In Feb­ru­ary of 2020, I was inter­view­ing florists on their cre­ations for grad­u­a­tions and how to inte­grate dried flow­ers into their fresh flo­ral designs for a local flo­ral trade mag­a­zine. Then, as we all know, the pan­dem­ic brought every­thing to a halt.  The Bloomin’ News, a flo­ral trade mag­a­zine pub­lished by The Orig­i­nal Los Ange­les Flower Mar­ket decid­ed to put the arti­cles on hold.

With every­thing reopen­ing in Cal­i­for­nia and grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies hap­pen­ing in per­son, the pub­lish­er asked me to revive the arti­cles and put a 2021 review on them. I inter­viewed every­one again as they were prepar­ing for Moth­er’s Day this past May. It was a crazy time for our busi­ness as well as every­one else! I was very hap­py to see that by June 1st, my cov­er arti­cle on Dried Flo­rals and the fea­ture arti­cle on Grad­u­a­tion flow­ers took up almost the entire magazine!

When I start­ed to reach out to all the flo­ral com­pa­nies I had inter­viewed pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, I was so pleased to find every­one still in busi­ness with new offer­ings and updat­ed designs.

Kit's Cover Story for the May 2021 of Bloomin News

The grad­u­a­tion flo­ral sto­ry was even more reward­ing to review. Many col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties where allow­ing grad­u­ates from 2020 walk with this year’s grad­u­ates. There would be more demand for leis and grad­u­a­tion bou­quets, too.

Graduation Leis story

Both sto­ries fea­tured “How-To” sec­tions. For the dried arti­cle, I added three ways to dry your own flow­ers. When I wrote the the grad­u­a­tion arti­cle, I added what types of flow­ers are best for leis and more about the his­to­ry of giv­ing leis for cel­e­bra­tions. You can read both arti­cles and the “How-To” sec­tions for free at The Bloomin News or click the “expand to full screen” in the frame below.