What’s It Take to be a Florist?

Qualities which make a Successful Floral Designer

By Kit Wertz

There are many qual­i­ties which make up a suc­cess­ful flo­ral design­er. For exam­ple, we know that it takes strong arms and legs to with­stand all the lug­ging around of flow­ers and bins full of water, Chup­pah poles, and hours of stand­ing while mak­ing flo­ral designs.

It also takes some­one who can han­dle the cold and ear­ly morn­ings at the whole­sale flower mar­ket and some­one who likes to be up to his or her knees in dis­card­ed flo­ral stems on a dai­ly basis.

In addi­tion to being strong, ris­ing ear­ly, embrac­ing cold temps, wear­ing nice clothes and arriv­ing ear­ly on site, wear a smile because  you could meet your next client who is doing a walk-through at the venue where you are set­ting up. Always be ready to make a good first impression.

We cre­at­ed a fun info graph­ic to high­light some of the many require­ments for mak­ing flo­ral design a career.

Have No Fear — Of Heights, New Challenges or Flowers

As our busi­ness has expand­ed over the past 17 years, we’ve been faced with many new and excit­ing chal­lenges. We were taught to face them with­out fear by our par­ents and con­tin­ue to do so.

2015 Flower & Garden Shows

By Flower Duet

Highlights of Upcoming 2015 Flower Shows

In late Feb­ru­ary of each year, flower and gar­den shows start to sprout up all over the coun­try. One of the most famous is the annu­al Philadel­phia Flower Show held this year from Feb­ru­ary 28 to March 8, 2015.

Philadelphia Flower Show — February 28 — March 8, 2015

Cel­e­brate the Movies — The sil­ver screen will burst into liv­ing col­or at the 2015 PHS Philadel­phia Flower Show from Feb­ru­ary 28 to March 8 at the Penn­syl­va­nia Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Every guest will feel like a star and every gar­den a mag­i­cal set­ting as the world’s great flo­ral and land­scape design­ers cap­ture the beau­ty and spir­it of the world’s great cinema.

This year, the Philadel­phia Flower Show will be rolling out the red car­pet as flo­ral and gar­den design­ers use Dis­ney and Disney•Pixar films as inspi­ra­tion for their exhibits. Guests will expe­ri­ence the mag­ic as they walk through flo­ral dis­plays high­light­ing their favorite movies, from “Cars” to “Frozen” and “Malef­i­cent” to the new live-action film “Cin­derel­la.”

West Michigan Home & Garden Show — March 5–8, 2015

Every­thing for Your Home & Gar­den – All in One Place! West Michigan’s largest Home & Gar­den show is back for its 35th sea­son! With 12 fea­ture gar­dens, 4 free sem­i­nar stages and over 350 exhibitors fea­tur­ing every prod­uct and ser­vice you’ll ever need, all under one roof, this is the show to attend!

Join uBloom‘s J Schwanke & WZZM‘s Cather­ine Behrendt and Local Celebri­ties as they whip up amaz­ing flo­ral arrange­ments right on stage on Fri­day at 6pm on the Home Stage to raise mon­ey for local char­i­ties! First place will get $500 for their select­ed char­i­ty, sec­ond place gets $200, and all oth­ers get $100 just for participating.

 Chicago Flower & Garden Show — March 17–22, 2015

The roots of the Chica­go Flower & Gar­den Show can be traced as far back as 1847!  The Show, held each March at Chicago’s Navy Pier (March 14–22, 2015), is an expe­ri­ence for the sens­es, invok­ing mem­o­ries of spring after a typ­i­cal­ly long and cold Chica­go winter.

Pre­sent­ed by Mariano’s, the Chica­go Flower & Gar­den Show cre­ates an expe­ri­ence that the attendee will nev­er for­get by pre­sent­ing real­is­tic, as well as DIY solu­tions to inspire, edu­cate and moti­vate the next gen­er­a­tion of gardener.

The North Cen­tral Chap­ter of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Flo­ral Design­ers has teamed up with the art world to present an inter­pre­tive exhib­it of art and flo­ral. Come enrich your sens­es and see how oth­ers are using green as inspiration.

San Francisco Flower & Garden Show — March 18–22, 2015

The 2015 San Fran­cis­co Flower & Gar­den Show, “Going Wild.” is already under development.

• Stroll through gor­geous design­er gar­dens, with art­ful­ly arranged plants, trees and flow­ers in full bloom.
• See the designs and watch the demon­stra­tions by world-class flo­ral designers.
• Dis­cov­er how to cre­ate your own remark­able gar­den with hands-on demon­stra­tions and inspir­ing seminars.
• Meet pro­fes­sion­al gar­den­ers and nurs­ery own­ers who can answer all your questions…and help solve those nag­ging problems.
• Browse a wide selec­tion of spe­cial­ty shops fea­tur­ing unique flow­ers, plants, gifts, tools and more.
• Learn how to grow and pre­pare fresh home-grown food.

