Ahhh… what a beautiful summer this is turning out to be. We hope that all of you are enjoying every minute of the season for it is fleeting and will be over before you know it!

The English Hedgerow is here to enhance your summer fun with our always gorgeous, vibrant fresh flowers, organic lunches, summer sweets, and more.

Gourmet Wine Dinner: Saturday July 18th, 2009

This month’s gourmet wine dinner will feature the wines of Milbrandt Vineyards from Washington State.

Enjoy 6 courses of naturally raised meats and local produce paired with the delicious wines of Milbrandt, provided by The Corkscrew Wine Emporium

The night Starts at 7pm with the first course on the table by 7:15pm. Dinner is $50 per person and wine is $15 per person. We still have a few spots open!

Reservation Only: helen@EnglishHedgerow.com, or call ph: 217-365-0055

Christmas in July

Remember the lovely garlands, cards and candles you saw at English Hedgerow last winter? Well now is the time to treat yourself to some of these items at greatly reduced prices. Squirrel them away, and then bring them out again in a few months and you’ll be ahead, ready for the Holidays having saved a bunch!

~30 to 50% off Caspari boxed cards, gift tags, evergreen branches, Nouvelle candles and much more ~

Hedgerow Bistro and Catering News

As many of you may know by now we have been doing monthly wine dinners in conjunction with the Corkscrew Wine Emporium. But what you may not be aware of is that our Dinning room is available for private events as well. We have been doing rehearsal, graduation, corporate, and anniversary dinners for quite some time and they have been very successful. However, we still receive a lot of comments from people who think we aren’t open for dinner at all. We may not be open to the public every single night, but we could be open for you. So the next time you are looking for a place to have a nice private event, think English Hedgerow.

Just a reminder: the English Hedgerow is open once a month to the public for our fabulous wine dinners. Over the next several months we will be hosting dinners involving the freshest local produce available. For this reason we will not be able to post menu’s weeks in advance, instead it will be only a few days. As we’ve seen most of our customers don’t mind this and are more than willing to trust in us to provide a dinning experience that is unsurpassed in the Champaign-Urbana area. For this we must say, thank you.

If you are interested in one of our dinners I would highly recommend booking your reservation at least 3 weeks out since our dinners are usually fully booked after that. If you have any questions about our dinners or would like to book your own private dinner here at the bistro you may email Jacob@englishhedgerow.com.

News from the Flowershop

Helen Philpott, Owner and Floral Director

For the past few months, our cooler has been, (and will continue to be) a constantly revolving kaleidoscope of multi-colored wedding flowers, each selection as unique and different as the bride & groom it was created for. If you’re getting married this time next year, NOW is a good time to stop in and look at the flowers that would be available for your future nuptials. Our creative designers are available to help you with questions and concerns.

Photograph by Marc Romine

Some advice about sending flowers ‘long-distance’

Have you ever opened the yellow pages, or searched online for a florist to send a floral gift and message to someone far away from your home town? We’d like to share our thoughts with you about how to be sure that you get the best possible value for the money that you spend. The most important thing to check is WHERE the florist you are considering using is located. Check to see if there is a business address listed. Large clearinghouse-style organizations with apparently very low priced floral offerings seem like a great deal….until you finally get to the end of their long, tedious order process to discover that, with all the service & delivery charges, your bouquet is not going to be so inexpensive after all. The problem is that these ‘order gatherers’ often do not have the capability to create the arrangements themselves, and will relay your order on to a small, local business (like English Hedgerow). The actual amount of dollars going into the cost of the bouquet is much smaller than the total that was charged (remember all those service and delivery fees?) so the amount of flowers delivered is correspondingly less.

The ANSWER to this problem is simple. Wherever possible, call or email the LOCAL florist directly. Speak to them in person and ask what they would recommend. Let them be your eyes. Trust them to send their most beautiful blooms. If you need to send flowers out of town or around the world, let them communicate your needs to their network of preferred florists. And if you want something more unusual or very specific, allow a few more days before you need the delivery to be made, and a really good florist will willingly do their utmost to source the specialty flowers you request. Shop LOCALLY for the very best service, quality & value.

In Store Specials

30%-50% Marked Christmas Items
40% off ALL Vera Bradley

New Items

“MIXTURE” Home Fragrances:

· Elegantly shaped fragrant soy votive candles

· Perfect to put at each place setting at dinner parties, and to re-fill with fresh flowers when the candle has burnt down.

· Scrumptious room fragrance diffusers in designed to coordinate with the votive candles

· Choose from fresh tomato, Wild currant, English Ivy, gardenia or lavender.