K-State Garden Hour
Nature’s Decor: A How-To in Floral Design
Visit our website: https://www.ksre.k-state.edu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KStateRE
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/KStateRE
Visit the K-State Research and Extension bookstore to find publications on a variety of topics: https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu
Welcome to the 2024 Kate Garden hour webinar series we’re so glad that you’re here this webinar series started in 2020 and has been a collaboration of the entire K State horiculture Extension team since the start of the program we’ve reached over 50,000 gardeners just like you we’re pleased to continue
Offering the Kate Garden hour series for free if you’ve enjoyed these education webinars please consider making a tax deductible donation to support this program the link to donate can be found in the chat or on our kstate garden hour website this webinar is hosted by kstate research and extension my name is Laura
Phillips and I’m a Horticulture agent in the Metar District everyone involved in the development of this series is an extension professional for Kate most of us have a background in Horticultural education or related discipline but what connects us is our love for educating and sharing important gardening topics
And it’s great to connect with gardeners and nature lovers across the state before we we get started we do have a couple housekeeping notes to cover first please use the Q&A feature for questions related to the presentation this is where we will look for questions at the
End of the webinar during the Q&A session you should be able to see a button along the bottom tab that says Q&A click on that and you’ll be able to enter your question today’s webinar will be recorded and we’ll post it to our kstate garden Arrow website we typically
Upload additional resources related to each topic there as well if we share links to the chat we will also link them on the website our website is also where you will have access to previous topics and upcoming topics of the 2024 Series today our moderators are kala Edwards
And Jason Graves and they’ll be sharing information throughout the chat and the Q&A during the presentation they will also help us facilitate the Q&A portion of the webinar for today’s topic I’m pleased to introduce our speaker kstate research and extension specialist Irina shukov shishova shova who is presenting
Today’s topic nature Decor a how-to and Floral Design please give us a few moments while we transition and share the presentation slides hello everyone uh my name is IR shakova I’m instructor of floral design and extension specialist uh here in Department of horticulture and natural resources well before I start I just
Would like to say happy new year and wish you best for you and your families well since it’s just the beginning of the year it’s January 3rd so it’s too early I would say so well uh Technically when I’ve been asked to do the presentation on how to
In Floral Design I was slightly concerned about this because it’s not possible to teach a floral design in 45 minutes is really difficult so I was thinking what should I do especially it’s the first time So the plan is uh for this webinar is um to go over some slides regarding the fil
Design and why we are doing this and the end of it would be a presentation on how to make a specific Floral Design so well I do have a Arrangements I premade for this webinar so technically uh we’ll make this one um from the flowers purchased from the grocery store so it’s pretty
Easy and I will provide you with some tips and tricks how to do that because there’s some details uh a lot of people don’t know about those so anyhow let’s begin what is a floral design so that is a professional description of it Floral Design is the art of using flowers and
Other materials and creating pleasing balanc competition well a lot of time people are uh confused about art situation and very often people will say I’m not an artsy person I cannot do this it’s not for me I cannot paint I cannot sing well I cannot paint either but I can do the
Floral design and of course in the beginning I didn’t know much about this of course I learned how to do this so point is anyone can do floral arranging Floral Design so definitely anyone can do that and just remember for sure flowers are beautiful they playful and romantic
But they have a deeper meaning in our and purpose in our life so well we use flowers pretty much every other day in our lives uh for just the any occasions or Valentine’s days coming up in a month it’s going to be pretty crazy everywhere especially in Flor shops we using
Flowers for weddings for birthday for anniversaries for sad occasions such your funerals but still we are looking for that gift as a gift of flowers and just remember flowers give us a sense of connection to Nature and emotional connection connection to each other so that is important especially in
Our busy busy lives so we need some PE nature in our houses so we do have plants of course I do have a lot of plants in my house but at least one flower I usually have in my household not a lot because unfortunately I have a pollen allergy
