All in our Family: Flower Duet, Trio, & More Help Arrange, Deliver and Flip Flowers

Kids Help Out to Expand Flower Duet

When my sis­ter and busi­ness part­ner, Casey, and I start­ed our flo­ral busi­ness in 1999 as a part-time busi­ness, we knew that when we each had our own kids, we want­ed a more flex­i­ble work sched­ule. Casey had kids first, and she has two sons. Her old­est is in col­lege, and the oth­er is a senior in high school! My son and daugh­ter are also in high school. So we got our wish when the kids were born and con­vert­ed our side hus­tle into a full-time busi­ness, and for­tu­nate­ly, it worked out well!

When my kids start­ed walk­ing, we pro­cured our large flo­ral design stu­dio space, where all of our kids (the four cousins) could play bas­ket­ball, ride scoot­ers, and build with LEGOs in our office space any time they want­ed, while we were mak­ing flow­ers in the large stu­dio space. It’s only nat­ur­al that Casey’s sons and my son and daugh­ter would pick up some flower skills along the way. And since the old­est just turned 21, I thought it would be fun to look back on how they have all helped us out or are now begin­ning to help us a lot more in our flower busi­ness. Just this last week­end, I need­ed help unload­ing five bags of riv­er rock (50 pounds each) from my car to the front yard, and my kids eas­i­ly moved the bags out of the back of the SUV like they were down pil­lows!  I need to use their mus­cle pow­er more often!

The four kids were ear­ly on at our stu­dio space, mak­ing flow­ers for fun.

Kit pos­es with her daugh­ter Keely for a self­ie while wait­ing for table­cloths to be placed at a near­by venue over­look­ing the Pacif­ic Ocean.

Keely Helps Out Flower Duet

When you are a florist, you do need those mus­cles, but you also need patience. For exam­ple, my daugh­ter, Keely, is great about wait­ing in the shad­ows for the bride and groom to have their pic­ture tak­en before flip­ping the cer­e­mo­ny decor to the recep­tion area. Flip­ping is when you repur­pose flo­rals from one part of the event to anoth­er. She (and my son Cole) have been inte­gral at times in our fam­i­ly flower business.

In the begin­ning, when they were lit­tle, they loved help­ing me take pho­tos of my flow­ers, installing a fall dis­play for a pho­to back­ground at our local South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den, and then, in 2020, all of our chil­dren helped us cre­ate step-by-step flower-arrang­ing video lessons for our Liv­ing Art Camp online course dur­ing the COVID lockdown.

Now that Keely is old enough for a work­er’s per­mit, she has been help­ing me install flow­ers at wed­dings, run pri­vate flower class­es, and set up on board the local city cruis­es in Mari­na Del Rey. I love Keely’s help, but even more, I love the time we spend togeth­er on these lit­tle out­ings. I pay her an hourly rate and more often than not, we also go out for sushi after a job!

Keely places a cen­ter­piece at a local Golf Club for a wed­ding reception.

Keely pos­ing with Flower Duet flow­ers back in 2015.

Flower Duet did instal­la­tions for pho­to back­grounds at the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den. Cole and Keely helped Kit with the final touches.

Keely after installing flow­ers for a 90th birth­day par­ty on the “Mari­na Horn­blow­er” boat in Mari­na Del Rey.

Keely is help­ing Kit at a pri­vate home for a sweet 16 flower arrang­ing party

Cole Designs Flowers for a Friend & Galas

Kit’s son Cole (Keely’s twin broth­er) has been a great design­er, too. He gets paid, too! He even helped cre­ate the flower arrange­ments for his best friend’s grand­fa­ther’s memo­r­i­al and assist­ed with mak­ing flow­ers for anoth­er gala event, where we need­ed to pro­duce over 80 designs this summer.

Cole and Keely have always both loved going to The Hunt­ing­ton Library with us when we teach flo­ral design class­es, and they’ve always been great help in set­ting up and clean­ing up, too.

Casey directs Cole on where to place a fin­ished gala design he made for Flower Duet last summer.

Casey’s Son Will is our Gen Z Rep

Casey’s son, Will, has been on many flower adven­tures with both of us, as well as many with Casey. Most recent­ly, he took a break from his week­end as a full-time stu­dent at USC to help her with an all-day wed­ding set­up and break­down in San­ta Ynez, which is about a three-hour dri­ve from down­town Los Angeles!

Will (back right in hat) helps us in our “Make and Take” suc­cu­lent planter work­shop at Crunchy­roll HQ in Los Ange­les in March.

Will (on the left) has been help­ing Casey out for many years, includ­ing this year, even though he is a full-time stu­dent study­ing film at USC.

Casey and Will at Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios HQ after our ‘Make and Take’ flower work­shop we held for employ­ees in May.

Sam Designs Succulent Pumpkins with Ease

Sam is Casey’s younger son, and he is now a senior in high school. As the sports edi­tor of the stu­dent news­pa­per, he helps raise funds for their annu­al trip to the stu­dent jour­nal­ism con­fer­ence. Each year, we invite the stu­dents to come ot the stu­dio and make pump­kins they have pre-sold for their fundrais­er. Since Sam has been mak­ing flow­ers since he could hold a stem, this comes nat­u­ral­ly. He’s even been mak­ing fresh flo­ral bou­quets for his girl­friend. So sweet!

Learn more about their fundrais­er - Redon­do Union High School High Tide Pump­kin Fundraiser

So, a fam­i­ly that makes flow­ers togeth­er blos­soms togeth­er. And, I real­ly love that they can lift those 50-pound bags of riv­er rock, too!

Sam is Casey’s younger son, and he has designed suc­cu­lent pump­kins with his jour­nal­ism staff for the past two years. This will be the third year that Flower Duet is spon­sor­ing this event for the group.

The kids of Redon­do Union High School Jour­nal­ism and Year­book staff mak­ing pump­kins at Flower Duet in the fall of 2024.

Cole, Will, Sam, with Gram (Kit and Casey’s Mom) at The Hunt­ing­ton Library in 2016 dur­ing a kids’ flower class put on by Flower Duet. Keely is in the front of the class­room with Casey teach­ing (not pictured).

Will, Casey, and Keely intro­duced our Juras­sic Park Liv­ing Art Camp Series back in 2020.