06. MADE BY HAND.

before the flowers reach you, they pass through our hands.

People usually see the finished arrangement…

The bouquet tied.
The flowers standing where they should.
The ribbon in place.
Ready to leave the shop.

But floristry begins much earlier than that…

Flowers arrive in boxes and bundles.
They are unpacked, checked, cleaned, trimmed, conditioned and given time to drink…

the part you don’t usually see. 🙂

Some stems need encouraging.
Some need restraint.
Some simply need time…

Then comes the part that is harder to explain.

Choosing what goes where…

A flower slightly higher.
A stem turned towards the light.
A little more space here.
Something removed there.

There are principles behind it… colour, proportion, balance, movement, texture.
But after enough years, some decisions stop feeling like decisions.

Your hands simply know.

And perhaps that is one of the things I still love most about being a florist.
For all the things that have changed around us, flowers still ask us to work with our hands.

made slowly. held briefly. given away.