How to Repurpose Wedding Flowers Through Floral Street Art
Hoping to find new ways to repurpose wedding flowers or reuse event flowers? We've all been there: consulting for months with a client, grinding out the perfect flower order in accordance to color and season, meticulously processing and caring for fresh product, and ultimately designing pieces of art for a wedding or event.
For an incredible couple of hours, our flower arrangements are on display to the public like a momentary gallery opening of our talents until the breakdown. After the event, our months of planning and design end up stuffed into trash bags. And maybe, if we aren't too tired, they're placed back into boxes and stored in coolers only to sit there until they're lifeless.
If this isn't your story, you're lucky. The pain of throwing away perfectly good flowers has always been the worst part of being a florist. Not only is my art inevitably going to die, but I'm contributing to the immense amount of waste in the floral industry. I spent years bringing flowers home and always being the friend who brings an arrangement instead of wine. But that only goes so far, especially when you're in the thick of wedding season.
Eventually, I knew I had to do something—anything—to change my role in the waste. That's when I started to see Lewis Miller's "Flower Flashes" in New York. His incredibly large and out-of-this-world installations in NYC trash cans were wild and surprising, stopping people in their tracks and inspiring smiles from young to old. I wanted to share my love of flowers with people in my own city of New Orleans in the same way. I'm always surrounded by flowers, and at times I take it for granted. I'm lucky to have a constant reminder of the beauty this world possesses, and all I want to do is share that with those around me. So I started the #nolaflowerbomb campaign.
There are many florists who are starting projects and businesses with sustainability at heart (think Garbage Goddess in NYC, a company owned by Liza Lubell of Peartree Floral who collects other florists' leftovers for composting and supporting local dye artists by donating the flowers for their works). But the flower bombs are unique in their repurposing of event flowers. Placed in unexpected spaces, the flower bombs invoke surprise and whimsy to a regular passerby and may even change someone's day for the better.
Installing large-scale arrangements in empty phone stalls, in front of blighted houses, or attached to large telephone poles, the flower bombs become a type of street art for the city. Impermanent and provocative, the flower bombs are a different take on how the city can see itself. New Orleans already has a distinct look and feel of decay and mystery. Add an out-of-place flower installation and the juxtaposition just kind of works in a strange way. But this spreading of unexpected joy can be done anywhere and with anything. I'm happy to have the opportunity to share some of my best practices for “flower bombs” and hope to inspire more florists to give a second life to their event flowers in this same way!
How to Create a Flower Bomb
After an event, collect the flowers like you usually would—only this time treat them as tenderly as when they left the studio. Typically, you wouldn't flower bomb the night of an event as you'll want to be able to spend ample time prepping. The next day, spend a few hours reassembling the flowers out of containers and into premade chicken wire molds. (I suggest chicken wire because when the flowers from the flower bomb have run their course, you can swing back around and grab the wire to reuse it for the next bomb.) It's easier to make the majority of the flower bombs ahead of time due to the ease of just hopping out of the car and placing/wiring the arrangement quickly. You can leave these little ones in phone stalls, on top of mailboxes, on stoops, or wired into signs.
For larger installations, either combine a couple of the smaller arrangements or create the installation on site. By winding the chicken wire around a stop sign, you can plug in greenery to hold up flowers and create a large installation in little time. On telephone poles, I've even drilled small screws in four spots around the pole which enables me to hang my chicken wire structures and arrangements to encircle the entire pole six feet from the ground.
Share the Love
I'll often share my hashtag #nolaflowerbomb and my Instagram name, @Crescentflora, below the installations in chalk. That way, people can share photos of the pieces as well as learn about others that might be in the area. This might be my favorite part of the process—watching how it changes people's experiences as they walk their neighborhoods and see a surprise flower installation.
Other Spots for Flower Bombs
Parks
Playgrounds
Trees with open nooks to set into
Fences
Planters
Statues (my very favorite was when I stuffed flowers into canons below Joan of Arc in the French Quarter. The flowers stayed for weeks!)
Petals scattered along sidewalks and parks or shaped into hearts or stars
Because of the flower bombs, my whole creative world has opened up—from running out of greenery and having to forage to seeing new possibilities for installations everywhere! I've had locals reach out to me to request flower bombs at their businesses or for their friends as surprises. Giving these flowers a second life has offered me an opportunity to give back in a beautiful and meaningful way.
If you decide you want to try to flower bomb in your community, remember a few key things:
Limit the amount of time you spend doing the installation and consider doing as much of it as you can before you go out. It takes the pressure off a bit and keeps the mystery alive.
Consider doing the installations at night—be like a flower ninja; visit your installations the next day for some day-time photos.
Never use products or materials that won't biodegrade or cannot be reused so that you're not irresponsibly adding to the waste of your community.
Always return a few days or a week later to remove your work, so the neighborhood doesn't have to.
Most important: Have fun! Together we can reduce waste and help our neighbors to stop and appreciate the little things!
