Photos by Grace and Gold Studios

“I must have flowers, always, and always.” ― Claude Monet”

After a long absence, I’ve decided it’s time to blogging again. Until recently I didn’t have a vision for what I wanted to share and write about so I simply didn’t write. I knew I didn’t want to write promotional sounding articles or simply post recaps of recent work (in part because often the only photos I have from weddings I work on are quick snaps from my cell phone before heading to the venue). So what to write about? Well, simply, I want to write about flowers.

I love flowers. Next to the people and pets in my life, flowers are my favourite thing in the world. Many people might be surprised to learn that prior to starting a floral design business I was a lawyer. It took seven years of training then I practiced for about four years. I went into law because historically it has been an important tool for furthering social change. My last legal position was at an organization that uses law to try to protect the environment. Law can achieve great things, but I discovered ultimately I didn’t have the passion to stay in it long-term. It was not good for my spirit to sit in an office all day drafting documents and I never felt eager to spend my free time writing law journal articles like some of my peers seemed to.

At the same time I began questioning whether law was the right fit for me I felt a magnetic pull towards flowers. After spending seven years and nearly six-figures on my legal education, I began a self-directed education in flowers. With no intention of starting a business at the time, I immersed myself in flowers through workshops, books, attempts at gardening, etc. in my spare time. Eventually the pull of flowers was too strong and I made the leap to a career in floral design. Even now I’ll stay up past midnight looking at pictures of flower varieties on the internet. There is so much science, history, and art tied to flowers that it’s impossible to absorb everything in one lifetime.

Although I imagine I’ll still share business updates occasionally, my plan for this journal is to document my flower related discoveries and share my love of flowers. I expect it to include a medley of topics including flower excursions (including ones I’m still dreaming of), flower art and history lessons, book reviews, profiles, further attempts at gardening, and more. I hope other flower lovers will be inspired or learn something along the way. Thanks for reading!

Last Saturday we hosted a private floral crown workshop as part of some bachelorette festivities.  It was a great night and we had Teah Lizee Photography on hand to capture the fun. I’m excited to share this little glimpse into the evening!

We snacked on SuzyQ Doughnuts and sipped on sparkling pink lemonade. We also had some sparkling lavender beverages but I forgot to bring a bottle opener so they just sat looking pretty. Sigh.

We had six ladies participate in the workshop which is a great number because it’s enough to create a lively atmosphere but still small enough to give all of the participants some one on one instruction.

Because it was a bachelorette, I opted for a selection of brightly coloured flowers for the ladies to choose from. Most of the product for the workshop was Ontario grown.

Here I am explaining how to get started on making a floral crown and describing the different styles.

And here’s everyone picking out the flowers and greens for their crowns.

Although there’s several different ways to go about making a floral crown, we started with a greenery base and added flowers from there.

Sometimes floral-ing can get pretty messy pretty quickly. But it’s a beautiful mess at least.

Some one on one instruction.

Adding flowers to the greenery base.

Wiring a large rose onto the a crown.

Things are really coming along at this point.

I was really impressed with the crowns all the ladies made.

We finished the evening with a group shot of the ladies showing off their creations…

…and a champagne toast!

The workshop was so much fun and we’re really excited to teach more over the fall and winter (be sure to check our Workshops page for a list of scheduled classes!). We’re also always happy to organize private workshops on request so feel free to get in touch if you’re looking to plan a memorable ladies’ night out!

Thanks so much to Teah Lizee Photography for the fantastic photos!

Photo courtesy of Galetta Rose Nurseries

I’ve come to realize, being flower obsessed, one of my favourite things to do is visit beautiful gardens and flower farms and talk to people who are as passionate about flowers as I am. I think of it as floral tourism and have started using my own little made up term “fleurism” to describe it. I’ve decided to start sharing some of my fleurism adventures on the blog and my first post is close to home.

This weekend I took a trip with the husband and dog to Galetta Rose Nurseries, about 40 minutes outside of Ottawa, before they closed for the season. The nursery lies on a property that was a gravel quarry in the 1950’s before the current owner purchased the property in 1981 and planted a variety of pine trees. It’s now a peaceful, lush place you would never guess looked like the surface of the moon 35 years ago (you can see a before photo here).

