March 2013 Newsletter

Moss-Covered Floral Containers: Purses, Baskets and Shoes?

by Kit Wertz

Pic­tured at left is a jew­el-toned take on the tra­di­tion­al East­er bas­ket flo­ral design. We added a few arti­fi­cial emer­ald green moss balls to the mix along with dark pur­ple Hydrangea, red Ros­es, and red Ranunculus.

We start­ed a new Pin­ter­est board to give you more moss-cov­ered con­tain­er ideas. Check it out at Pinterest.com/flowerduetla.
Since it is now March and we turn to all things green to cel­e­brate St. Patrick’s Day, we thought it would be fun to fea­ture mossy green flo­ral con­tain­ers. This also con­tin­ues last month’s theme fea­tur­ing emer­ald green as the col­or of the year for fash­ion and design.

Wild­flower wed­ding cen­ter­piece with hand-made moss con­tain­er. We used a maché con­tain­er and attached sphag­num moss to the outside.
While it’s entire­ly pos­si­ble to cre­ate your own moss-cov­ered con­tain­ers (see our flo­ral tool review this month on moss con­tain­er cov­er­ing), we sug­gest look­ing into the pletho­ra of con­tain­ers you can pur­chase that are ready made. With the excep­tion of the sling back heel, all of these con­tain­ers have plas­tic lin­ers so that you can start design­ing right away.


Purse, sling­back heel and water­ing can all fea­ture pre­served moss coverings.

Learn how to cre­ate a fun flo­ral design in a moss-cov­ered hand­bag or purse in our 2‑for‑1 Moth­er’s Day flower arrang­ing class on May 11, 2013.

Flow­ers used were Pha­laenop­sis orchids, Waxflower, var­i­ous suc­cu­lents and bru­nia berries. Kit was inspired by botan­i­cal cou­ture work of Françoise Weeks when she cre­at­ed this design using the ready-made moss-cov­ered sling­back heel. This design would not last very long as none of the flow­ers fea­tured on it has any type of water source. It would be cute for a one-day fash­ion show lun­cheon par­ty theme, though! Each flower and suc­cu­lent is secured to the shoe form with flo­ral wire. For more intri­cate designs, I would imag­ine that some type of sewing with fish­ing line is involved and florist’s Lomey glue.
This moss-cov­ered and grapevine woven water­ing can con­tain­er makes a sweet bridal show­er tea cen­ter­piece idea. We’ve added Pink Aki­to ros­es and Sil­very Bru­nia berries to the design.

A mod­ern square moss con­tain­er is lined with plas­tic, ready for your design and com­plete­ly cov­ered with moss on the bottom.

The square shaped moss con­tain­er can serve as a lift for a flo­ral design as demon­strat­ed here.

Mossy Accents

These spheres cov­ered in emer­ald green arti­fi­cial moss make great vase fillers or oth­er accent pieces. Per­fect for a St. Patrick­’s day flo­ral design.

Green Jewelry and DIY Craft Ideas

by Casey Schwartz

DIY Ter­rar­i­um Kits make it easy to have your own low main­te­nance indoor garden.

There are some pret­ty clever and tal­ent­ed artists today who are get­ting more and more expo­sure to the pub­lic thanks to sites like Etsy and deal sites like Fab.com. We found these prod­ucts thanks to some of these types of sites and thought we’d pass these on to you.

If you want to learn how to make your own ter­rar­i­ums, check out our step-by-step guide from last year’s Feb­ru­ary newslet­ter: How to cre­ate a Terrarium.

Mossy Jewelry

Neck­laces, ear­rings and bracelets fea­tur­ing tiny live ter­rar­i­ums from With Roots. With Roots Liv­ing Moss Jewelry

Mini Terrariums from Twig Terrariums

DIY Ter­rar­i­um Kits make it easy to have your own low main­te­nance indoor gar­den. Twig Ter­rar­i­ums DIY Ter­rar­i­um Kit

You can pur­chase your own kit to make a mini ter­rar­i­um for your home or to give as a gift. Check out our own DIY arti­cle on mak­ing a ter­rar­i­um and how to work with moss safe­ly.

World Market Terrariums How To

Pho­to by: World Market.

How to be Unobtrusive with Tulips

by Kit Wertz

French tulips were the entrance fea­ture flower for the 2013 Gram­my Awards Sony “after par­ty” at the Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel.

