When you are planning a cutting garden and choosing flower varieties, there are several decisions to consider. Perhaps one of the most important is whether to grow annuals, perennials, or a mixture of both.
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Workshop Alumni Interview: Giti Gerami
Giti Gerami owns Botanica Wedding Flowers Studio in Rhode Island. She has over 15 years of experience in floral design. Her love for flowers began as a child as she worked dried and silk arrangements into her family's interior design business. Giti worked at a flower shop after she moved to the United States 20 years ago. She eventually purchased the flower shop and turned it into a thriving wedding flower studio. In the midst of the transition, Giti joined us at the 2016 Team Flower Workshop, which helped her navigate the waters of the wedding floral industry. She took some time to share her experience with us.
Workshop Alumni Interview: Jackie Gardner
We had the pleasure of meeting Jackie at the 2015 Team Flower Workshop. She and her husband started Moonset Farm in 2007 in Porter, Maine with three rescued Katahdin Hair Sheep, two horses, two dogs, three cats, and a few chickens. As their livestock business grew with each passing year, cut flowers stealthily worked their way into the production of the farm. Now, Moonset Farm not only yields fresh meats but is also a fully functioning flower farm & design studio. We recently spoke with Jackie about her story.
Flower drawings for design inspiration
It may seem intimidating to begin drawing your bouquets, especially if you have no prior experience with drawing, but it is a really great way to create unique bouquets for your brides – even if you just used the same color palette last weekend!
Workshop Alumni Interview: Patricia Campos
Ohio based floral designer Patricia Campos began her creative career as a graphic designer. It wasn’t long until the floral world worked its way into her heart, and now she runs a floral design studio in Cincinnati, Una Floral. With a love of muted colors and delicate greenery, her work is textural, thoughtful and artistic. Patricia’s floral journey began shortly before we met her at the 2015 Team Flower Workshop in Asheville, NC. Two years later, she has established her style and is currently working towards merging her two creative loves: graphic design + flowers.
2018 Conference Recap
The first annual Team Flower Conference has come and gone, but the memories made are ones that will last a lifetime. Over 100 flower friends from 32 states and 8 countries gathered together at the Reunion Resort in Orlando, Florida to grow, to connect, and to celebrate loving the world through flowers.
Sierra Flower Finder
In an era of the industry in which practically any cut flower can be shipped from any corner of the world, our vocabulary for the botanical materials we use is becoming ginormous, and the sheer amount of information about each flower we use in a given project can be overwhelming! That's where tools like Sierra Flower Finder can help solidify vocabulary and serve as a handy resource for looking up specs on flowers when you have questions about how they perform after cutting.
Why professional networking is important
We all know the power of building strong connections with other creative minds - it is food for our flower souls! They support us when we are discouraged and cheer us on when we succeed.
Best Roses for Floral Design
Today, you can find roses in numerous shades of oranges, pinks, yellows, reds, purples, whites, and countless colors in between! But with so many options, how do we even begin to choose?! To help with this, we reached out to Laurel Munro from Mint Floral Co. as well as Team Flower members and other industry experts.
What is the meaning of flowers?
Why do flowers accompany happy moments as well as sad? Why are they a part of once-in-a-lifetime events, but also everyday moments? What is it about a flower that can cover the full range of emotions from happy to sad, span generations, and even hold time in place?
Tips on Growing Bells of Ireland
I have a love/hate relationship with these little lovelies. Everyone loves the striking green lines that Bells of Ireland add to an arrangement. Their fresh color is indeed a refreshing component to many color palettes, but have you ever tried to grow them? They aren't particularly hard to grow, but they undoubtedly produce patience. They are quite picky, and they are slow to germinate - somewhere around three weeks or slower!
Why it's important to celebrate success
It’s really easy to get bogged down, and the result is that we forget to celebrate our successes. We’re always looking and thinking ahead to the next wedding, the next event, the next field to weed, the next prospective client meeting that we want to book, and the next accountant meeting. While I don’t think this is a bad thing, it means that we frequently forget to stop and smell the roses — literally!
Unique Flower Gift Ideas
There are countless ways to convey the beauty of flowers in the form of art and design, and Team Flower has gathered together a few different floral artists who create beautiful handiwork featuring the blooms we all cherish so much! These talented ladies have used their love for flowers & their own artistic gifts to capture the exquisite essence of each sweet blossom. Each is unique in what they create, and ALL are inspiring in their own way.
Arrangement How-to in Flower Magazine
This garden arrangement tutorial was recently featured in Flower Magazine. I'm happy to bring this feature to you — celebrating the present moment with flowers! See, garden flowers are just around for short spurts in time. Peonies are amazing in May, usually making a grand flush across the country around Mother's Day (or if you live in the mountains like me, mid June). Foxgloves wave their tiny bells and forget-me-nots rise from creek bed in front of our home in the summer. Poppies pop and surrender in what seems like an instant.
Explore England with Kelly
We're inviting you to explore the flowers & gardens of England with Kelly. Click here to accept your invitation and join before it's too late.
Encouragement for today
Excellent isn’t a word we use much today. Let’s bring it back. Let’s develop eyes to see it. Let’s cut through the cloud of this lens called perfectionism and recognize the excellent work being done around us every day. Let’s call it out in others. Let’s call it out in ourselves. Let’s focus our attention on the excellent and praiseworthy things. Life is too short to do it any other way…
Color Inspiration from the July Team Flower Workshop
Enjoy the thoughtful work of the July workshop attendees and reach out with a handshake to meet new friends (see the credits at the end). Every one of the faces behind these photos is kind and someone you want to know!
Color Inspiration from the June Team Flower Workshop
Enjoy the thoughtful work of the June workshop attendees and reach out with a handshake to meet new friends (see the credits at the end). Every one of the faces behind these photos is kind and someone you want to know!
Flower farming is a beautiful mess
One of the most humbling careers you could ever pursue is farming. No matter how much you do to make everything go the way you planned, there will always be something that is out of your control — but that makes success so much sweeter.
Processing flowers for maximum vase life
Learn about the latest research on flower vase life to maximize your blooms. Learn about optimal water temperature, speed of transfer and a leaf/thorn fact you probably didn't know.