Fall Flower Trends — Rich Colors & Nature Inspired

By Kit Wertz

Fall col­or trends will point solid­ly toward jew­el tones. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

As we turn to fall and cool­er tem­per­a­tures, the col­ors of the flow­ers tend to heat up. We’ve been receiv­ing many requests from our wed­ding and event clients to cre­ate flo­ral designs using jew­el-toned flowers.

Deep rich reds and oranges will dom­i­nate this fall in flow­ers. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Deep reds will still res­onate this fall. Shown here are choco­late ted­dy Cym­bid­i­um Orchids with red Ama­ran­thus and sil­ver dol­lar Euca­lyp­tus. Flow­ers and Pho­to by Flower Duet.

Deep pur­ples evok­ing sap­phires and amethysts will make appear­ances through the fall. Pic­tured are pur­ple Stock, Lisianthus and Amne­sia ros­es with var­ie­gat­ed Pit­tosor­pum and green Hyper­icum berries. Flow­ers and pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Flower Trends in Fashion for Fall 2015

Red Valenti­no Flo­ral-Print Taffe­ta Dress. Pho­to by Elle.com.

Flow­ers dom­i­nate fall fash­ion lines as shown by this love­ly dress by Red Valentino.

All design­ers are hav­ing fun with dark­er themed flo­rals this fall and win­ter. Flo­ral prints aren’t just for spring­time any­more. Take a cue from the fash­ion indus­try and design in rich col­ors against dark palettes. Choose dark­er green­ery like Israeli or Ital­ian Rus­cus to off­set flow­ers in an arrangement.

See a love­ly slideshow of flo­ral fash­ions from Elle.com.

Pho­to from: Fashionisers.com

2015 Floral Trends Predictions Come True

Clean lines with an influ­ence from Ike­bana were the notes from our recent wed­ding client at La Ven­ta Inn. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Julie Kennedy.

Accord­ing to House Beau­ti­ful, the 2015 trends in flo­ral design were to be clean­er lines and a nod toward the past. We have seen this through­out the year and these trends con­tin­ue. Here is their top five list with our take on what we’ve seen this year.

Nature Indoors — More flo­ral arrange­ments will be inte­grat­ed with plants like suc­cu­lents and ferns.

Glob­al Influ­ences — Clean lines, and sim­ple ele­ments with a nod toward Ike­bana will appear more often in flo­ral designs for the home and event celebrations.

Vin­tage Revi­sions — We are still see­ing a lot of mer­cury glass and foot­ed com­pote designs. Thank­ful­ly this trend also includes the return of lush green­ery to flo­ral design which helps show off each bloom’s indi­vid­ual beauty.

Super Col­or - Flower Duet’s clients are ask­ing for more and more col­or in their arrange­ments. We love this fun trend.

Cen­ter­piece returns to Cen­ter — More and more peo­ple are enter­tain­ing at home and focus­ing on the fin­ish­ing touch­es like a flo­ral cen­ter­piece. Many stu­dents who attend Flower Duet’s class­es are just inter­est­ed in cre­at­ing flow­ers for their home and their own pleasure.

Fall Event Floral Styling Workshop — by Flower Duet on September 30, 2015

Flower Duet will be host­ed by the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den to show atten­dees how to style for fall with fresh and dried flow­ers. We’ll be hands-on in the gar­den to set up a flo­ral dis­play that will be on semi-per­ma­nent dis­play through fall.

This exclu­sive behind-the-scenes look into event styling is per­fect for event plan­ners, wed­ding cou­ples, inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tors and any­one who loves flow­ers. Flo­ral design stu­dents will be hands-on to set up an out­door fall-themed arch with accom­pa­ny­ing decor in the Low­er Mead­ow and then learn how to take it down and re-install it in an alter­nate fash­ion in anoth­er loca­tion with­in the Gar­den. Dur­ing this mul­ti-faceted class, stu­dents will learn how to attach dif­fer­ent types of flow­ers and green­ery to struc­tures, how to pre­vent dam­ag­ing exist­ing struc­tures, and how to keep flow­ers fresh on a struc­ture or from blow­ing off in the wind. Stu­dents will also receive tips and tricks on cur­rent fall dec­o­rat­ing trends.