And um it’s a bummer for me because I work with flowers all the day but flowers up to the days they make me happy and Studies have also so shown that having fresh flowers uh nearby can help boost creativity and enthusiasm and actually reduce stress and anxiety and a
Lot of time people say you are about me you’re very energetic person of course I am I have flowers all the time I work with flowers every day so I look at those beautiful flowers every day and the smell is usually good well not sure about the Lily that sticks
Stick out in this design but point is flowers make us happy they for sure make me happy and they have a pretty important job to do well since I’m teaching uh Floral Design classes here in K State a lot of time uh Stu my students ask me hey can
You make a career from this of course you can anyone can be a floral designer definitely um well and just remember Floral Design is a artistic Vision combined with technical aspects of making design and a lot of technical aspects of design um many designs have specific formula and there are specific steps uh
To get you to this perfect look each time point is technicality in our business in our profession we have a lot of it so yes creativity is well but point is in the beginning of my career I learned how to put together three stamps how to make a dome shape of a design
Just shapes so point is anyone one can learn this and if you’d like to go further definitely take more classes and uh experiment more so that is my point well since we still have this gener talk regarding the floral design I thought maybe a little bit of numbers I’ll
Provide you with numbers that’s actually show flowers are important in our lives so this Statistics um it’s being provided To Us by Society of American florists and I’m not going to read the whole thing because it’s long list but some of the numbers so 65% of Americans feel special when they receive
Flowers well unfortunately I do not receive flowers from my husbands anymore my my husband I have one husband sorry anymore because he feels he cannot produce any flowers for me that I actually will like and appreciate I I don’t know why he thinks this way but that is reality
For me and I would say a lot of designers would say the same thing so they’re not getting flowers because we are usually give away flowers but point is uh when you give flowers to somebody it’s important too you feel good about this and um that’s wellknown fact as well so 60%
Of uh Americans believe that gift of flowers it’s a special gift so that’s important well and I would just say I like one number over here that’s at the end it says 92% of women say the best reason to receive flower is just because I agree with this uh bu of women
That actually thinks this way and why we are waiting for specific reason to give each other flowers why we waiting the whole year to give this dozen rows of uh to for Valentine’s Day to your wife just do it anytime surprise your significant other with flowers or say today just give a flower
And say happy Wednesday and you you will see the reaction of that person it will be smile on the face that person will be definitely happier and that person will appreciate you more so don’t forget about that so that’s important and well I thought about this
Slide and I said well I have to incorporate that slide because that we had the slide decade ago in floral shops um I’ve seen those posters everywhere during this time and it’s kind of indication of how normal man think what kind what size of the floral arrangement they should give uh to the
Wife or girlriend uh I don’t know it’s kind of funny but uh point is it doesn’t have to be always a huge design uh I appreciate only one flower so it doesn’t have to be a expensive $150 design all the time not at all so just think of that slide as a
Funny slide so anyway well um regarding the career opportunities uh in FL culture I would like to mention only technically that’s close related to Floral designing per se because the list actually longer than that there’s a different opportunities in FL culture so if if you decided to go uh dur to over this
Profession um it doesn’t matter you’re 25 years old or you’re 65 years old uh we seen at all uh people change the careers all the time people um eaing extra careers uh just to do just to make extra money money so and that would be maybe an opportunity by the way so it
Might be a traditional retail florist or freelance floral designer and nowadays we see that change from professional floral designer who works in a floral shop to freelance floral designer who works for uh their own business so that is a change we see a lot well you can
Work uh as a floor specifically for weddings or for spe special events it’s possible so technically well I still make some wedding designs occasionally and I like it because it keeps me up to date and keeps me uh thinking more so because I’ve been doing this a lot before I
Started teaching so I still interested in that portion as well uh you can work as a designer in wholesale production so technically yes and some media designs and styling especially nowadays um technology and uh social media all of that is important so definitely there’s a lot of opportunity
