Artiflora Live

All About Weddings

Summer at Artiflora this year is all about weddings.  Because each wedding is an original design event that receives my personal attention in every detail, I schedule no more than two each month.  Artiflora is fully booked thru August with openings in September and part of October.  It’s a busy season.  Beginning in mid-May, we did a lovely late spring wedding starring Tulips.   From there we enjoyed designing two weddings, back to back, in black and white where one tended gothic in dark reds while the other stayed traditionally white.  Then it was on to an organic, woodsy, almost Mid-Summer Night’s Dream theme type design where slices of a long-fallen Cherry tree became the bases for table decorations that featured a stunning live orchid with roots draped casually over moss, wood and stone.  Quite dramatic.  And on we go…summer weddings, in artistic Artiflora style.   And by “we” I mean the bride, groom and I.  Design is a collaboration at Artiflora where the wedding couple participates in the design process.  They love it as do I.  When the bridal bouquet is designed, I create a painting of it for their wedding book.  They love that too.  Soon photos of some of these events will appear on a new wedding photo page.  Check back.   

What ARE those flowers?

I truly believe people who buy flowers want to know what kind of blooms they are taking home or giving as a gift.  To that end, I have found ways over the years to provide identification information for the contents of every hand-tied bouquet I design and sell.  My system improves each year.  This year, I have created a card with bouquet care instructions on one side and a long list of flower and green types on the other.  When you buy an Artiflora bouquet, you, or the recipient of your purchase, receive a card with the botanical names of the flowers and green leaves or other natural material marked.  Before that, I hand-wrote the contents of every bouquet.  Needless to say, this was time consuming and when I would be busy at my downtown market, nearly impossible to sustain.  This new card is easy to use, comprehensive and educational.  Now when I talk with my regular customers about Matthiola or Aspidistra or Lathyrus, we’re on the same page.  By the way, Matthiola is Snapdragon, Aspidistra is Iron Plant and Lathyrus is Sweet Pea.  A bouquet with these contents is light, lovely and fragrant.

Sidewalk Market Open

Last Saturday, the fourth season of my outdoor sidewalk flower market got underway in the lovely gardens of the Granville Historical Society Museum on Broadway.  This new space is very nice for flower display, but a little tight in available space. I spent the first hour moving things around to find suitable access and to estimate where the sun would be landing as the morning passed.  The sun is a killer for fresh flowers, even on cool days, but especially so on summer days so it’s always a negotiation.  Just as I got my new wrought iron bouquet stand set up under the market umbrella, filled my old potting bench with bouquets in BlumeBoxes and glass vases and arranging buckets of loose flowers for making bouquets on the spot, it rained.   Oh well, what can you do about the weather?  Later that morning, the rain ended and the sun tried to peek out now and then.  This typical spring day in Ohio didn’t dissuade customers, however.  I sold lots of bouquets and made several bouquets to smiling happy people.  All in all, my first day of the summer season was very nice.  I’m looking forward to next weekend. 

Tulips

During March and April, it’s all about Tulips.  Hundreds of thousands of Tulips arrive from the Dutch market to the U.S. daily.  Fields as far as the eye can see in the areas surrounding Liesse, a small flower village just outside of Aalsmeer, the location of the Blumenveiling, the world’s largest flower auction house, are shorn of Tulips just about to burst into color.  They trundle through the auction six days a week before the sun rises and by late morning, they’re on planes to destinations all over the world. When they arrive at my studio, I fresh cut them immediately, removing about one inch from the stem bottoms.  They go immediately into fresh water in a small cooler bucket that will support them.  To further help them stand straight, I leave the wrap on that they come with.  Tulips will lean, bend and curve if left unwrapped and unsupported.  I take care not to put fresh flower food into the water as I would do with almost any other flower.  Flower food for bulb flowers increases growth at a rate that is too rapid.  The Tulip or any other bulb flower will bolt and get stringy.  Tulips will do this on their own over time.  Customers ask me why.  Did you know that the Tulip continues to grow after it’s been cut and put into room temperature?  Put Tulips in a vase in a pleasing way, come back three days later and they will be curving, heads tilted and looking at the table top.  Yes, they’ve grown an inch or two.  Just remove them if you don’t like this look, re-cut and return to fresh water. I have fifty tulips in my cooler right now.  Yellow, peach, red, a blush pink with an unusual variegated leaf, and a spunky Parrot Tulip.  Life is good when there are Tulips in the cooler!  

New York, New York

The Chelsea area of New York City is like a mini Dutch Flower Market.  The Blumenveiling in the Netherlands is, of course, the largest flower auction house in the world, located just south of Amsterdam in the small town of Aalsmeer, a flower haven in itself.  Millions of blooms go through the auction each day.  Many arrive in New York just hours after being sold.While the flower market area of New York is small by comparison, it offers variety that I don’t find in central Ohio.  Strolling through the wholesale markets brought back fond memories of seeing floral materials that I either can’t get in Ohio or are so unusual that I can’t even identify them.  What fun it must be to be a designer in the City and have access to these floral resources.I always hand select flowers I work with.  So while my selection isn’t what I wish it could be, I do get premium flowers.  Just yesterday, I bought flowers for Easter weekend orders.  Usually I don’t commit to color themes until I see the flowers.  I won’t go with a “yellow” theme, for example, if the yellow flowers don’t suit me.  This weekend, I will be using a lovely terra cotta Asiatic Lily, blue Dutch Iris, “Green Tea” hybrid Roses, green Dendrobium Orchids, white Calla Lily, a dark plum Calla Lily, orange Dutch Tulips, white Eustoma and white Ranunculus.  I found striking Palmetto Palm fronds and of course, my signature green, the versatile Aspidistra leaf.  Tomorrow I begin to design with these materials.  I can’t wait.  Happy Easter.  

Welcome to Artiflora Live

Hello flower friends. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s talk about flowers.

Artiflora Live is a new blog that gives me the opportunity to tell you what is happening in my home studio and gives you the ability to read and respond if you choose. Over the months ahead, I’ll tell you about the latest news in the flower industry, about how to care for your fresh cut flowers, about trends in contemporary European design and other things of interest in the flower world.

Just recently, I designed a contemporary piece for The Rendville Art Show, held here in Granville at Bryn Du Mansion. There’s a picture of the design on the Custom Order page. To create this piece, I used a soft wire product that I brought back with me from the Netherlands when I returned for advanced training there last April. I have never found this brightly colored special wire in the U.S. so, in itself, it offers interest. The piece was titled “Lilies Against the Wind,” and featured beautiful white Oriental Lilies standing in two levels in a swoosh of wire that was interwoven with Lily Grass. The wire was balanced on a fluted clear glass vase with washed river stones to anchor the design.

The next week, I designed pieces for an appearance of Yo Yo Ma at Denison University and adapted the wire swoosh using gorgeous red, yellow and green Parrot Tulips for one of them. Next month, I’ll continue my art at the Columbus Museum of Art, where I’m designing for Art in Bloom, a juried show that asks designers to create a floral design to compliment a piece of art in the permanent collection. By random drawing, I have chosen Lonely Flower by Paul Klee, a wonderful contemporary piece that I’m excited to work with. The show is April 18-20. If you live in Central Ohio, don’t miss it.

But when I’m not using flowers for artful purposes, I’m making hand-tied bouquets and setting them into vases in different and interesting ways. These are the orders I get from customers like you that I enjoy creating and delivering. Nothing brings me more pleasure than delivering flowers!