As many of you know, Michael, FTD’s VP of Floral Design and I, one of FTD’s lawyers, launched a blog series where he teaches me the basics of flowers. FTD offers 10% OFF Sitewide. Automatically Applied! Click here
In this, our sophomore effort at blogging and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, Michael took things to a higher level with the flowers he expected me to learn.
I took one look at the flowers Michael laid out before me and thought he was expecting a lot. Perhaps I had performed well in passing his first quiz, perhaps he just liked these flowers, in any case, this week would be a test – and, I suppose I was up for the challenge.
We had decided to take some photos for our post and ventured down to the studio we have here at FTD. I immediately realized that this would become a crash course in making an actual bouquet. This is what I learned.
Michael laid out all of the stems for the three flowers in front of me on a small wooden table along with some shears, a few vases and some twine. I stared at him. He explained that first I would have to remove the leaves from the stem. By the time I struggled through one stem, Michael had made it through 5-6 and had a neat pile prepared for the bouquet. He looked down at my progress, smiled and laughed at me.
He handed me two stems that I grasped tightly – too tightly. “Well, don’t crush them,” he joked to me, looking directly at my death grip hold I had on the flowers. The first flower looks a bit like a Picasso painting to me – either that or an elephant or something else entirely? Smile. It’s exotic and tropical features stand out especially in winter in Chicago and it’s waxy finish make it almost look fake.
“Now, take stems and position them in a circle, add one stem and twist,” he said. I stared back at him, a little lost, but I had no choice but to try and put this bouquet together. “Heavier flowers and stems toward the bottom, lighter smaller flowers in the middle and toward the top. They can’t all be at the same height.” I tried to hand the bouquet back to him to let him complete it, but no luck.
I hadn’t fully appreciated what went into making the perfect bouquet before this experience. The selection of the flowers, the color of the flowers, the right fillers, the relative size of the flowers to each other and to the vase, the right vase and the right height were all important considerations. I had always randomly put stems haphazardly in a vase, which now explains why they ended up looking so sad.
While I was listening to Michael explain the process, I struck by the considerable thought, care and attention to detail it really took to put together a bouquet. Making things look simple and beautiful takes an enormous amount of time and care.
As we continued, I wasn’t sure how this particular combination of flowers would turn out, but I had faith in the man that casually mentioned to me that he had assisted in designing flowers for two inaugurations and an academy awards show. He mentioned this with such subtlety that it took me a full second to comprehend what he had said and I had to clarify, “like, as in, the Obamas and the Oscars?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. I was definitely in over my head.
We continued adding flowers to the bouquet and I continued my death grip until he convinced me to “loosen up” my grip. A statement not altogether unfamiliar for a lawyer to hear. Michael showed me how to tie the bouquet, measure it against the height of the vase and place it properly in its final perfect position. Voila! A Valentine’s Day bouquet.
If I can do it – you can too. If you want to see these particular flowers in FTD’s bouquets, take a look at the links included below or contact one of our many local FTD retail member locations. And you can see Michael featured on The Daily Buzz here.
Dendrobium Mokara Pink Orchid:
Colors: Pink
Locations: Southeast Asia
Other Information: Place these in water immediately.
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