Opportunities well let’s say if you decided okay I would like to do this how do I get started where well obviously you you should start from education education uh is n it’s number one um we do not just wake up in the morning and just know it all
Of course we have to learn how to do things so education and there’s a different uh different classes so there’s a professional classes there are just uh classes from beginners you can take uh classes that are online or in person so definitely they are classes workshops um watch YouTube videos
Nowadays there is gazillion YouTube videos out there regarding floral designing it’s just uh impressive well some videos may be helpful some not so much but point is at least start doing this start watching those videos point is um sometimes I hear that situation oh I watched like a 20 of those videos
Regarding floral design and I feel confident to do your wedding hold your horses it’s not enough it’s not enough to take one class in which 10 videos and start making uh somebody’s flowers for the weddings well you do you do need to have more information about the wedings or
How to make uh those specific designs obviously and build your design skills so practice practice and practice this is the kind of profession we have to practice it doesn’t matter you know how to make specific design visually you have to work this real flowers you have
To touch them you have to know how they behave in a design how long they last in a design how to prepare those flowers for design so it’s a lot of actually information regarding the GL sign so um that is my point of you on just a little
Bit of general information on FL design so since we’re talking about Floral Design uh I thought maybe it would be good idea to uh introduce your uh a new master Floral Design uh program for floral consumers so this um Master Flow Design program it’s new um and it getting
Momentum it’s kind of of similar to master programs in extension but this one has a focal spirly of design well um we are collaborating with Mississippi State University because they have established a floral design program and uh it’s been up and working since 197 or 2017 sorry and it has three
Phases in it one phase the first phase is 100% online learning second phase is 100% learning in person meaning Hands-On activities and phase number three consists of volunteering so let’s just talk a little bit more about each phase and we will uh move on to other part of our program so
So the phase number one it’s a theory uh it has 14 weeks in a course and technically that will follow the length of a normal College uh course like a semester and it has 53 videos more than 18 hours of uh learning um so technically there’s a lot
What you can learn learn you will learn actually during this phase and of course you will learn how to work with flowers uh post Harvest care so preparation flowers for Designing Mechanics Tools um designing principles and elements history of flal design so all those necessary elements are we need to know
Before we start designing so it is necessary to know well there’s a uh quizzes of course involved in this phase so we would like to know uh what you learn obviously and um the phase number two it is um face when you come per say
Here and learn uh in person um how to design so that’s going to be four days of Hands-On practice so a lot of designs um we’re going to make so you don’t have to bring anything because all tools flowers containers necessary accessories will be included in the the
Fee so that’s going to be all designning well um yeah in Phase number three it’s a volunteering okay so technically if uh anyone would like to get a certification so you actually need to gain 20 hours or uh volunteering nonprofit volunteering well um you may ask where I can get those volunteering hours
Technically if you help designing uh in community spaces or in churches or nurseries nursing homes some Garden clubs or you can teach some body how to design or help assist um extension program so definitely there are plenty of possibilities how to gain those 20 hours of volunteering well and I guess I should
Stop talking about this because if you would like to know more about this program uh definitely we will give you this information unfortunately L it’s not working yet we are working on technical things such a online presence um and online links and such so that we hope uh that will be
Launch uh this year so that will be available uh to take so and again if you have any questions definitely please ask well now it’s time time to uh get handy and learn how to make a beautiful design so I thought about different possibilities for this portion of um our
Webinar what to do what kind of design to make and thinking well if not a lot of people actually know how to designing maybe that would be a good opportunity to show how to buy flowers from the grocery store like a bunch or two and make this beautiful
Arrangement why not so that would be our plan for next uh 25 minutes okay well I guess now I will stop sharing my uh uh PowerPoint slides and I’ll start working here so sharing there you go okay so I will hold my y so okay so this is what I bought from a
