When was the last time you created an arrangement for yourself or experimented with something new—whether an ingredient or a technique? Amanda Luu of Studio Mondine is sharing how the global pandemic has given her the ability to look at flowers with refreshed eyes. Florists so often look at blooms through the eyes of their clients rather than utilizing the unlocked creativity within. Be inspired to break free in this podcast episode!
Have you ever thought about hosting workshops on your flower farm? If you’re looking for additional revenue, flower farm workshops can be a profitable option. In this article, learn from one farmer-florist as she shares creative revenue-building ideas for your floral business.
Have you ever thought about growing your own greenery for flower arrangements? Or perhaps how to make money growing plants at home? (Yes, you can profit off of those shrubs in your backyard as a floral designer!) Here’s how!
Growing sweet peas is one of our favorite things to do each year and starting sweet peas indoors is a great way to get a jump on the season. Sweet peas grow quickly and can become tangled before weather permits safe transplanting. In this video, you’ll see a demonstration of how to safely train and trim your sweet pea seedlings without harming the plant. This sweet pea pruning process not only makes it easier to transfer the individual plants to your garden, but it also encourages side-shoot growth making each plant stockier than before.
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Video transcript:
Hey, I'm here to demonstrate snipping back the sweet peas. You'll see that we have, like Kathleen suggested, we have all of our little twigs in here and our sweet peas are trailing up them. Now, if it was time to go ahead and plant these out in the garden, I would just pull these out, plant them, take their little sticks and plant those towards the trellis that they will eventually live on. But I still have several weeks until it's time to plant these. I started them pretty early. Sweet peas aren't something that you need to start early. I was doing a little bit of an experiment and I wanted to have some available here to show you how to snip them back in case yours get ahead of you as well. So, what I am going to do is I'm looking for the first, true set of leaves. So, that is the leaf that looks like a sweet pea leaf. So, if we can get a closeup right here, you'll see that the plant is coming out of the ground and right here is its first set of true leaves. So here is where I can snip it back to tame the growth of it. So these will continue growing down here, more leaves will continue popping out. And by the time it's time to get these out into the garden, it'll be a little bit stockier... Because of what we're doing here. And I won't have a tangled mess. So, I'm going to snip back half of them. And then the other half I'm going to let get wild and crazy and see if I notice any noticeable differences in my garden. So that's just something that I'm choosing to do this year. I tried starting them several different ways. This is my little sweet pea experiment patch. Okay, so we're all set. You can see how this one that I had cut back a few weeks ago has now a second stem coming out down here from the bottom so I'm getting some branching going on. And that will eventually happen with these little guys as well. So there you have it, snipping back your sweet peas.
The 2020 Team Flower Conference—held in Pasadena, California, right after the world-famous Rose Parade—reminded 300 attendees that there is beauty in transition, every stage in our journey with flowers is worthwhile, and the work we do is important.
When Covid-19 hit, the floral industry was deeply affected. Kalin recognized that she had to try something new, and in this episode, she’s sharing what it has looked like to pivot from almost solely wedding design to DIY at-home workshops. She’s discussing finding balance while making a living with flowers, and you’ll even hear a few tips on growing and caring for lavender!
If you consider yourself an artist, often you'll find yourself wanting to focus on more than one thing. Here are some tips on how to manage multiple creative projects or responsibilities at once.
Are there ways your floral creations live on and you can find fresh revenue for your business? Hear from one floral designer about how she got creative with partnerships with other artists—and created a new product offering.
In this article, I’ll show you step by step how to create your own floral pricing worksheet database that will help solve some common, everyday pricing woes for floral professionals. You’ll get instructions, screen shots, tips, and more to help guide you!
How do you stop catering exclusively to low budgets without completely cutting off that source of bookings? An a la carte floral menu might just be what your business needs!
Located in the North Carolina mountains, Lee has been a been a horticulturist for 23 years and has worn many hats throughout that time. She grows and selects dahlias based on color, form, and vase life specifically for floral design and then sells the tubers. She supplies local florists with dahlias and native species that she has also tested. Lee also designs, installs, and maintains several large, naturalistic gardens with a focus on native plants, including a vertical wall garden loaded with species that grow from the rocks in North Carolina.
You may have heard of a kenzan (also known as a flower frog), a magical little tool used in ikebana and Oriental floral art. Explore the benefits and applications of this tool outside of ikebana with floral designer and Team Flower Member Daria Bokova.
Watch a video tutorial on how to make a long-lasting, inexpensive, and cheerful springtime arrangement. I use fresh-cut daffodils (often available for $5 a bundle or less) and a handful of potted bulbs. Container aside, you’re looking at about $12 in supplies for this piece!