Left: Emily Carr rose; Right: Hope for Humanity rose (I hope I got those right!)

The nursery was established in 1993 and sells exclusively hardy roses. In other words, they only sell roses that will grow back after a harsh Ottawa winter without special protection. Their roses are all grown on-site without pesticides and are hand weeded. By contrast, garden centres at big box stores will sell roses grown in warmer climates with the use of chemicals and those roses won’t necessarily thrive here without a lot of effort.

Left: The Prairie Snowdrift rose I brought home; Right: Tenley waiting patiently while his mom tours the roses (don’t worry, he got a treat!)

Galetta Rose Nurseries sells about 75 varieties of roses and I’d probably like one of each (you can see pictures of their offerings on their Facebook page). Unfortunately I don’t have room to establish a garden at the moment so I settled for one lovely “Prairie Snowdrift” I’m hoping I can squeeze into a small bed near the front door of our new home and get some blooms before frost comes. Some of my favourite roses they grow are: Morden Blush, Morden Belle, Prairie Joy, Madame Hardy, Madame Plantier, Rambling Red, Alchymist, and Charles de Mills.

Left: William Baffin rose; Right: Campfire rose

What I would love to do next season is follow the model of My Luscious Backyard which grows and harvests flowers in various gardens around downtown Toronto. Garden grown roses have such a special quality that can’t be replicated in mass produced ones. If any readers know of anyone in the Glebe or nearby willing to have a flower enthusiast take care of planting and maintaining their garden in exchange for being able to harvest blooms, please put them in touch! I promise to plant some beautiful roses!

For those interested in planting their own roses, I’d highly recommend taking a day trip to Galetta Rose Nurseries when they open up again next year. They have the most varieties to choose from in May at the beginning of their season and in late June the roses put on a beautiful display. There’s lots to do and see in the area (ex. beautiful conservation areas, berry picking, a fudge factory!) and the owner thoughtfully provides weekly suggestions for nearby places to visit. It’s an experience you won’t get going to a big box garden centre. Mark and his wife Sue are both very friendly and knowledgeable about the roses they sell, and it’s clear Galetta Rose Nurseries is a labour of love.

Left: My pup in a floral crown I made for his & my Nan’s birthday party. Right: An arrangement of local, organic flowers I made for my Nan using her favourite colour purple

Last weekend I travelled back to my hometown to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday and bid farewell to the home she’s lived in as long as I can remember. She’s sold the house and will be moving at the end of the month. I wandered the backyard in circles trying to soak it all in and realized how many of my memories there are tied to plants and trees. Plants seem to have the ability to remind us of people and places and maybe as an overly sentimental person that is part of why I love them so much.

At the back of my grandmother’s yard there was a small forest. It seemed so big to me as a child. It was a whole little world where I would play with my siblings and cousins. The forest had a small stream with a bridge we built and the most special tree. Its curved trunk was shaped as a giraffe and there was a little hole in the trunk where you could put a stick as a tail. The giraffe tree was legendary in our family and later when my nephew went through a dinosaur phase it briefly became the brontosaurus tree. The forest held lots of other plants that were fascinating to me as a child. I remember watching the ferns uncurl as they grew in the spring, picking forget-me-nots and buttercups, and eating rhubarb and raspberries.

My Nan’s house and the infamous giraffe tree

In my grandmother’s front yard there is an evergreen tree that my brother planted as a seedling. Now its so tall I couldn’t fit it all in the frame for a picture. When he planted it, I planted a deciduous tree seedling, but it got some sort of disease and died. But there was a second tree that was popular with bluejays and my grandmother planted purple irises around it. Irises always remind me of my grandmother because her name is Irene and purple is her favourite colour.

In the backyard beside the deck there was a small garden bed filled with lily of the valley. The cute little bell flowers are so delicate, fragrant, and fleeting. This weekend I dug up a few plants and brought them home with me in a pot. I hope I can plant them in a garden in a couple years when I finally have a garden but I am terrified I will kill them before then with my total lack of green thumbs.

