• Mother’s Day — May 13, 2012

by Kit Wertz

This will be my sec­ond Mother’s Day as a mom of twins and just think­ing about my lit­tle ones brings hap­py and joy­ful tears to my eyes. I wait­ed a long time to be a moth­er and know it will still be a few years before my son and daugh­ter start to give me their own flo­ral designs, home­made cards, and mac­a­roni neck­laces to show me their love every May. Right now, they show me their love every DAY with their scrunchy-nosed smiles and squeals of delight over a new place we’ve gone to explore togeth­er (at The Get­ty Muse­um pho­to at left). I am in con­stant awe of them. They help me redis­cov­er the world every day when they point out bloom­ing wild­flow­ers on a trail near our home, or a plain old crow fly­ing in the sky or even a jet air­plane fly­ing 30,000 feet above us. It’s been a long time since I noticed any of these every­day things in life and hav­ing chil­dren reminds me of how amaz­ing the world can be.

Instead of writ­ing about the 2012 gifts for Moth­er’s Day (okay here’s one, flow­ers!) … or what the Most Pop­u­lar Flow­ers Sent on Mother’s Day each year include (ros­es and calla lilies are in the list), I just wish you and the spe­cial moth­er in your life a Hap­py Mother’s Day.

But, because this is a flo­ral design newslet­ter and not a mom­my blog, here is a flower design how-to for you in case you want to make a fab­u­lous Mother’s Day gift for your moth­er, wife, sis­ter, aunt or friend.

Spring Time Floral Design How-To Featuring Ranunculus

by Kit Wertz

This is a design we taught in April at our flo­ral design stu­dio in Torrance.

This asym­met­ri­cal cen­ter­piece or focal piece is a stun­ning spring-time design that fea­tures the bulb flower Ranun­cu­lus. You can grow these lus­cious blooms in your own gar­den and when they burst up in spring, cut a few to make this fun design.

Casey teach­ing the class in April 2012.

Flowers Needed:

2 bunch­es of Ranun­cu­lus (20 stems of blooms. Try to find some large and open blooms and some small­er blooms to add vari­ety to your design)

1 large stem of Var­ie­gat­ed New Zealand Pit­tospo­rum (you can grow this shrub in your own gar­den in SoCal)

3 stems of Bupleurum

7 stems of white Veronica

Supplies Needed:

Foot­ed water­tight con­tain­er that holds 1/2 brick of wet flo­ral foam snugly
1/2 brick soaked flo­ral foam
Flo­ral cut­ters or florist’s knife
Knife (to carve foam)

Step 1: Place ½ brick foam into a con­tain­er that is water­tight. A foot­ed con­tain­er lends itself nice­ly to this asym­met­ri­cal design. NOTE: Usu­al­ly, when using flo­ral foam, it’s best to place the foam in the con­tain­er or design bowl so the writ­ing on the foam is fac­ing up toward the top of the design. This is because of how the foam “wicks water” from the bot­tom reser­voir of a con­tain­er. In this par­tic­u­lar vase, we can keep the brick of foam com­plete­ly wet by fill­ing up the con­tain­er with water when we are fin­ished with the design, so it is not as impor­tant to use the foam’s nat­ur­al wick­ing qual­i­ties. Keep the foam wick­ing qual­i­ties in mind if you are work­ing with flo­ral foam in a low design bowl where it would be impos­si­ble to keep water sur­round­ing the foam.

Step 2: Trim the foam so that the cor­ners are flat­tened. This makes it eas­i­er to insert stems into the cor­ners of the design.

Step 3: Start­ing with the New Zealand Var­ie­gat­ed Pit­tospo­rum, sep­a­rate the stems so you have two long stems and some short ones. Place into the foam as shown with a tall one shoot­ing out the left and then the next longest stem down to the right. Add the oth­er short­er stems all around the periph­ery of the foam to cov­er the green foam so you can’t see it very well. Leave the mid­dle of the foam open for now.