Date & Time: Sep­tem­ber 30, 2015, from 10 a.m. to Noon

Loca­tion: Low­er Mead­ow of South Coast Botan­ic Garden

Reg­is­tra­tion: Online reg­is­tra­tion is accom­plished by buy­ing tick­ets through the garden. 

Photo Essay Focuses on the Men of  NYC’s Floral Business Industry

Sub­mit­ted by Adri­enne Sorg

Slate Mag­a­zine’s Behold Pho­to Blog  pub­lished an arti­cle about Brook­lyn-based pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mag­gie Shan­non’s series of Man­hat­tan’s flo­ral dis­trict inhabitants.

She decid­ed to pho­to­graph the inhab­i­tants of the Man­hat­tan flower dis­trict, locat­ed on 28^th Street between Sev­enth Avenue and Broad­way after an impromp­tu vis­it orches­trat­ed by her boyfriend.

Slate.com fea­tured her pho­tos in an arti­cle enti­tled, “The Men Who Make Man­hat­tan’s Flower Dis­trict Blos­som.”

What strikes us as total­ly cool about this pho­to fea­ture, is that the flow­ers and the peo­ple pho­tographed are very sim­i­lar to the won­der­ful peo­ple and places we vis­it every day on our trips to the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict and to our satel­lite whole­sale ven­dors we vis­it all around LA, weekly!

This is a rare insight and inter­est­ing set of scenes frozen in time and we thought we’d share a lit­tle about the “right” coast’s flo­ral suppliers.

Edible Flowers Decorate Desserts and Drinks

by Flower Duet

Pho­to by Gourmet Sweet Botan­i­cals: gourmetsweetbotanicals.com.

Gourmet Sweet Botan­i­cals sells high-qual­i­ty Micro­Greens, Petite­greens™, Edi­ble Flow­ers, Crys­tal­lized Flow­ers, Tiny Veg­gies™, Shoots & Leaves and oth­er prod­ucts. If you desire to add fresh flow­ers to a recipe or a dish, it’s essen­tial to use flow­ers that have been pro­duced with­out pesticides.

This com­pa­ny offers its cus­tomers flo­ral prod­ucts that are grown in Cal­i­for­nia and are packed and shipped overnight to you to ensure freshness.

Com­pa­ny Web­site for Order­ing: shop.gourmetsweetbotanicals.com

Wedding Floral Snapshots

by Flower Duet

We did take a few weeks off in July and August to trav­el to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and the beach­es of the Atlantic; but have been quite busy upon our return. Here are a few snap­shots from a few wed­dings we did in July and August.

Pretty in Pink Near the Ocean

Pink Rosi­ta Vendela ros­es make up this entire hand-tied bou­quet with a navy blue rib­bon as an accent col­or. Design and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Pink accent­ed wed­ding per­go­la by Flower Duet at the Crowne Plaza Redon­do Beach. Per­go­la rental by Lev­el Wed­dings. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Flower Duet com­plet­ed the look of aisle vas­es hang­ing from the chair rows with a line of pink rose petals. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Shades of pink and laven­der make up this wed­ding cen­ter­piece. Stock, ros­es and hydrangea play well off each oth­er. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Nautical Wedding on the Queen Mary

Blue and white were the dom­i­nant col­ors for this nau­ti­cal theme aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

The navy blue wed­ding theme of this cake works per­fect­ly well with the blue and white hydrangea flower accents by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

White and Blue flow­ers are har­mo­nious in this nau­ti­cal-themed navy blue wed­ding on the Queen Mary. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Rustic Wedding in the Rolling Hills of  Malibu

Rus­tic flow­ers adorn the bar over­look­ing the cer­e­mo­ny area. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Peachy gar­den ros­es were high­light­ed with white spray ros­es and pink blush­ing bride pro­tea in these rus­tic themed cen­ter­pieces. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

The lace table run­ner cho­sen by the bride was accent­ed with gold mer­cury glass julep cups and a wood­en con­tain­er filled with peach, white and pink flow­ers along with dusty grey green­ery. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Flower Tool: Hanging Vases Using Flower Duet’s Ribbon Technique

by Casey Cole­man Schwartz

Flower Duet devised a sim­ple and fool­proof design to secure a love­ly vase to chairs along an aisle for a wed­ding. Flow­ers and pho­to by Flower Duet.

