Resendiz Bros. flowers contribute to two award-winning Rose Parade floats

Two 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade floats which included Resendiz Brothers Protea Growers silverleaf flowers won awards from the Rose Parade judges.

The Judges’ Special Award for the most spectacular float in showmanship and dramatic impact was given to the “Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary Party” float of Namco Bandai Games America, Inc., and The Quickrete Companies won the Bob Hope Humor Award for the most comical and amusing float with “What America’s Made Of.” Festival Artists Worldwide/Artistic Entertainment Services designed both floats and also used Resendiz Brothers silverleaf flowers on the helmet floats of the two Rose Bowl football teams.

“That was really nice,” Festival Artists floral consultant Andrea Zepeda said of winning two awards with floats using the Rainbow nursery’s flowers.

The Pac-Man float featured the yellow video game star holding up a birthday cake safely out of reach of the goblins that have historically chased Pac-Man. The Resendiz Brothers silverleaf petals were used for the plate which held the cake.

The Quickrete float places a corporate spin on the classic “The Three Little Pigs” story; the pig who builds his house out of Quickrete concrete mix has a more successful time saving his house from the Big Bad Wolf than the pigs who built their homes out of straw and wood. Both the mailbox and the teapot in the float utilized the Resendiz Brothers silverleaf.

The Rose Bowl football game featured Texas Christian University against the University of Wisconsin. Helmet-shaped floats of the two teams were part of the Rose Parade, and the Resendiz Brothers flowers were used for the facemasks on the two helmets.

“They gave us a very good product,” Zepeda said of Resendiz Brothers. “It was nice and full and it’s easy to work with.”

Festival Artists has been working with Resendiz Brothers since the 2008 preparation for the 2009 Tournament of Roses Parade. “The petals are always nice and big,” Zepeda said. “They’re always nice and healthy blooms.”

The theme of this year’s Rose Parade was “Building Dreams, Friendships, and Memories.” One memory many participants and spectators will have of the 2011 parade was the cold weather in Pasadena, which dropped below 40 degrees that morning. Zepeda said that the cold didn’t affect the silverleaf, which was glued to the floats. “It holds up really well,” she said.

Silverleaf is actually a tree also known as silvertree and officially called leucadendron argenteum. Festival Artists began working with Resendiz Brothers after the previous silverleaf growers the float company used retired. In the 2009 Rose Parade, the Resendiz Brothers silverleaf petals were used on the disco ball of the Jack in the Box float which won the Extraordinaire Award for the most spectacular entry over 55 feet in length. The China Airlines float in the 2010 parade had silverleaf petals on the prince’s spear and won the International Award for the most beautiful entry from outside the United States.

A three-judge panel assigns scores to the floats based on creative design, floral craftsmanship, artistic merit, floral and color presentation, dramatic impact, and thematic interpretation.

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