We were once again asked to assist in the cre­ation and set up for the post-Gram­my par­ty for Sony Music this year. Last year, we fea­tured orchids and calla lilies in the designs. This year it was all about tulips. The trick was all the designs had to be very small and not obtru­sive. The only excep­tion was the entry­way designs which could be more extrav­a­gant. This was a very under­stat­ed flo­ral design order. Here are a few pho­tos from the par­ty set up and a few tips on how to work with tulips.

Small scale was the order from the event plan­ner for the Bev­er­ly Hills hotel.
Even the bar flow­ers design had to be unobtrusive.

Small-scale flo­ral designs such as these low tulips in black glass cylin­ders afford the best use of this nar­row patio which is part of the Bar Nineteen12 area of the Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel.

VIP lounge at the Post-Gram­my Sony Music par­ty at the Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel.

Entrance to the Bar Nineteen12 at the Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel fea­tured white French Tulips for the Sony Music Group’s post Gram­my Awards par­ty on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2013.

Working with Tulips Tips

• Buy the blooms when they are still closed but you can see the col­or on the out­side of the bloom. Make sure the blooms are not too far above the tips of the green­ery. The taller the blooms are above the green­ery, the longer it’s been since they were cut from the grow­ing fields.
• When you bring the flow­ers home, con­di­tion them. Mix flower food and cool water and fill the vase with enough water to cov­er the first 4 inch­es of the stems.
• Cut the white ends off of the stems and place in a tall vase so the stems are sup­port­ed inside the vase. Alter­nate­ly, you can gen­tly wrap the stems in butch­er paper to sup­port and straight­en the stems before putting them in the vase.
• Be sure to cut the stems right before plac­ing them in water. Don’t delay!
• Put in a cool dark place for an hour or two. NOTE: Tulips are attract­ed to light, so they will turn in the direc­tion of the light and that is why you want to con­di­tion them in the dark.

Video: How To Create Sunny Sunflower Floral Design

Sun­flow­ers are avail­able year-round to the flo­ral trade and pub­lic. The sun­flower often fol­lows the sun which is how got its name. Sun­flow­ers can drink a lot of water. Be sure to use a vase that holds plen­ty of water and can sup­port the weight of the flow­ers. The tallest sun­flower grown on record was 25 feet tall.

Casey Schwartz of Flower Duet has appeared on Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion’s Cre­ative Liv­ing with Sheryl Bor­den the past two sea­sons and returned to Por­tales, New Mex­i­co to film anoth­er set of five shows for the 2012–2013 season.

This month, we fea­ture a video on how to cre­ate a large-scale design using sun­flow­ers as the main flower. Flow­ers for the sun­flow­ers arrangement:
Sun­flow­ers, Saf­flower, Spi­der mums, Viking mums(look like mini sun­flow­ers) and rosemary.

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

Flower Arranging Book Review: Bella Bouquets

by Casey Schwartz

Beau­coup bou­quets can be found in the pret­ti­est pic­ture book I have seen a while.

Bel­la Bou­quets, by flo­ral design­er Ali­cia Schwede, is a book of stun­ning bou­quets which have been cre­at­ed beau­ti­ful­ly and mas­ter­ful­ly. The com­bi­na­tions of flow­ers are thought­ful and imag­i­na­tive. Ali­cia does the right thing and names all the flow­ers and ele­ments that make up her bou­quets, so it does not leave the read­er won­der­ing, “What is that unusu­al flower?” The accents of rib­bon and jew­els are taste­ful and tie in the flo­ral theme in a love­ly man­ner. The images have been cap­tured by tal­ent­ed pho­tog­ra­phers and pre­sent­ed in this must-have book for flo­ral designers.

For all our 36 stu­dents who learned this tech­nique this past Feb­ru­ary week­end, and the hun­dreds we have taught over the years, we are hap­py to offer this book for pur­chase from our Flower Duet online store and have it shipped to you. You will look at it over and over, as I have since received it.

Order online:

$24.95 (plus ship­ping and applic­a­ble sales tax)

Floral Design Tool: DIY Moss-Covered Container Supplies

Pho­to by Save-On-Crafts.com. Moss sheets from save-on-crafts.com. Using a sheet of pre­served moss makes it easy to cov­er even sur­faces like a cube or square vase.

3M Super 77 Spray Adhe­sive makes it easy to secure the flat sheet moss to a plas­tic, met­al, wood or glass container.

Flo­ral Maché con­tain­ers make good foun­da­tions for cov­er­ing with moss. Check out our flo­ral tool arti­cle about maché con­tain­ers from our August 2010 newsletter.
Not all Moss is cre­at­ed equal. Learn about the dif­fer­ences in this great blog entry from Young’s Garden.
About Choos­ing Moss Wisely