Grocery store technically d uh last uh yesterday morning and I picked those fls well first of all uh before I start unpacking those flowers and start Des designing we have to have a mechanic and the Bas I’m talking about the so what kind of V are we should
Pick and nowadays there’s so many possibilities to PI from you might have a favorite Bas in home who knows right uh maybe you are gaming for this specific base when you um purchasing flowers definitely sometimes it’s like I don’t know what kind of V I’m going to use um sometimes
Yeah so point is um very often my students ask me what comes first the vase or the flowers when you’re planning for the design and every time I’m say I have no answers for this because it depends it always depends of situation what is a purpose of your
Design what you’re trying to do sometimes you already have containers let’s say for wedding uh intended faces to use the bride will provide it for us and we have to just uh collect flowers and make designs on those faes or it’s oppositely we have a flowers and
Then we have to pick containers for this so uh I will just uh show you a little bit um about different vases and how to maybe pick those so and you will know what size of the flowers or what kind of flowers will work for specific basis so
Let’s say this one I have very tall and wide open container over here it’s pretty beautiful base and I have this Square One pretty modern one and again very open on the top well why I hold those guys because it’s like a problem with those containers because this wide open top of
The vase requires all a lot of flowers not just three stems not nine stems 15 and more so consider this if you have such a vase you need all your flowers you can buy the same idea with this opening but you may help yourself uh let’s say such a containers to stabilize
Flowers and I already did this so I’m not taking my time I used uh this waterproof tape to create this uh GRE so the flowers will be uh placed in those holes technically we supposed to use this clear tape for this job so it’s not visible but I was kind of concerned it’s
Not going to be seen on the camera so I use this tape so anyhow you know you can do this or you can use floral foam inside of this container or chicken wire so that’s going to be your mechanic for your flowers okay so move aside those
Containers and I will show you the vase that I love so much and a lot of designers love the shape for such a designs so this a design we’re going to make so this is a dome shape symmetrical design we have flowers from all this place all sides in Corners so it’s
Called all-sided design so we are designing from every side of it well I always introduce uh kind a similar shape to my students because they are beginners and uh they always nervous and it’s difficult for them to make a nice symmetrical shape uh in a compli complicated container would say such
This so why this shape of a container it’s beautiful shape and why it’s helpful well it has a fet belly over here it has narrow neck and it has flare opening why it’s important all those parts because it gives us a chance sorry you cannot see I need to pull
Clear base so it gives us a chance to place a stem on the angle so on the top we can create this Dome shape so this is what and uh that neck we can use for decoration such a a touch ribbon to this and that flare opening creates exactly
This angle so to make this Dome shape on top so this is why it’s important so okay so I made a decision on my base I’m going to use this uh clear vase because I picked this clear vase so you can see what’s happening inside the base because
It’s important how you place those stems inside okay so we made a decision on a container next um flowers well I already bought those flowers but I would would like to give you some tips uh um when you’re actually uh buying choosing flowers uh in a grocery store so uh
Normally you’re going to see those bunches in a sleeves they are seethrough or nots or different color it doesn’t matter so what you’re going to see in a bunch normally the top of the flowers and they always look pretty always look pretty but the look might be very
Deceiving so sometimes I just if I’m not sure I kind of open up a little bit of the sleeve and look fur how the leaves are going doing are they green are they yellowish are this smooshed or they mushy so that leaves on the stems of flowers are good indicator
Of freshness of flowers as well so do not neglect that and let’s say youve not not sure the fres sure not guess what we have a sticker over here on a on that sleeve and all pretty much all bunches will have the sticker that actually has
A due date for those flowers so it says uh January 9th it’s freshest that I can get so I can get from those flowers about a week in my household so fresh flowers well uh for this webinar we kind of intended to make a possible design
For Valentine’s Day well I tried to pick flowers in those colors like a pink or purple or red colors and I found some purple flowers like a bouz and I said okay that going to work it’s a perfect color for Valentine’s Day and I looked at the flowers they were
