Floral Design and Arranging

Krista

calico20hill I love hearing your tips for floral arrangement, Noni! This year I’m going to try to learn how to better display all the beautiful blooms from the garden. I have zero experience with floral design and I’ve never regarded myself particularly adept with color matching so I’m going to hone in on learning from you pros. I’d love to develop a better design-eye. I’ll take all your tips and tricks whenever you’re willing!

calico20hill

Krista Krista, I learned a lot about flower arranging from attending seminars at the Seattle Garden Show. One of them was a lady who had worked in the European floral industry and her big beautiful Europen style bouquets were definitely an inspiration to me. Also talks on structure and on using natural materials to create it instead of the "Frog" pin base that my mother used. I would say that one of the most important things is to grow lots of shrubs and ornamental trees and grasses that can be used with your garden flowers. Also, keep your eye out for items that grow wild and you can use...pussy willow, flowering crab apples, old apple trees, etc. Learned to see them in light of how they would set off a bouquet with structure and texture. THere is so much more then matching floral tones. I also like to add fragrance, such as herbs, fir branches,,cedar,.Trade hedge prunings with flower friends...take them lIlacs when the ybloom and get back roses during their bloom seasons. There is a world of creative fun out there! I would recommend trying any new thing in your own house for a few days first time round...make sure it doesn't harbor bad bugs or a terrible stink as it opens!

Krista

calico20hill I'm beginning a new discussion thread for this topic! I'm not sure how to move our previous comments, but I can't wait to hear more.

calico20hill

I took A LOOK TO SEE what books I might have learned from but I guess those got sold or donated before we moved. THe one book I still have is "The well tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. publlished 1998. It was a good reference item to have...

I also worked very closely with my pal/business partner. We bounced a lot of ideas off each other, attended many of the same lectures, and ran our business together. Not that we had the same ides but we definitely learned from each other and enjoyed sharing our favorite things. When one of us had an ornamental tree in bloom we always invited the other to help prune, and take the trimmings for their work. It is a lot more fun to share the pleasure of working with flowers. Sometimes we had to agree to disagree but mostly we worked well together.

Krista

calico20hill "The well tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy DiSabato-Aust

Ohhh, I will look this up right away. I'm happy to have this discussion started - I can already tell this is going to be a space for lots of growth and inspiration for me!

MissyWeitzel

Krista I have a couple book recommendations. Maybe you can borrow/request them from the library to see if you like them before purchasing. The Floret (Erin & Chris Benzakein) book 'A Year in Flowers' is a resource I refer back to often. The front part of the book is step by step arrangements for each season. Then the back has a kind of photo glossary showing all kinds of focal/filler/foliage/airy bits and has info on vase life, etc. Their other book 'Cut Flower Garden' shows how to grow all those things.

I also have 2 of Ariella Chezar books that show all different step by step arrangements. 'The Flower Workshop' and 'Seasonal Flower Arranging'. She is known for a garden inspired style with lots of trailing vines and wildness to her design and the books are beautiful.

calico20hill

I JUST LOOKED at the speakers for the NW Garden Show. Oh my goodness, if there is any way you can go, do so! The speakers were always the best part (well, with the shopping for plants! I see some of the speakers I remember and a whole lot of new ones that I would love to listen too! Unfortunately this is NOT the year for me to try to get there.....The Garden Show is way more fun then CHristmas, and you come home with lots of presents you have bought for yourself🤣

Krista

calico20hill Oh hooray, I am so excited now! I purchased tickets for the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival 2024 back in November, but just kind of on a whim because I've never been before. Wish I were planning to cruise around with you - hopefully we can go together another year. Did you see any specific speakers that you think I should make sure not to miss?

