking over the arrangement, it's like you're viewing a field of flowers with different plantings.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Today, I'll show you how to use flatbread as a canvas to create your own field of flowers.

So, I did my flatbread the easy way.

I used a packaged mix, and I got it all laid out in my pan.

And now we simply need to decorate with our vegetables.

We'll use chive as stems and grasses.

♪ ♪ We'll use scallions as fatter leaves.

♪ ♪ And we can even place a whole scallion on as a stem for one of our flowers.

We can use a whole onion to create a rosette shape.

♪ ♪ ♪ We can use a pepper as a flower.

♪ ♪ ♪ We can use a black olive as the center of our flower.

♪ ♪ Put some mushrooms growing along the bottom.

♪ Then we can take our tomato.

We're gonna make a ribbon by peeling it.

♪ ♪ We can take our ribbon... and we'll coil it into a rosette.

♪ ♪ ♪ You can also use little tomatoes, then split them in half... and put an olive in the center as a bud that's just starting to open.

We can also make pebbles out of our peppers.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Use olives to make a little black-eyed Susan.

♪ We can also use fresh stems of basil and add them right into our field of flowers.

You might clean up your vegetables more, but all of this is organic produce.

So, I left the skin on the outside of my onions and the roots on the bottom of my scallions.

That's fiber, and it's all edible because everything's organic.

So, now we're ready to go into the oven and bake it for 35 to 40 minutes.

♪ ♪ I love how everything got more texture and dimension as we baked it.

It's a wonderful way to turn your flatbread into a field of flowers.

♪ Almost anyone I meet is transfixed with the idea that I must have these incredible gardens at my home.

While I've curated some pretty incredible plants and flowers for my gardens, the gardens themselves might not live up to those dreams.

Here's why.

I'm constantly cutting the blooms and greens to create beautiful arrangements to enjoy inside my home.

That being said, here are some of my favorite flowers and plants for a cutting garden.

I live tiger lilies, and these little guys are getting ready to bloom real soon.

Tiger lilies is the lily that my grandmother was named after.

She was definitely a tiger.

These are great additions to your flower arrangements, whether it's a tiger lily or an Asiatic lily or an Oriental lily.

Any of the lilies work great for flower arranging.

♪ Lilac -- nothing compares to the scent of fresh lilacs.

And remember to leave the leaves on the stem when cutting.

The leaves aid in hydration.

This means the leaves help create photosynthesis that stimulates water uptake to the flower.

Leave the leaves when it comes to lilac.

Hydrangea -- everyone loves hydrangea.

Whether pink, blue, lavender, or white, these big, voluptuous flowers help fill a bouquet with color and texture.

Yarrow -- a hardy late-summer bloomer.

These golden flowers can be dried and used for both fresh and preserved bouquets.

Peonies are a great addition to a cutting garden, and I do different types of peonies.

I have tree peonies.

I have single blooms.

And I also have the doubles.

But I love that there's a gradation in open blooms.

Tree peonies come first.

Singles are next.

And then I have these larger ones.

Peonies are a perfect option for a cutting garden.

Zinnia.

Zinnias are pollinator magnets.

And there's a seemingly unending range of colors, shapes, and sizes.

They're easy to grow, and here's a secret.

The more flowers you cut, the more the plant makes.

Dahlia.

These mesmerizing blooms come in small to extra large, called "dinner-plate dahlias."

Cut early in the morning, this is another plant that will make more flowers after you harvest.

Iris.

Bearded iris, swamp iris, mini or maxi, many varieties bloom several times, and the unique and interesting colors include peach, brown, black, and variegated.

Allium.

Many say it's a Dr. Seuss flower because of the perfect ball of blooms atop a single, slender stem.

Allium add a fantastical flair to your cutting garden.

Dianthus, or carnations, one of my favorite flowers.

A cutting garden isn't complete without a few carnations.

Long-lasting and fragrant, they're a classic.

The joy I've acquired by planting flowers and plants suitable for cutting and arranging is incredible.

And I hope that you'll experiment with your own garden and carve out a space for a cutting area so you can experience the joy of arranging flowers from your very own garden.

♪ I hope you've enjoyed our visit to the Flower Fields and that you're inspired to create your own version to enjoy whether in flowers, artwork, food, or beverages.

For "Life in Bloom," I'm J Schwanke.

>> Mr. Frazee told a lot of stories about how neighbors in this area would come and walk the fields, and he didn't really care because, again, the crop was just growing and dying back.

Unfortunately, as usually happens in situations like that, too many of the neighbors started coming and taking advantage of the field, picking flowers, and so, he would tell some really great stories of while he was in his fields working, his wife would sit off in her little beach chair and read her book or take care of bills.

And if there just got to be too many people coming and taking advantage, she would just turn the sprinklers on.

So, that was their old way of security, of keeping people out.

♪ ♪ >> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ Closed-caption funding provided by Holland America Flowers.

♪ For everything flowers, recipes, projects, and more information, visit ubloom.com.

♪