Kind of looking good checked the date and it was December 2nd and I said nope nope nope I’m not going to buy it it’s a waste of time my time designing and waste of money because I’m not going to enjoy those flowers for a week so why to
Bother so I started looking elsewhere and I found those beautiful fresh white flowers well point of this old talk technically you usually going to pick flowers that’s speaks to you um if it’s no reason to no no reason you buy flowers just for yourself maybe a color
Will speak to you or specific flower because it looks so beautiful at that day well maybe you’re buying flowers for specific occasion then you’re going to look for specific colors but today I technically would like to show you how to make a nice Dome shape of a Arrangement so you you can change
Flowers you can change colors and that specific design can be made for any occasions so okay well let’s begin so let’s say I bought my flowers I have my container and before I start so I need to add flowers oh flowers sorry water to my container because well flowers need
Water otherwise they will die without it and what I’m doing uh I’m using floral food solution for this matter so I’m just simply going to put it in the whole thing swirl swirl swirl well I guess I need to Smo smoo Smo a little bit so it’s disolving that package of food is
Actually included here and normally it is included in in a bouz because that part of Designing it’s important so technically do not neglect this package do not throw it away sometimes I see that like what is this I don’t need it you do you don’t need it but your
Flowers need that so it’s a floral food it contains all necessary elements uh for flowers to showcase the beauty open up more uh keep up with the the colors and have a longer longevity so it is a necessary product and I prefer to use professional uh floral food not
Specifically just a get a spoonful of sugars or uh I don’t know people do crazy stuff for this portion but I’m not suggesting to add seven up in the Water Source because You’re simply adding One Source ingredient for your flowers but you’re missing other ingredients that help with
Water uptake or help to kill bacteria in water so this is why floral food is important okay we’ve got our water and floral food inside uh oh by the way make sure you check what’s on the back because uh normally there’s going to be instruction
How much you need to put this in the water so read the instructions uh packages might be different in size so you have to check what’s on a okay now I’m unpacking my flowers obviously and it’s necessary because uh packaging is just for preventing flowers from breaking during Transportation
Still I have some working flowers um we can we are not going to keep the sleeve in the design not at all well sometimes I see that in a households but it’s not pretty look so okay rubber band is off and normally what we do we what happen the camera is just
Off I don’t see it’s on I don’t see anything but you’re still going just going okay keep going so when let’s say I receive flowers uh definitely um we need to check on the quality of that flowers so see some flowers are missing so I’m going to just clip
Those flowers because they’re not going to do anything to me and um check other oh like us we have one stem of greenery that is surprising because normally there’s no Greenery or just one stem included in a Bou but I will tell you it is important to have a green so here we
Have a carnation that’s it’s quite close but here’s a trick how to open it so hold your flowers on a base and kind of scooze a little bit and start opening those leaves carefully and there you go you have your Carnation is open well we are looking for open flowers because they represent
Themselves better so oh a lot of broken dises I can see that see the looks might be deceiving because oh from the top they look they good okay so we have that we have a leaning well with uh this Bunch I’m not sure I can do like a large Arrangement so this
Is why I’ve decided uh to add more a little bit so I did cut few stems of allram area from our greenhouse and they will do nice job in this design so point is if you’re looking for nice big Arrangement that is a quite large Arrangement so definitely
You need a specific Quant uh quantity of flowers so three flowers is Not Enough Five flowers is not enough you need up to 10 stems of flowers for such a design so I checked on my flowers flipped necessary not necessary old stuff so good well let’s begin uh traditionally what we are doing
The actually uh aiding green area for our in our design that creates actually kind of nest for flowers uh and that is a support for our flowers and it design and it looks better all the time with a Greenery so it’s not to me designs without green looks kind of
Naked I would say so anyhow nowadays uh it’s not a rule but still it’s preferably to have few different varieties of greenery so I have so far two this is a boxwood and um this guy is called Israeli Rus so I will start with boxwood so what I’m doing I’m cutting
