Florist & the Chef at the Dalles House: Same Heart, Different Ingredients!

Floristry is a lot like the hospitality industry — and if you really want to understand what florists do, just think of the Chef at The Dalles House Restaurant.

We’re basically culinary artists… but with petals instead of pasta.

Just like the Chef, she works with perishable ingredients that need care, conditioning, and a little coaxing to behave. She has produce that bruises and proteins that pout; we have roses that sulk and eucalyptus that acts like it has a mind of its own.

We both have to source our ingredients — she from suppliers and farmers, us from wholesalers and local growers. And just like she writes recipes so her kitchen crew can recreate a dish, we write floral recipes so our designers can make arrangements that look like they belong in the same family.

If we need to send an order to another florist, that recipe becomes our little “secret sauce.”

And yes, we get to be creative — but we also create something that becomes part of your life.

The Chef sends out a dish that fills your table with comfort.

We send out flowers that fill your space with love and light.

Same heart, different ingredients.

People don’t go to The Dalles House just because they’re hungry. They go for the experience — the atmosphere, the care, the “I don’t want to cook and honestly neither does my wife” moment.

That’s exactly what happens when you come to the flower shop.

You wouldn’t walk into the grocery store and expect someone to hand‑pick a custom bouquet for your anniversary. They’ve got pre‑packaged bundles ready to grab.

But when you call us, we listen, imagine, and try to understand what you’re picturing.

And let’s be real — sometimes what you think and what we think you’re thinking are not the same thing.

We’re human. We make mistakes.

But we fix them — kindly, quickly, and with the same care she uses when she remakes a dish that didn’t hit the mark.

We go out of our way for our customers because we love what we do.

Just like the Chef, we see people through their best moments and their hardest ones — weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, and everything in between.

At Stems from the Heart, our staff has lived through plenty of life’s ups and downs, so we truly feel with our customers. We’ve cried happy tears with brides and shared quiet empathy with families.

The Chef does the same — feeding people’s bodies while we feed their hearts.

Floristry isn’t just arranging flowers.

It’s hospitality.

It’s artistry.

It’s heart

We’re the chefs of beauty, serving love by the stem — right here in our small town, just like The Dalles House serves comfort by the plate- located in downtown St. Croix Falls. 

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