Transcript
Hey, I'm Kelly Perry. And I'm here to show just a quick little fun with flowers segment. I was out picking up some groceries and saw these hyacinth bulbs for a dollar. And I was like, well, let's do something fun with those this afternoon. So I'm here.
And had some rocks left over from another project that I was working on and I thought we'll just do a little hybrid potted plant/fresh cut flower arrangment. So I'm going to put a couple rocks in the bottom of this to help with drainage since there aren't any drainage holes in this container. And then I'm going to add a little bit of potting soil. And then I'm going to go ahead and put in-- I had these left over from another project as well, so I'm going to pop these in-- little tulips.
And we'll put in the hyacinth in here as well. I love hyacinth in the spring. It is the smell of spring to me.
They're also really fun to make hairpieces out of. I was at a class recently in New York, and Shane Connelly was the teacher. And he does flowers for the Royal Family.
And it was really fun to hear his perspective and take on things. And he loves using potted flowers. And so we have that in common.
And then he taught us how to wire hyacinth flowers to use in bouquets and things like that. And that got me thinking about hair crowns and just all the versatility and things that we could do with those. So anyway, just a little tidbit there about the hyacinth. So once these bloom, I might pop them out and practice doing some more wiring with them.
OK, got these potted in here how I like them. I pulled some moss out of the backyard. I'm going to put that in here just around. I'm going to not do the whole way around quite yet, because I want to add some of these fresh things with water tubes. But we can just kind of get this base started so we have a better idea of what it will all look like when it comes together.
Perfect. OK, these are water tubes. I'm going to just pop them open and I'm actually going to just snip the ends off these. I'm using these little daffodils and their stems are hollow. So I don't want to upset them.
I'm just going to pop these inside.
In this arrangement, I'm just going to like a mass of spring flowers. No particular consideration to lines or anything like that. I just want it to look like it is just happening.
So all the different stages of the flowers are in. Perfectly fine, because that's how they are outside. Some are high. Some are low.
So do this with whatever you have in your garden. Maybe you have some of those really pretty magnolia branches blooming. Or a few little cherry blossoms. Whatever you have, go for it.
I have this dogwood that I think I'd like to put in. And this will open up over time. It's not open at the moment, but it will be. Actually, let me give that just a quick little fresh snip so it can have an easier time hydrating.
[HUMMING]
I want to add just two more flower tubes.
And I'm going to be adding the moss in so that will cover up-- oh, these are poking up through the soil right now. That'll take care of that. And these little tubes of water you'll want to keep an eye on if you're trying to keep your arrangement fresh for a particular day. Just keep an eye on those little tubes. They don't hold a lot of water.
And I'm putting about two daffodils in each. So they'll drink that up pretty quick. Keep a little eye on that. OK, we'll fill in and cover up those tubes with the moss. And then we'll be all ready to go.
The hyacinth already had quite a bit of moisture in the soil so I'm not worried about giving those a fresh drink just yet. But I'll keep an eye on that in the coming days.
But once those start shooting up through the soil, and these tulip bulbs that are in here start blooming, it'll really fill this arrangement out. And it will be very, very sweet. Lots of longevity to this.
If you do weekly arrangements for maybe a business or some type of office setting, this would be a great way to offer something with a lot of longevity to it.
All right, there you have it. Just give this a little dust around the edges and we'll call that done.
Thanks for watching. If you'd like to see more like this, you can visit Teamflower.org/free. I'm Kelly. Thanks for watching.
You’re in for a treat with our special guest on this episode of the Team Flower Podcast. It’s Josh from Birch Event Design!
They’re the floral arrangements in every luxe wedding photo. You know the ones: gorgeously tall floral centerpieces. In this article, floral designer Gerry Rogers takes the mystery out of the set up, supplies, and steps needed to create these stunning pieces.
When dealing with chronic illness, floral business dreams can feel far off—but the flower life is for you, too! Grower and designer April Holmes shares 5 tips to help you on your healing journey.
In this podcast episode, you’ll hear from Kate Stoner, the owner of Cold Water Flowers in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Kate is an expert dahlia-grower. You’ll hear about her choosing process as well as a few tips on how to make choices (whether that be about which flowers to grow or which projects to take on). She’s also chatting about a few tips for small businesses.
How exactly do you start a floral business in the middle of a shutdown? While small-business ownership poses a unique set of challenges, starting or sustaining a business during the current economic climate is difficult. Here is some encouragement (and practical tips) to see you through!
If you have a favorite plant that gives you beautiful flowers or foliage, chances are there's an easy way to have more. It's called propagation, which means creating new plants from existing plants. In this article, flower farmer Sarah Jo shares how to propagate from simple cuttings and shares a list of plants that are easy to grow from cuttings.
