Online florist Beyond Blossoms ( http://www.beyondblossoms.com/ ) has started a blog to talk about what else, but flowers. The blog is not just for people who want to send flowers, but as a place to provide unusual and interesting information about all things floral, from flower gardening tips to art exhibits featuring flowers, to fun facts about flowers.

With all the talk recently about blogs, Beyond Blossoms co-founders Josh Grossman and Gina Maschek wanted to position their company as on the cutting edge. Josh says, "Creating the blog is a way to make the website more than just a place to buy flowers. It's a way to interact with customers and hopefully provide content that they find informative, useful, and even funny," referring to one post about a man who planted flowers in, of all things, a toilet.

The company is willing to write about anything and everything related to flowers. Recent posts include a new computer game about flowers, England's effort to improve public bathrooms with fresh flowers, how to plant fall flowers, and rare orchids found in Idaho.

"Beyond Blossoms chose to develop a blog in order to enhance the overall experience customers have when they come to our website to buy fresh flowers," says Grossman. "A flower blog helps communicate our company's love for flowers and deepen our brand's connection with customers. The more interesting content we can provide, the more enjoyable our site will become to visitors. Since the blog is updated every day, we hope customers find it worth reading on a continual basis." Grossman hopes the blog will become a gathering place for readers passionate about flowers and sees the blog as a way to differentiate Beyond Blossoms from the competition, demonstrate their expertise, and gain mindshare with the consumer.

Grossman and Maschek founded Beyond Blossoms in 2003. The idea for the company "flowered" when they needed to write a business plan for an entrepreneurship class in grad school. "We were looking for a business that would allow us to be creative and sell something that people love. Flowers are the perfect item," Grossman states. After graduating, the two began operations.

Knowing it faces stiff competition from the well-known flower companies, Beyond Blossoms continually tries to improve the experience customers have when they buy flowers online. The flowers come from growers around the world and are guaranteed to be fresh. They feature both single variety flowers, such as roses and lilies fresh in the bud stage, as well as elegant European style, hand-tied, mixed flowers - all at affordable prices. Unlike other online florists, Beyond Blossoms specifies the exact flowers in each bouquet, so the buyer knows exactly what they will receive with each order. Besides the blog, the company features a flower picture contest, its favorite flower quotes, flower biology, and the meanings of various flowers.

Beyond Blossoms chose Internet marketing firm Radiant Marketing Group (www.radiantmarketinggroup.com/ ) to assist them in the design and development of the blog.

Beyond Blossoms offers elegant hand-tied fresh flowers from the grower. Visit its website at http://www.beyondblossoms.com. The blog can be found at http://www.beyondblossoms.com/blog.