Pew decor or Aisle decor.…both mean pret­ty flow­ers as the guests take their seats and when the bride walks down the aisle. It is a fin­ish­ing touch or accent, with an impact.

Flow­ers can be placed on either side of this top rib­bon and hid­den. This style allows the vase to hang ver­ti­cal­ly. Tech­nique by Flower Duet.

Flow­ers sim­ply tied togeth­er with a rib­bon and left hang­ing out of water look great if they are silk or dried.  Fresh flow­ers need water to stay perky as we often have to place the flow­ers an hour or so before the cer­e­mo­ny.  Avoid­ing droopy or wilt­ed flow­ers at all costs requires a vase or a water source of some sort to ensure hydration.

This style of vase and rib­bon tie lends itself to a tilt­ed style of aisle vase. Tech­nique by Flower Duet.

There are great aisle decor tools for cer­tain kinds of seat­ing with flo­ral cages attached or just a sin­gle vial, but often we were look­ing for some­thing in between. We have found very few options for a flat-bot­tomed, clear con­tain­er gen­er­ous enough to hold enough flow­ers to make a state­ment for the aisle, but small enough not to both­er guests while seated.

Also, these hang­ing beau­ties could make the move to cock­tail tables or enhance the sweet­heart table or cake table fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.  In the past, I had tied a rib­bon around the lip of a mason jar and screwed on the out­er lid to secure it. This worked well, as long as mason jars were part of the theme.

I had a few sim­i­lar small­er vas­es and real­ized they all had a slight gath­er­ing to them and might actu­al­ly han­dle a rib­bon tied in a cer­tain fash­ion to man­age a fool­proof hold.  After play­ing with some rib­bons, I was suc­cess­ful.  With this tech­nique, the vas­es actu­al­ly hang straight up and flow­ers can be placed on either side of the rib­bon. The rib­bon can be tied short or long depend­ing on the type of seating.

A vari­ety of vas­es offer dif­fer­ent ways to tie rib­bon for aisle decor. Tech­niques by Flower Duet.

The oth­er style lends itself well with a slight tip of the vase.  The joy of select­ing the rib­bon is a great way to add the accent col­or to the event.  Àqua, Navy, and Turquoise have been pop­u­lar themed col­ors and since flow­ers don’t nat­u­ral­ly come in those col­ors, the rib­bon does the trick.

Flower Duet is cre­at­ing a new video series to show you just how to cre­ate these vas­es along with many more tricks of our trade. Stay tuned for our New “Fin­ish with Flow­ers” series or #fin­ish­with­flow­ers.

Flower Book Recommendation: The Art of Floral Design

By Kit Wertz

The Art of Flo­ral Design by Norah T. Hunter is in its 3rd Edi­tion and is the quin­tes­sen­tial text­book for flo­ral design stu­dents. It’s been updat­ed for mod­ern times and can be pur­chased out­right, rent­ed or checked out of the library.

I was able to find a used 2nd edi­tion for about $15 on Amazon.com and you might come across a bar­gain at a book sale at your local library.

At a whop­ping list price of $354.95, you can find this 3rd Edi­tion for sale on Amazon.com for about $278 for a new hardcover.

Why is it so expen­sive? It is com­pre­hen­sive. It cov­ers the his­to­ry of flo­ral design and cov­ers all aspects of run­ning a flo­ral shop. The text is divid­ed into five sec­tions: The­o­ry and Design, Flower and Foliage, Basic Tech­niques and Styles, Beyond the Basics and The Flo­ral Indus­try. It offers two Appen­dices on Flow­ers and foliage and a Glos­sary of Flo­ral terms.

There is still some­thing to be desired about hav­ing a print­ed, pub­lished book that’s been vet­ted for years by experts and edit­ed by professionals.

In short, this “expen­sive” text­book is very much worth it and if you love flo­ral design like we do, it may just be the only text­book you read all the way through.