Krista

calico20hill you come home with lots of presents

Uh oh 🤣

JessieC

Krista Wow that looks like so much fun! Please report back with details. I am headed to San Francisco on 2/14 to spend a week in the Bay Area. If anyone has suggestions for flower-related activities there, please let me know 😀
I second @MissyWeitzel on the Floret book recommendation. In fact, I have the other two (Discovering Dahlias and The Cut Flower Garden,) both of which are filled with good flower arranging advice and inspiration. And since I got into growing dahlias through learning about flower arranging, I have some more recommendations too. Ingrid Carozzi of Tin Can Studios in New York really inspired me. She has two books, I believe. I have Flowers By Design and Handpicked and I use them often. I’ll look through the others I’ve seen as well. The library is a good place to start, if you’ve got a good one!
Enjoy your time at the garden show. Good thing I’m not coming to Seattle, because I’d probably buy way too much to bring home in a suitcase 😂

calico20hill

Krista Oh yes! I will make you a list a little later...I am so glad you are going! Its one of my favorite things to do and its been 5 years since I was there. I definitely can't get away this year, darn it. Along with really interesting lectures , there is shopping to be done for everything from Lily bulbs to hellebores and orchids...garden tools, wind chimes, soil conditioners, tote bags, tee shirts...and my favorite potter, Mr Kunihiro. I love his blue glazed mugs and bowls, etc! If I were going I would look for nice garden benches among the crafts people exhibits. We always bought loads of lily bulbs and other small bulbs...DAHLIA TUBERS (Where I first met Wayne Lobaugh), Connells, And others who are no longer on this earth...) Swan Island does a big display and sales. (Of course I am talking from a pre-covid memory...some will have retired and there will be new ones...but such a joyous place to come to in winter! Lots and lots of displays for new inspirations...books to buy, Oh yes, I have even bought pots and pans from the commercial displays..nEW GARDEN TOOLS, and take your pruners for a professional sharpening...rest between shopping bouts by attending the lectures where you can sit down and use a different part of your brain :-).

Krista

calico20hill Thank you, Noni, I had no idea this was such an extraordinary event!!! I’ll keep my eyes peeled for Mr Kunihiro, and definitely bring my pruners in for sharpening, thank you for that tip! Ahhh dahlia suppliers will be there?!?! 🤣 Oh man. Wow, this has suddenly become something I just can’t even wait for, thank you thank you for being willing to share some recs for speakers too! Oooo yay!

calico20hill

Krista I have no idea how it has changed since Covid but I went every year until we moved...

Krista

Thank you for the assist, @blown_dry!

Krista

MissyWeitzel and JessieC Thank you for these book recs — I’ll check them out definitely, and cruise my library for more inspiration!

And I’ll follow up about the NW Flower & Garden Festival for sure. I hope you have a wonderful visit in SF, Jessie, that’s going to be a long flight for you!

Teddahlia

Flower design is a vast subject and includes both formal versions and informal versions. In the dahlia shows there are generally a team of official garden club judges and dahlia judges in a dahlia show. The garden club judges use their rules that have evolved for many decades and are quite detailed and it takes many years to become a garden club judge.
In the now almost extinct florist industry, there used to be hundreds of thousands if not millions of small independent florist shops nearly everywhere. Floral design was an occupation and florists were very skilled at producing floral designs for special occasions. And they delivered too and a nice part time job was delivering for a florist.
In 1967, during the Valentines day mad rush to deliver flowers, I was in college and had a car and for one day I delivered valentine flowers in Portland for "Flowers by Tommy Luke" . I remember nothing of the recipients or the flowers and only that finding all those addresses with a crude map was a real challenge.
There are no longer very many florist shops operated by individuals. The world has changed.
Another area that impacts the dahlia world is that the wholesale providers of floral supplies have also been closing. In the past , you could go to the wholesale florist supply and buy all of your floral needs from floral wire to floral baskets, to thousands of different vases,, and anything related to the floral industry, an acre or two of florist stuff.
Where do you buy that stuff now? On line is one source and one acquaintance said she buys her supplies at Safeway in the floral department as she used to work there and knows the staff.

This design was not done by Margaret.

calico20hill

Not sure if it is still there but I used to go to a big florist supply in Tacoma. I had a state tax license so I could shop there. When doing table bouquets for a big celebration it was nice to get matching vases for the tables, and some of the foliage I did not grow...like eucalyptus. I remembered being astonished at the price of dahlias...It was like 3 times what we were charging our customers.