Floriography Boundaries and Creativity

A few days ago a customer contacted me with a request: her best friend had been having a rough time with her newborn baby daughter, and she wanted to let her know she was being brave, resilient, strong and courageous.

Could I put together a bouquet that expressed exactly that? I could, and I did.  But there’s always that moment when I realize I’ve given myself a task a little more difficult than floral design without floriography, by specializing in design that is composed of flowers and foliage that hold specific, asked-for meanings, while also holding to my tenet of using only local, seasonal flowers.

So Many Questions

At first I wasn’t entirely sure focusing my practice this way was possible.  I could for sure only use local and seasonal plants, or I could for sure create designs with meaning from the vast array of flowers available worldwide. But to put those two together, year round: could I do this here, in Washington, 365 days a year, using only what was locally available? After all, from October to the beginning of March, the diversity of available cut flowers and foliage was greatly reduced. The local growers market was filled with an array of conifer greens, dried flowers, seed heads and grasses. There were flowers, but they were most definitely limited.  Could I do it? Was it worth doing?

The Answers

Since that time the answers have become clear: yes, and yes.  It really only took one person exclaiming “Oh I love that that’s what that flower means!” for me to know this way of connecting people was worth it. And seven months into this adventure I’ve come to realize that I can both source enough flowers and foliage with the particular meanings my clients are looking for, and make them look beautiful together. This is not to say, however, that I don’t have to really search for that available marriage of plants and meaning. I am greatly indebted to all former humans, though, who have taken it upon themselves to give plants symbolic meanings in the first place, and especially to the fact they gave more than one meaning to every plant.  Different cultures, different time periods and sometimes just different fancies have led to these multiple meanings.  And I’m ever so grateful for them.  Because, for example, when I was recently looking for a flower available in mid December that meant resilience, the local grower’s market at first seemed to have not a one. But then, the rose.  The lovely rose, with its multiple meanings, among them the resilience I was looking for.  And then there are the different meanings based on color:  Alstroemeria—white alstroemeria to be exact—means strength & support.  Did the market have it?  It did, in one mixed color bunch from exactly one grower.  But you know—sometimes one is really all you need.

I chose two varieties of Protea for courage, and used them as the focal flowers in the bouquet. Yarrow was scant at the market, but I chose from what was there for bravery. The beautiful Chocolate Queen Anne’s Lace—also available from a sole grower—was the perseverance, and Eucalyptus – strength- rounded it out.

Not What I Would Have Chosen

What’s been so revelatory to me is that, if given my druthers, I most likely would have chosen a different combination of plants.  If the order was simply for a bouquet, I would likely have gravitated toward the more tried and true. Would I have put protea together with spray roses and yarrow? Likely not. But by having these restrictions imposed by floriography floral design & a commitment to slow flowers, I’ve by necessity needed to branch out, intermingle, experiment, and find ways to create beauty with what I must work with.

But This Has Been Fantastic

I’m so excited by what these restrictions have allowed to have happen. It’s so heartening to feel yourself being pushed and stretched, creatively. I know having restrictions is by no means unique to me and not a new idea:  when I was a MFA writing student at Emerson College, we delved into the nature of poetry: its many forms and structures and rhythms—these self-imposed strictures on word choice, length & sound. And yet it was the poet’s job to still get across meaning.  Committing to floriography floral design feels much the same—a set of imposed restrictions that at first can seem limiting, but in the end work towards producing a new and different way of combining shape, color, texture, light, shadow and space in the service of relaying particular meaning.  And just like when writing I try (and try!) to avoid the stereotypical, the mundane, the over-used and trendy, I absolutely must commit to slow flowers: using local, seasonal flowers & foliage and eco-friendly design mechanics and processes—in order to feel okay being in this industry at all. 

Trusting the process

I do worry at times, still, that a day may come when I really am unable to source enough flowers and foliage at all times of the year to convey the message the client requests.  Maybe that niggle of doubt will always be there, rearing its head from time to time. But not too much. Because the west coast growers work so hard, and are so creative and diverse and innovative themselves (tunnels, hoop houses, propagating, breeding,  trying this, trying that…), and the plants themselves, and their rich, human-created symbolic meanings, are all so unique and beautiful in their own ways, that I can, (at least 98%!) simply trust that what I need will be there. And that I’ll be able to combine them in ways that surprise me, and delight and resonate with my clients. That’s always the goal.