The Floral Hustle

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Hello our friend, this is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. On this week's mini episode, I want to talk about the layers of design. And these layers of design are something that help you simplify your recipes, help you simplify, um, you know, pricing out things and ordering. So I Fundamentally, depending on what you are making, always like to have some type of larger bloom that is holding space, you know, creating the size or the girth of your bouquet or arrangement.

So those things are You know, normally roses, they could be peonies, they could be, um, a mum or a disbud or something that is around that three to four inch size. Then I like to have the second layer in my design be a transition bloom. A transition bloom is something that is not as big as our focally or large, um, mask bloom.

But also isn't like a filler flower or a line flower. It's like something that can help soften the sizing of that big bloom down one level to create texture and to create volume, um, kind of fill in the gaps between the big blooms. So transition flowers to me, uh, white majolica spray roses, potentially.

Lysianthus, depending on how you use it, could be a transition bloom. You could use, um, daisies. You could use anything. That kind of is clustery or a little bit smaller of a bloom, um, that could be a berry. It could be like rose hips right now. It could be thistle. Then that next layer to me is some type of filler.

If I want to fill in the gaps between, um, my, my bigger blooms or my showy blooms, And my greenery. So that could be Queen Anne's Lace, that could be Calcinia, Waxflower, Baby's Breath. And that helps you just create a little bit of texture in between, a little bit of color balance. And just a smaller size bloom to make your design look interesting.

Then, not everybody likes to design bouquets, um, with a line flower, but if you like line flowers, like, that could be a component in your design. Delphinium, stock, larkspur, anything that's long, foxglove, longer, skinnier, snapdragons, um, It's not required, I think, for a good design, but it is something that many people enjoy designing with.

Then we have greenery. Greenery can be either very sparse, but normally I like to design with greenery because I think it just makes things look showier and more to value. But, uh, there's so many types of greenery and, I mean, in this, our studio this week, we have agonist, we have, um, copper beech, we have I mean, like greenery doesn't always have to be green either.

So that's another layer. Then I like to have a dancer flower. A Dancer Flower could be Scaviosa, could be Lysianthus if you reflex it and it's looking just like stunning like a Rosanna Brown Lysi that's reflex is just so good. Uh, Ranunculus are great, um, Cosmos, anything that the stem is thinner and when you, you know, shake your design around it just has this really beautiful kind of movement in it.

So that's your next. layer. So, so far we have our big blooms, our focal blooms, our transition blooms, our filler flowers, our line flowers, and our dancing flowers. I pretty much could make a bouquet out of these five blooms all day long, and then I love to add, of course, that layer of greenery if you like to design with greenery.

But this is a great, like, foundational recipe for, let's just say, a bouquet. But I like to use what I call a coverage bloom for centerpieces, for, uh, arch swags, you know, anything that's bigger, tall centerpieces, compote bowls. And I usually use for coverage blooms, um, hydrangeas. I love using hydrangeas. Um, but you could use clustered, um, carnations.

You could just anything that is really big that helps you cover your mechanics of your design. I usually get South American hydrangeas. There are two types of hydrangeas you can get like Dutch or, um, you know, ones that are like have all the pretty coloring. I'm normally, they come from Holland for me, but they could be in someone's backyard depending on where you are in the world.

And the South Americans ones are usually sold in grade. So they are sold, um, super select, which is usually Like the grade that I'm choosing, there is Select that is one step down, which is just, it's basically a smaller size head. Then there is Premium. Um, or they, um, you know, call them like luxury. It depends on the grower.

Of course, everybody wants to be fancy and have names, but I'm usually buying a super select or a premium because I want that bloom to be about five to six inches at least, and the super select blooms, uh, just aren't there. They often, when they're just in the cooler for you to pick, are not graded. Like, they don't clearly show what grade they are.

I buy a lot of my hydrangeas on auctions. Which helps me easily know because I'm ordering it by the grade. Uh, I do that through local wholesalers. They have portals that I can log into, buy product on, um, different flower auctions and actually ship it direct to my wholesaler, which is super sweet. And I'm, it's usually a really good deal.

So one of my favorite auctions is Holex. It's H O L E X. If you've never heard of it, it is, I mean, all four of my wholesalers in town have it. It is a great resource to be able to get product and, um, I know it's coming with my name on it. It literally comes with my business name on it because it's ordered for me specific.

I know the farm, um, or the, like, it's coming from Holland. I know it's coming from South America. It's usually, like, I mean, I, I rarely have quality issues because it's, it's coming direct with my name on it. It's not, like, sitting in some, um, Um, wholesaler in Miami and then my wholesaler is ordering it from them and then it's just getting aged, which then it's, it's not great.

So, getting like those foundational blooms, especially if you can get them affordably, helps you make your designs look bigger and look grander without a lot of extra expense. Because that hydrangea, I can usually get a super select or premium anywhere from 1. 65 to 1. 85. If I buy it out of the cooler, I'm paying like 2.

25 to 2. 50 at least. So when you're buying at quantity, like hunting around for a deal a little bit, if I just sent my order to my wholesaler, I know that they would go and look on Hollix for me, but that's not the case with every single sales rep, every single wholesaler. So you need to do your due diligence and making sure you're also finding the best deal.

So those are like my foundational blooms that I kind of design recipes off of. I design my base recipes using like the base ingredients that I think I need to do the job. And then if a client shows me something, I can always tweak it and mold it. To match what they are looking for by swapping out some of the blooms that I normally would design with and swapping out like that Premium bloom that they want or maybe they don't want hydrangeas and I use more greenery or whatever But that base recipe helps you set yourself up for success because you can go.

Okay. I have a bridesmaids I love to design with a foundational or focal bloom, a transition bloom, a filler and a greenery because I want to make something pretty inexpensive. Or I want to upgrade that a little bit and I want to add a little bit of line flowers or a little bit of dancing flowers and you have a beautiful bouquet and a simple way to plan that out.

Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast and if this sounds interesting you're like, oh my gosh, Oh, this whole like planning out recipes is interesting. Stay tuned because I am launching in the next week or so my business blooms and branding workshop. That's going to be here in Minneapolis, Minnesota in January.

It's going to be a two day workshop, but we're going to make it like two and a quarter because I'm inviting people into my home base studio so you guys can see how everything is, is set up. See how I run? sometimes twenty some thousand dollars of weddings out of my two car garage here in Bloomington, Minnesota.

So that, we are going to talk a lot about, uh, building recipes and build, we're going to be making bouquets, we're going to get them photographed, you're going to be a branding boss by time you leave, um, but that is going to be launching soon so if that is something of interest stay tuned because it's, it's going to be so much fun and it's the first time that I have done this workshop, um, exactly like this.

Because I really want people to work on their bouquets. I really want people to get great branding, uh, and I really want people to have an opportunity to learn about business, hands on, ask any questions in person. So stay tuned for business, bouquets, and branding Rockstar Workshop coming your way. Thank you so much for listening, flower friend, and you have an amazing flower filled 📍 day.