I’m guessing almost everyone has stories about certain flowers, trees, or other plants that hold special meaning and I’d love to hear them. Now that I’m a wedding florist I love to incorporate those special plants where I can and I like to think I am helping to create new stories and memories. Like every year when the lilacs and peonies bloom I hope my May brides will think back to holding their wedding bouquet as they got ready to walk down the aisle and it brings back that same excitement and joy.

This past April I was lucky enough to attend the Little Flower School‘s Wedding Masters Class in at the beautiful Ham House in upstate New York. For those of you who aren’t flower fanatics like myself, the Little Flower School is a joint endeavour of Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua and Nicolette Owen of Nicolette Camille Floral Design. And if you aren’t a flower fanatic, you might not know how crazy talented these two women are and what they have done to revitalize floral design over the past decade. Based in Brooklyn, Sarah and Nicolette are largely credited with popularizing a wilder more organic style of flower arranging. Besides their design skills, they have also worked to encourage a friendlier and more collaborative community of floral designers. I’ve admired their work from afar for years so the opportunity to take an intensive class with them was amazing. Overall, the workshop was an incredible chance to improve my design skills, delve into the business side of floral design (which was much needed!) and connect with other like-minded florists and flower enthusiasts.

I’ve been a busy little florist bee so far in 2015 and I thought it was time to share what’s been going on at Presh lately.

I started off the year with some great photo shoots, the first was for a floral tutorial series shot by Grace & Gold Studios featured on Satin & Snow. We broke down the steps to make a hand-tied bouquet, a table arrangement using a flower frog, and a boutonniere. Stay tuned for our tutorial on how to make a flower crown.

I also worked on two photo shoots with Laura Kelly Photography and Makin’It Lovely. The first one is being kept under wraps until it is published, but the second you can view on Laura Kelly’s blog here (and I’ve included a couple of pictures below!). For the second shoot I made a floral chandelier and had to install it standing on a table that was shifting in the snow, in socked feet and without gloves. It wasn’t the easiest task but I think the end result was worth it.

Last month Presh exhibited at our first wedding show, Tie the Knot, a boutique show at the Museum of Nature. Leading up to the show we had three of our floral designs featured on CTV Ottawa Morning Live which was pretty exciting. At the show, I designed florals not just for our booth but for Satin & Snow and J S Creations Cake Emporium as well. I’m still waiting on pro photos of our booth, but below is a look at what we put together for Satin & Snow. Presh also designed the florals for a Satin & Snow tablescape at Mastermind Events’ annual open house (pics to come)!

We had our wedding published on one of my favourite blogs, A Practical Wedding. And our very first styled shoot ever was published on Burnett’s Boards! My friend Kitty got glammed up and modeled a vintage Dior dress for The Love Studio in this Parisian inspired editorial that I’m so proud of.

Finally, we had our first wedding of 2015, the sweetest little elopement on the Rideau Canal and I just can’t wait to share pictures soon. Up next, we’ll be exhibiting at Love, Handmade an indie wedding show on April 4th doing a joint display with the fabulous Makin’ it Lovely. All in all I’ve been keeping pretty busy and loving every minute of it!

We’re in the middle of prime engagement season right now so we were thrilled to see our Queen Street West engagement session from warmer days featured on The Wedding Co. today. Photos are by the incredible Andreea and Nino at The Love Studio. My eco-friendly made in Canada dress is by Montreal sustainable fashion line Meemoza.

Congratulations to all the newly engaged couples out there and happy wedding planning!

Happy holidays from Presh Floral! Here’s to hoping the holidays are filled with quality time with loved ones and some good R&R.

It was a pleasant surprise to see a Presh Floral holiday arrangement featured on Satin & Snow yesterday! You can check out the post here. We’re hoping 2015 will be a big year for Presh Floral and appreciate all the support.

Photo credit: Brittany Frid

We are very happy to share our recent two part feature on Bridal Musings. Check out the photos here and the video here! Photos by the incredible The Love Studio.