Stems on an angle like this so that is important 45 degree angle any stem you incorp Cate in a design that is necessary to do we need to uh give a fresh cut to all our flowers so they can rehydrate easily and Next Step see what’s happening it’s just a Greenery
But still I will clean all the leaves that’s on the bottom portion of the leaves or on the stem that’s technically will be below the water level I need to clean more apparently why we are bothering this taking off leaves from the stems well it’s important so we are preventing
Bacteria growth in our design again longer longevity of the flowers well let’s do this so um since I’m working on a uh symmetrical design it’s a dome shape I would say let’s use a specific technique for this placing stems first of all on an angle see the
Stems are placed on an angle um and we have specific three spots in our design one spot second one and the third so technically if I connect my ends of the stem uh looking at this design from the top it creates equilateral triangle it helps helps a lot with um symmetrical designing balanced
Symmetrical designing obviously you can put stems randomly it’s up to you uh but point is that is just easy to do this way okay maybe a little bit more and I do have another Greenery that I will kind of add maybe looking at my art right so the height of the design is
Important it’s not just random height of the design uh normally we are using the height of the container for the uh height of the flowers so it’s about one and a half up to two times the height of the waas it’s a traditional rule works
All the time uh follow that rule and you will be okay so now you know um for a dome shape better to use angling position of the stems definitely and for the flowers uh if it’s a mix of flowers uh we usually start with main flowers and well uh I
Have one stem of Lely here it’s kind of not open it’s tiny but I still going to use it in the center more so I will place it in the center oh c old got it more okay and I purchased actually one more bunch of
Lees uh they were actually on sale and I wanted to show you how to work with L by the way so that that is a main flower it’s a focal flower so we will’ll place our focal flowers first and they are normally bigger heavy looking with interesting shapes such a Le so that’s
Going to be one spot so then I have another big flower is a cantal that a cron as a variety so another spot as a second spot in a equilateral triangle see sometimes it’s just it’s too tall I need to cut it more so as I’m going I’m
Still cleaning leaves uh from the bottom portion of the stamp so I have Rose um how we doing this time 45 oh oh 35 okay okay so I will speit up a little bit so technically I’ve got my three spots then I’m just going to use my accent flowers those are
Oops all stram areas so place in between those first ones and pretty quickly and suggestion would be when you’re working on a dome shaped design such like this because it should be kind of perfect dome right uh just turn your design so you can see your design from all sides
And yeah angle so that’s important and using uh lzy Susan works all the time so at the end might be well if it happens your okay has a filler flower definitely we will use it so uh any kind of filler flower will do the job so filler flowers
Will just um fill in empty spaces any holes in your designs so that is always helpful uh yeah I’m saying I need to spit up a little bit okay okay so that is there you go and well I can continue on eing extra other flowers but looks like I’m running
Out of time and I just wanted to show since well we still in the winter and it happens I still have some uh everg Greenery in my green in in my cooler so I thought why not to incorporate it because it has a different structure texture it has a
Different shape so this is how we are gaining interest by using different textures shapes uh and of course color contrast well today it’s mainly white color so it’s kind of not play with this but anyhow that is a simple Dome shape that’s we did in a few minutes well I
Guess I need to work a little bit on that to make it perfect point is um for such a designs especially for specific as a Valentine’s definitely we can uh dress stop our design with accessories and that would be obviously Choice a bow here I’m not going to take
A time to make a bow I already have a pre-made one to show it definitely looks uh better uh with this accessory or let’s say we have a Valentine’s Day coming up oh you’re going to find those scks every we add couple more of those and you’re golden
You automatically get your uh this valentine day wi that is important or whatever you have and you think that will help to Showcase oh that’s a specific uh uh designed for specific occasion definitely do that well let’s say if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a big big design
And big uh punches for Valentine’s Day you can make this cute bway design and it doesn’t have to be even three flowers it might be just one flower so point is occasionally you can give flowers to your friends to your relatives for no reason at all and you don’t have to
