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.
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.
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.