Step 4: Add some Bupleu­rum to the design. Mim­ic the place­ment of the Pit­tospo­rum and con­tin­ue to cov­er the foam. Reserve some Bupleu­rum to add at the end of the design.

Step 5: Now, place the “mon­ey” flower or the Ranun­cu­lus stems. Look through your col­lec­tion of stems and choose a few large bloom­ing stems to be the low, focal flow­ers. Reserve the small­er blooms for the tall parts of your design. See how I’ve placed the larg­er blooms in the mid­dle of the design and the small­er ones out to each side of the design?

Step 6: Place the Veron­i­cas so that they add whim­sy to the feel of the design and fill in with the Bupleu­rum so you can­not see any green foam.

Floral Design tips:

Tip 1: Don’t keep your stems in the plas­tic wrap too long or you may get stem rot. See these blooms did not make it. Mois­ture col­lect­ed inside the plas­tic wrap and caused the stems to rot. All I could do with these blooms was to cut off the flow­ers and float them in a bowl.

Tip 2: Make sure no green­ery stays on the stems below the “foam,” oth­er­wise, the leaves will break down in the foam and cause the blooms to fade faster.

Tip 3: Pre-poke holes in the flo­ral foam for soft-stemmed flow­ers like Ranun­cu­lus. Decide where you are going to place a flower and pre-poke a hole using a bam­boo skew­er or oth­er dis­card­ed stem. Then, place your flower.

Tip 4: Sep­a­rate your green­ery to make the most of it. Use it all if you can!

Fresh Cut Lilacs: How to Keep Lilacs Alive in a Vase

by Kit Wertz


I was delight­ed to find lilacs at my local farmer’s mar­ket last week. The lilac farmer is from Cas­ta­ic Lake and she said that the bush­es are peak­ing quick­ly due to the warmer weath­er, so this might be the last week they are available.

I picked up a 6‑stem bou­quet for $7.50 that includ­ed three col­ors of blooms…dark pur­ple, lilac and white and it brings such a won­der­ful fra­grance into the home! My hus­band even loves the smell! As with many woody stems, it’s hard to keep lilacs hap­py in a vase.

Even with spe­cial care, expect the cut lilacs to last only 3–5 days in a vase. Here are Flower Duet’s tips on keep­ing lilacs alive in a vase:

Remove all the leaves from the stems…as with hydrangea, the leaves are thirst mongers…so remov­ing the leaves helps to keep the water from the vase going to the blooms.

Cut the stems at a 45 degree angle with a real­ly sharp flo­ral knife or flo­ral cut­ters in a bowl of warm luke­warm water that has flo­ral food mixed in it to get all the air bub­bles out of the stem. Do not smash the stems with a ham­mer. The key to get­ting water up the woody stem is to keep the cut sharp. Upon close inspec­tion of the stem, you’ll see a “cot­tony” mid­dle part of the stem and that is where the water is sipped by the flow­ers. This must stay open in order for water to get up to the blooms.

Place in a tall vase full of warm water that has flo­ral food in it.

Keep the vase full with flo­ral food and water mix­ture each day.

Keep the flow­ers in a cool spot away from direct sunlight.

Most peo­ple can­not grow lilacs in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, but there is a type of lilac that has been adapt­ed to grow here. Here are some tips from Sun­set Mag­a­zine on grow­ing mild cli­mate lilacs in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.

If you just love liacs and can’t get enough of them each spring, check out this annu­al fes­ti­val May 19 and 20, 2012 at the Pine Moun­tain Club (just over the grapevine off the 5) or down in Julian, Cal­i­for­nia if you live clos­er to San Diego than LA.

FREE Video: How to Design One Dozen Roses in a Vase

Check out the latest video in our YouTube channel

We con­tin­ue to add more free videos to our YouTube chan­nel. Casey appeared on behalf of Flower Duet for the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 sea­sons of Cre­ative Liv­ing, which airs on PBS sta­tions across the coun­try. We are able to air these seg­ments with the per­mis­sion of Cre­ative Liv­ing via our chan­nel on YouTube!