Spend a lot of money on the flowers it might be just one flower in a b base so now it’s up to you to decide how to use flowers uh in your life maybe I’m got you interested in it and you might be buying more flowers and makes going
To make something and present those designs to your friends so oh just the last last one I completely forgot um just show you how to work with Lis and I specifically B bought those Lees to show you so here it is it’s a white Lely and
You can see perfectly it’s kind of not white it’s dirty it’s dirty to me why it happened well because that flower wasn’t it hasn’t been taken care of what we need to do well there’s the Anns we actually taking them off all the time to prevent that coloration of P petals so
They’re not spreading pollen everywhere on the petals or on the surface somewhere and this is a perfect example how to clean this really dirts do not go with your fingers and kind of try to take that that pollen off you will smatch that surface it will be
Very orangey so have a pipe cleaner this is a typical pipe cleaner from the craft store and start kind of brush off the freshly fallen pollen from the leaves uh petals and that actually helps well this is not coming off because somebody already tried to do that with the fingers and
It’s Stained It’s permanently I cannot do anything otherwise I can just cut this Bloom off and use only the rest of it so anyhow that was my last tip for today and uh I hope you enjoyed this program and uh Happy designing what I can
Say Yep looks like this is it well if you have any questions of course please ask oh yeah and completely forgot we do have a slide on the PowerPoint how to take care of the design in your house so definitely some tips that’s helpful uh to prolong longivity of the flowers so
Yeah okay well do we have it looks like we do have some time for questions Arena so if I can uh I’ll start giving you a few questions here that we’ve had come in and and two of the the first questions we had were related to what
You had mentioned about how do we get these flowers to last uh in the water specifically how do we make them keep them fresh for longer is there a certain recipe for that floral food you like can you make that at home or maybe talk bit this is excellent
Question and I already showed you that package of the floral food so technically uh there are different companies who makes that floral food and it doesn’t matter what company it is it’s just a final product and to me as a professional floral designer who’s been in this
Business since 2000 beginning of 2000s I can tell you from my practice and from my experience using professional floral food is important there’s some home remedies as people talk about here and there and usually students ask me hey how we just add seven up to the water
Here’s the sugar yes it is the sugary water but how about uh keeping up with the bacteria that will grow going to grow in this sugary water how about helping flowers to uptake water so because all those ingredients are present in the professional floral food that’s do the job and um help
Technically flowers last longer and let’s say people say well floral food and other um Solutions are expensive to use for floral shop in the floral shop my suggestion would be uh do not skip that part I would save money somewhere else maybe I’m not going to
Buy this expensive Bas but I always buy professional flal food and other solutions to prolong longevity of the flowers because because that comes from my experience working in flal shops we had um repeatedly coming in customers and they were saying oh your your designs were beautiful and it lasted for six
Days so that is very important for customers to have the flowers in their position for longer as possible so that is my answer excellent thank you okay uh we have a question wondering um do you teach a floral design class or where can folks get more training from you or how
How yeah yes okay well uh I’m instructor of Floral Design classes here in Horticulture Department uh I’ve been teaching uh those classes for eight years so those classes are mainly for enrolled students uh but now we are working on a extension program for anyone who is
Willing to uh learn more how to Floral Design so that’s going to be a program for other people and periodically we provide U workshops here in Kate for anyone who would like to participate and learn more and um yeah if you’re looking for specific theme of the
Workshop would like to know what your in let us know so we can organize the workshop and we will just show you how to do that or this so yeah that’s good to know so folks know that they can that there will be more uh floral training available to
Them yeah keep an eye out yes unfortunately in Kansas we don’t have a professional uh Floral Design uh training unfortunately it’s been gone um yeah and it’s very expensive by the way so it’s you’re trying to go somewhere and it’s a travel expenses it’s living expenses and of course um fees are very
High now okay awesome we’ve got a few more questions if we can get to them um so you talked a little bit about uh forcing a flower open does that decrease the lifespan of the flower to work with it that way good question oh I’m glad somebody actually ask that uh
