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Everything is blooming at Silvias Fresh and Unusual Flowers.

In a corner of The Sun Plaza in Anna Maria is a little Garden of Eden where
Silvia Zadarosni works magic with bright balls of pink and green hydrangeas,
speckled orange and yellow orchids, delicate pink calla lilies and tropical
orange and blue birds of paradise.
Silvias Fresh and Unusual Flowers opened for business in February 2006, and
the island is all abuzz about her creative, artistic arrangements featuring
colorful, unusual flowers.
"I am striving to get more unusual flowers" she explained, "people appreciate
the beauty of something different."
Zadarosni, who grew up in Yonkers, New York, began working with flowers in the
1970"s and recalled "The owner took me under his wing. I worked in the green house,
but it was too tedious. I started to work with flowers and started taking classes
in design. I was very fortunate to meet a wonderful, flamboyant designer and worked
with him learning the business."
She worked with floral design until a terrible accident in 1989 when she broke her
neck. Three years into her rehabilitation, she and her husband, Jeff, decided to
relocate to the Island. The pair had traveled to various parts of Florida many times
on vacations and birding expeditions.
"This is the most beautiful place in Florida," she exclaimed. "It's a dream to live
on the Island. It"s a gift every day for me to experience this."
Unsure whether she could resume her career in floral design, Zadarosni. an amateur
ornithologist, met Jeannie Bystrom, who was a wildlife rehabilitator.
"She convinced me I could do it," Zadarosni said. "I rehabilitated birds for
The Island Animal Clinic. Then I met Gail Straight, of Wildlife Education and
Rehabilitation, and we became good friends. I began to rehabilitate all of her baby birds.
Then my husband got cancer and I had to stop everything and care for him."
When she was ready to return to work, she said Jean Holmes convinced her to return to
the floral business. She went to the Island Florist to inquire about a job and was surprised
to find out that she had worked in the same town in New York as their employee, Liz.
"She called me in to work a couple of hours on St. Patrick's Day in 2000, and the next
thing I knew I was working full time," Zadarosni remembered.
However, by 2005, she and Jeff, now a nine-year cancer survivor, decided that it was time
for a change and agreed to sell their home and move to Georgia to be near his family.
She quit her job at the florist in September and then came an awful, unexpected blow.
Jeff died suddenly of a massive heart attack in October, and Zadarosni was left in limbo.
"I was in no position to do anything," she recalled. "Thank God for angels like
Ginny and Jane, who stuck by me. Ginny said I could open a flower shop in their store
in Anna Maria. We picked out a corner and I opened two days before Valentine"s Day."
"This place is great. Everybody is smiling and happy to be here, and people always come
in here in a good mood. This place oozes positive energy and it just makes me be more creative
and make the best out of every day. I love this so much".
Zadarosni offers all types of flower arrangements and bouquets for the home or any event
such as a wedding, birthday or funeral. If you have a special vase, she will make an
arrangement to fit it, and delivery on the Island is free.
She does not have a wire service yet, but advises people who want to send flowers to
another city to get the phone number of a florist there, call and strike up a conversation
with the florist in order to get the best service.