This month, Casey shows Sheryl Bor­den from Cre­ative Liv­ing how to design the clas­sic dozen ros­es in a tall vase using only ros­es, green­ery and waxflower. This is a skill that every flo­ral design­er must know! Now you can, too!

Sub­scribe to our YouTube chan­nel: fash­ion­ingflow­ers so you’ll know when we’ve uploaded a new show!

Book Review: The 50 Mile Bouquet

The 50 Mile Bou­quet: Sea­son­al, Local and Sus­tain­able Flow­ers by Debra Prinzing

From Amazon.com:

“Most flow­ers on the mar­ket today are import­ed, mass-pro­duced and chem­i­cal-laden. The 50 Mile Bou­quet intro­duces some of the inno­v­a­tive voic­es of the dynam­ic new Slow Flower move­ment: the organ­ic flower farm­ers, the sus­tain­ably-moti­vat­ed flo­ral designers…and the flower enthusiasts…”

Casey and I have been read­ing about this upcom­ing book for a while and are delight­ed to report it is now avail­able to pur­chase in hard­cov­er for­mat only. This book focus­es on the farms and stu­dios of these “slow-flower folks” with love­ly and inti­mate pho­tog­ra­phy. The book includes these lengthy and infor­ma­tive chap­ters: Por­trait of a Flower Farmer, The Eco Design­er, The DIY Bou­quet, Cel­e­bra­tions and Fes­tiv­i­ties, and Flower and Foliage Resources. The for­ward is by our favorite flower author, Amy Stew­art, author of Flower Con­fi­den­tial.

It has received won­der­ful reviews from gar­den and book enthu­si­asts alike includ­ing this from Kath­leen N. Bren­zel, Gar­den Edi­tor SUNSET magazine:

“The 50 Mile Bou­quet is a flower book for today … inspir­ing, beau­ti­ful­ly pho­tographed, filled with advice on buy­ing, grow­ing, har­vest­ing and arrang­ing blooms that are tru­ly fresh, locally-grown.”

Floral Design Tool: Florist’s Knife

How To Use a Flo­ral Knife…Safely and Effectively

In our tip in this month’s newslet­ter about keep­ing lilacs fresh in a vase, we talk about the impor­tance of a sharp cut on the stems. The best way to achieve a sharp cut is with a flo­ral knife. We rec­om­mend the Vic­tori­nox Flo­ral Swiss Army Knife for advanced flo­ral design­ers. In our class­es, we use our favorite flo­ral bunch cut­ters to teach begin­ners, but when you are get­ting more seri­ous about flo­ral design, it’s time to switch to the flo­ral knife. In case you don’t know how to use a flo­ral knife, here are some tips:

• Keep the blade closed when you are not using it.
• Do not place fin­gers under the knife when cutting.
• Do not cut stems on tables or a cut­ting board.
• Nev­er touch the blade with your thumb to gain lever­age as you cut. Keep thumb in hitch­hik­ers posi­tion when cut­ting towards it.
• Do not use the thumb as a brace, but as a guide.
• USE CAUTION!!! These are tips…but if you real­ly want good instruc­tion on how to use a flo­ral knife, ask a pro­fes­sion­al florist to show you how to prop­er­ly use a knife.

Here are pho­tos to help guide you in prop­er han­dling of a flo­ral knife:

If you are right-hand­ed, hold the stem in your left hand with a firm grip.

Fin­gers should have a firm grip on the knife as shown.

Thumb stays in the “hitch­hik­er’s posi­tion” dur­ing the cut. Pull the knife toward the end of the stem at a 45-degree angle while also pulling the knife “through” the stem. Your right elbow should be mov­ing to the right as you pull the knife down and through the stem. That way, you use the entire blade to cut the stem. NOTE: Your thumb should nev­er touch any part of the blade.

Here is the result of the cut — nice and sharp at a 45-degree angle. Notice how you can see the cot­ton inside of this rose stem. This needs to stay open in order to drink up the water in a vase.