Technically not we just uh helping flower to present itself in a design more and faster so point is well you just slightly kind of forcing those pedals open up a little bit more um well you’re not just breaking those pedals or you’re not smooshing pedals so nothing
Going to happen to it and yeah and we are even playing this roses let’s say when now it’s quite popular when we um bending those petals in different direction making flower look bigger so I mean yeah it’s quite popular now for weddings so I have this look per se for
Roses no it’s not harming flowers if you’re not harming flowers otherwise yeah you can smoosh them but no okay good um so do you um when do you decide to use the phone blocks or do you use foam in designs any advice on that okay
So now nowadays we are trying to in our profession we are trying to stay away from that Flor form I love Flor form every designer will tell you this it’s a Magic Mechanic because it helps to support flowers in any position even upside down and secondly it’s a source of water for
Flowers so we need to soak it and then flowers will upt uptake water from this mechanic well nowadays we trying to stay away from this because it’s not biodegradable product unfortunately but let’s say you have a strange vase well I would say if I’m in
A hurry and I don’t have time to do this I might use half a block of this and it will be very fast easier designing to me to make something here interesting um I have vases everywhere so let’s say this is the vase somebody asked to use
For a design it’s pretty much flat surface how I’m going to put flowers here there’s no way water will stay here if I’ll even uh make like a form from chicken wire floral form will do the out so there’s no other way um yes that is my answer so technically
I can use the form anytime I want anywhere I want well not necessarily in those type of containers because I have to cover it somehow because it’s a mechanic so either leaves or some waterproof uh Ribbon or something else but yes we still use FL excellent so we had a couple just
Quick questions I think we can get to before we close how often do you change the water in the the the flower B yes so that information is you can find on a kind of one of the last pages of far point but still the first after you put your
Floral food in the water it’s good to go for up to three days uh suggestion would be look at the water level at your household uh and if it’s getting lower add cold water every other day because I cannot predict what kind of flowers you have in a vase because uh every flower
Will upti water differently some will drink a lot like roses or hydranges some not so much so that needs to be checked individually and after day three or four it would be good indication you kind of go in put your nose into your vas a little bit like and sniff it if you
Start smelling this kind of not poison smell and you can see the water is getting cloudy it’s a it’s a good indicator you need to change water so technically after days three four I would dump the whole water keep the flowers like this in my hand
Change the water clean a little bit of the container recut stamps on the angle and put back in a in a vase with fresh water if you have another package of floral food added if not just a cold water will be amazing all right thank you so much we
We have a lot more questions so we’ll try to address as many as we can the after maybe with the resources we can we can post with the video thank thank you so much okay yeah we typically have more questions than we have time for but we’ll be sure to link several
Articles related to this session on our website um so that you can get those questions answered we hope these resources will be able to answer those questions but if you ever need additional information uh remember to contact your local K State Extension Office um once again thank you for
Joining the Kate Garden hour series our first one of the Year hosted by Kate research and extension uh we’re so glad that you are here today to learn about floral design and a big shout out to Irena for this amazing presentation um we’re excited to continue offering this
Webinar into 2024 so be sure to watch your email for more information about the next sessions and their topics uh you can visit Kate Garden hour website to view recorded Garden hours on our archive or to make a tax deductible donation to continue to support uh this webinar Series this series was recorded
Today and it will be posted on our website by tomorrow afternoon um and after this webinar ends today you will receive a prompt in your email to take an evaluation survey um and please fill us out we greatly appreciate that feedback we you know compile all that
Data and we really do look at all the comments that you leave us um if you have any other questions again please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Garden hour ksu.edu um and hopefully that um email will be dropped in the chat uh but thank you again um and we
Hope you continue to tune in for the first wed day of each Wednesday of each month to join us for different gardening topics and have a great week thank you have a good day