On Fri­day March 19, join the elite design­ers of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Flo­ral Design for an excit­ing evening of flo­ral design and flower fashions.

An Interactive Flower & Garden Show Map

We decid­ed it would be fun to cre­ate a Google mash up inter­ac­tive map of gar­den shows around the coun­try and a few more over­seas so you can see at a glance if there is one near you or in a place you’d like to visit!

Click on a green point to view more infor­ma­tion about the show.  Zoom in by click­ing on the + sign.

Flower Duet’s March Floral Design Classes

Flower Arranging Classes at Flower Duet’s Studio in the South Bay

Flower Duet Studio Wedding Series: Personal Flowers: Corsages, Boutonnieres and Floral Crowns

Date: Wednes­day, March 18, 2015

Time: 6:30–8:00 p.m.

Three times next year, we’ll offer a month­ly series of three class­es. You can sign up for one class or a whole series. These will con­cen­trate on three areas of wed­ding flow­ers: bou­quets, cen­ter­pieces and per­sonal flow­ers — which will include cor­sages, hair wreaths/floral crowns and boutonnieres.

Class size is lim­it­ed and geared toward those who want to increase their aware­ness of wed­ding flow­ers and how to work with tricky wed­ding tech­niques, but it can be use­ful for the casu­al flower arranger as well who wants to round out their flo­ral skills.

Address:

Flower Duet Design Studio
2675 Sky­park Dri­ve, Suite 205
Tor­rance, CA 90505

Reg­is­ter for this class…

At the Gardens of The Huntington Library and The South Coast Botanic Garden

Learn all about Ranunculus at The South Coast Botanic Garden

Date: MARCH 15, 2014

Time: Adult Design Class: 1–3 p.m.

Spring Ranun­cu­lus Flo­ral Design: Learn how to design flow­ers using love­ly spring­time Ranun­cu­lus blooms in flo­ral foam. Stu­dents will learn how to choose the best flow­ers for arrang­ing, how to con­di­tion them so the arrange­ment lasts a long time and com­bine them with com­ple­men­tary green foliage. Flower Duet will show stu­dents how to prop­erly use flo­ral foam so the arrange­ment stays look­ing nat­ural and organ­ic. All sup­plies includ­ed. Stu­dents take home their designs. Reg­is­tra­tion for this class is required 48 hours in advance of class start date. More Info.…

Celebrate Pinkie and Blue Boy at The Huntington

Adult Class (Ages 13+): Cel­e­brate The Blue Boy and Pinkie paint­ings from The Hunt­ing­ton Library’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion by cre­at­ing a flo­ral design fea­tur­ing pink or blue hydrangea. You choose your col­or theme and Flower Duet will lead you in a full flo­ral design along with tips and tricks for keep­ing hydrangea fresh!

Time: Adult Design Class: 10 a.m. to Noon   |    Kids Design Class: 1 to 2:30 p.m.

More info…

Flower Book — Taking the Flower Show Home

Tak­ing the Flower Show Home: Award Win­ning Designs from Con­cept to Completion

by Bill Schaf­fer, AIFD, AAF, PFCI, Kris­tine Kratt, AIFD

In this exten­sive­ly and beau­ti­ful­ly pho­tographed com­pendi­um, these vet­er­an flower show exhibitors reveal the excite­ment and chal­lenge of real­iz­ing large scale artis­tic visions. The book includes all you need to bring the show home to you, with con­struc­tion tips, ideas, mate­r­i­al lists and flower selec­tion, and insight­ful tech­niques to help you cre­ate flo­ral designs of your own.

Pur­chase on Amazon.com.

Learn more about this team of flo­ral design­ers from an inter­view they gave to the Mayesh team in 2013.

Flower Tool — Ladders

Tall lad­ders, step lad­ders and step­ping stools are all nec­es­sary and handy tools for every florist. Most venues do not pro­vide a lad­der and it’s not good form to stand on the rental chair to attach a gar­land or flo­ral spray to an arch.

One lad­der is cru­cial for most jobs, and a light weight step lad­der may be all you need. They fold flat and can fit in the van with­out tak­ing up too much stor­age space. Using two of these is actu­al­ly ide­al in the event you have two of you to set up flo­ral sprays on an arch. One to hold it at the right height and anoth­er to attach it.

If you know that a per­go­la is tall, bet­ter bring that 6–8 foot lad­der. It’s best to make it an alu­minum one so that it is light­weight to car­ry and lift to lash to the roof of your van or truck.

Most venues will not allow you to use their lad­ders for insur­ance rea­sons, some may not have one to even offer, and if they do, you have to wait for them to get it for you.  It is always pro­fes­sion­al to pro­vide your own tools, so that you can get the job done with­in the tight time frame allowed. Add that lad­der to your tool kit, you’ll be glad you did.