European Petals

Business name:

European Petals

Address:

375 Franklin Ave

City:

Wyckoff

State:

New Jersey

Zip Code:

07481

Phone number:

(201) 485-7600

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Florists in Wyckoff NJ and Nearby Cities

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How a Hawthorne woman's floral creations made it to the White House and the pope - NorthJersey.com

Jersey City tragedy Eileen Avia, president of the Wyckoff Area Garden Club, said her group raised $3,000 for its scholarship fund this past spring when Miller taught a sold-out audience how to make dried arrangements at the Ridgewood Public Library. Miller is planning to conduct a similar tutorial at a Ridgewood church in February. "She's the most generous, thoughtful and loving person I've ever met in my entire life," said Avia, a retired teacher. "And she's so entertaining — that's why her fundraisers bring in so much money. She has such a reputation for entertaining people." Extending life Miller learned from her musically inclined parents. Her mother was a pianist, and her father established the Peragallo Pipe Organ Company, a Paterson institution that marked its centennial last year. She played on the concert stage until she was 16. But when it came to hobbies, music would play second fiddle to the art of drying flowers after she and her husband, Charlie Miller, bought a farm in Ridgefield Springs, New York, a village 14 miles north of Cooperstown, in 1972. Soil at the 33-acre farm was rich in organic fertilizer, though Miller calls it something else. "The ground had so much cow manure that everything I planted came up gorgeous," Miller said. "I ended up doing five huge gardens." Miller wound up with a multitude of flowers, and at first she did not know what to do with them. "I just sat in the barn, and I said: 'What a waste. All of these flowers are going to die. Can't I try to make their life a little longer?' " Miller recalled. She tried different methods to dry her flowers, finding that some, such as cockscomb, could be dried out simply by hanging them upside-down.

Hawthorne dried-flower designer part of Montclair Art Museum ...

N.Y. that she and Charlie, her husband of 64 years, have owned for decades. Earlier this week, Miller, a longtime member (and past president) of the Wyckoff Garden Club, gave The Record a preview of her majestic museum creation, which was beautifully displayed on a tall pedestal in a corner of her living room. Holding up a small reproduction of the painting, Miller said, “There’s a lot of blue, and when you see it in person, a lot of green flowed in. And highlights of white. And then, of course, the wharf was all in this brown and curving. Immediately, in my mind, I said, ‘I’ve got some curled pussy willow. So, I used the brown of that and the brown seeded eucalyptus leaves for the outline.” The footed container she used was one she’d had for a long time — Miller buys beautiful old vessels when she finds them — and had kept in storage in her basement. “I never knew what I was going to do with this. And it’s perfect for that [museum display],” says Miller, who was so excited when the idea came to her, she says, she “got up in middle of the night and ran downstairs” to make sure it was still there. Although Miller, a Paterson native had no formal training in flower design, she calls herself a “natural-born arranger” and has been around flowers — and music — her whole life. Her father, John Peragallo, played the piano by ear and founded The Peragallo Pipe Organ Company in Paterson, which still exists. Her mother, Octavia, who had beautiful gardens, was a concert pianist. And Miller, who still plays her piano, performed in concerts from the time she was 7½ until she was 16. In 1945, when she was a 15-year-old sophomore at Eastside High School, the principal asked her to write an alma mater to encourage school spirit. In a week, she composed a song with lyrics and taught it to the student body. In 1988, Warner Bros. called to ask her permission to use the song in the 1989 movie “Lean on Me.” She not only received a payment for that, but got her name in the screen credits. After she and husband Charles Miller moved to Wyckoff in the 1960s, Miller joined the Wyckoff Garden Club — and soon started winning blue ribbons for her designs. In 1976, after Miller won the top creativity award for a dried-flower arrangement at the New Jersey Flower and Garden Show in Morristown, Family Circle magazine commissioned her to do a six-page feature on dried-flower arranging. That article was what caught the attention of Rusty Young, the White House’s longtime chief floral designer— and began a whole new chapter for Miller. After she harvests her flowers, just before their peak, she dries some by hanging them — nowadays in a corner of her husband’s den — and uses a desiccant on most of them. “Most of it now is going into silica gel — all the roses, zinnias, all that goes into silica gel,” says Miller, who wires her dried flowers in advance, to ready them for her shows. Last year, her garden produced a “bumper crop” of flowers, which, post-drying, she stores in containers on shelves in her basement. She now has enough dried flowers to last her four years. An octogenarian, she keeps a fast pace, with bookings into next year. Recently, she says, she got a call from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., one of the country’s premier horticultural display gardens. “They said, ‘Could you do Christmas for us?’ ” recalls Miller,... (NorthJersey.com)

Hawthorne dried-flower designer part of Montclair Art Museum display

N.Y. that she and Charlie, her husband of 64 years, have owned for decades. Earlier this week, Miller, a longtime member (and past president) of the Wyckoff Garden Club, gave The Record a preview of her majestic museum creation, which was beautifully displayed on a tall pedestal in a corner of her living room. Holding up a small reproduction of the painting, Miller said, “There’s a lot of blue, and when you see it in person, a lot of green flowed in. And highlights of white. And then, of course, the wharf was all in this brown and curving. Immediately, in my mind, I said, ‘I’ve got some curled pussy willow. So, I used the brown of that and the brown seeded eucalyptus leaves for the outline.” The footed container she used was one she’d had for a long time — Miller buys beautiful old vessels when she finds them — and had kept in storage in her basement. “I never knew what I was going to do with this. And it’s perfect for that [museum display],” says Miller, who was so excited when the idea came to her, she says, she “got up in middle of the night and ran downstairs” to make sure it was still there. Although Miller, a Paterson native had no formal training in flower design, she calls herself a “natural-born arranger” and has been around flowers — and music — her whole life. Her father, John Peragallo, played the piano by ear and founded The Peragallo Pipe Organ Company in Paterson, which still exists. Her mother, Octavia, who had beautiful gardens, was a concert pianist. And Miller, who still plays her piano, performed in concerts from the time she was 7½ until she was 16. In 1945, when she was a 15-year-old sophomore at Eastside High School, the principal asked her to write an alma mater to encourage school spirit. In a week, she composed a song with lyrics and taught it to the student body. In 1988, Warner Bros. called to ask her permission to use the song in the 1989 movie “Lean on Me.” She not only received a payment for that, but got her name in the screen credits. After she and husband Charles Miller moved to Wyckoff in the 1960s, Miller joined the Wyckoff Garden Club — and soon started winning blue ribbons for her designs. In 1976, after Miller won the top creativity award for a dried-flower arrangement at the New Jersey Flower and Garden Show in Morristown, Family Circle magazine commissioned her to do a six-page feature on dried-flower arranging. That article was what caught the attention of Rusty Young, the White House’s longtime chief floral designer— and began a whole new chapter for Miller. After she harvests her flowers, just before their peak, she dries some by hanging them — nowadays in a corner of her husband’s den — and uses a desiccant on most of them. “Most of it now is going into silica gel — all the roses, zinnias, all that goes into silica gel,” says Miller, who wires her dried flowers in advance, to ready them for her shows. Last year, her garden produced a “bumper crop” of flowers, which, post-drying, she stores in containers on shelves in her basement. She now has enough dried flowers to last her four years. An octogenarian, she keeps a fast pace, with bookings into next year. Recently, she says, she got a call from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., one of the country’s premier horticultural display gardens. “They said, ‘Could you do Christmas for us?’ ” recalls Miller,... (NorthJersey.com)