How to Arrange Flowers Like a Pro | Sustainable Floral Design with TJ McGrath

Welcome back to Tizori Home. Today, I am with floral designer, T.J. McGrath, and he is going to be walking me and you through how he creates a floral arrangement with a focus on sustainability. I've been a huge fan for a while of T.J.'s, and if you go to his Instagram. Like my face. Oh, thank you. If you go to his Instagram, you will be too. You make the most insane arrangements, and you're so creative, and I love that everything you do is sustainable. Can you first tell me a little bit about why that is, how you got into? Oh, sure. So I used to work in a flower shop, and then COVID came along, and because I was the most expensive person in the flower shop, I had to find a new path. So I thought, what do I do, you know, now that I've been floristing for several years, and I'm going out on my own, what do I do to separate myself? And I thought, okay, I'm going out on my own. I'm going to lean into the gardening skills that I never had. This is New Jersey. It's the Garden State. There's tons of flower farmers everywhere. So I was like, what if I build a business based on just local flowers, flowers grown locally? Does that sound smart? Yeah. It's not. It's not at all, because we live in New Jersey, and there are no flowers, really, in December, January, February, even like the beginning of March. There are a couple of greenhouses, and I can get some stuff, but it just means that I have to work really hard March through first frost to sell as many flower arrangements as I can, and then I take off for the winter, because, you know, I hibernate. So that's really where it all sort of started with becoming more sustainable. I wanted my business to have less of a carbon footprint than some of the flower shops around, because sadly, there's a lot of waste in this business, and like you're having a new young family. I have nieces and nephews who have beautiful little young families, and I thought, if there's one thing I can do going out on my own, it's I can feel better about my business at the end of the day, and the footprint I leave behind. Well, I love that so much, and I feel like we can think about that mindset in so many different aspects of life, but I've never connected that with flowers. Right. Also, something that you've pointed out to me is that flowers that are grown sustainably are very different from store-bought flowers. So can you talk a bit about that? Sure, that's a great example. Like, this is a locally grown tulip. This tulip is actually grown in Basking Ridge, about six miles somewhere that way. This tulip is American grown. This is a tulip that was, the package said grown in a greenhouse, and this is a tulip that I know was grown in a field, like I said, by my friend Kinga in Basking Ridge. You could just sort of see the difference in the foliage. I have this philosophy that flowers that are field grown tend to have to fight the elements, so they just naturally get a bit beefier and sturdier to handle a breeze or a heavy downpour or tulip season. These things never know if they're gonna get hailed on, snowed on, rained on, or just blown over by the wind. A tulip grown for the grocery store, whether this farm is happy to sell it to the grocery store or not, I don't know, I don't know this farm, but I picked up this bunch for $7. This tulip cost me $2.30. Just the one? Just the one. So specialty bulb, kind of average, and I wouldn't pay $3 for this stem because it's not giving me a whole lot, but here's a little tulip trick, folks. We're gonna reflex this, but you'll do this in your design as well. You take your thumb, you push it against the back of the petal there, and you kind of pull back. Now, what we're doing is exposing the real beauty behind this. This is Bella Pock. She is a relatively new variety on the market, probably three years, I think, and she is prized for this sort of taupe-y, mauve-y. I know those colors. Yeah, like just sort of crazy, a little bit of pink. Oh, we have company. Wow, that is gorgeous. It's amazing, so like, I mean, we'll figure this out in the arrangement because you might do some open and some closed. Yeah, so if you're designing for yourself at home and you're having a dinner party, I say reflex them all and let the arrangement, you got a little bug there, let the arrangement be fabulous for your dinner guests. It will probably speed up the vase life a day and a half. Okay, that's good to know. Not too crazy. So I threw you for a curve ball, and I'll share with your audience what I decided, since, yes, you did sort of share the plan with me, but then I'm old and I forgot. So I recently saw on one of your socials, you had done a beautiful, I think it was an Easter tablescape, and you had a beautiful flower arrangement in the middle of it, and I think we're gonna hearken to that at some point in this video. You can see it here. So I knew immediately, I was like, wow, go Bridget. She got pin frog, which is this thing here, and it's spiky and you can stab yourself on it and bleed. So I asked you earlier how you got your pin frog to stay, and- And I said I stuck it in there. You just stuck it in there and willed it to be exactly, willed it not to move. That's how I did it. Which is amazing. So that means that's your superpower. You can will things to happen. And so I don't have that superpower. I actually have a putty. It's called Cling. I think you can find it on Amazon or something called Florist Putty. We'll link it down below. Yeah. See, mine doesn't come out. So what I noticed in your design was that all of your flowers were placed beautifully, straight up, erect in the pin, and now that I know that you didn't have the real magic sauce, the sticking agent, that was more by function than necessarily design? Yeah, so it was more by function. And then I was like, oh, you know what? I love the look of this standing up, but your arrangements, what I love about them is that they are like out and wild and free. And I'm like, but how do you get them to be like that and stay like that? And tell me how you do it. Well, there's a couple of different things that I do. One is I have another tricky little thing. This is just regular poultry wire from Home Depot. It's chicken wire, used for like netting in the pen, the doggies hide inside. Sorry. So I could do this. I can add this into here. This is basically genius. And I'm not calling myself a genius because I didn't come up with this. I learned this from florists all over Instagram. But once I discovered it, I was like, never going back. Okay, because that's how I felt when I discovered the flower frog. So this is like a whole nother layer. I'm excited. So we are taking you now from novice to lead designer. Oh, wow. That was a big jump. But I'm telling you, you get there really quickly. Part of it is just picking beautiful flowers. And sometimes I want to say to people, I don't really have any talent. I do have some talent, but I think my greatest talent is picking beautiful local flowers because they do just have a bit more movement and gesture than some of these imported flowers that are bred to be perfectly straight up. Right. If you're enjoying this video and want to go deeper, TJ will be teaching a live flower arranging workshop inside our Tesori Home membership on Thursday, May 22nd. He'll walk our members through his process step-by-step and give live feedback on their arrangements. If you're watching this after May 22nd, no worries, replays of all our live calls are available inside our membership community. You'll find all the details in the description down below. We'd love to have you join us. Now, back to today's video. So, all right, let's start with a little water because flowers are like Irish people. We like a drink. And there we go. That's perfect. Okay. So, like I said, this flower, the bell of hawk tulip is grown locally in Basking Ridge. Why did I pick this one? Because she's the most expensive and you deserve it. But also because last week I had a very, very pink palette and this farmer had a lot of pink tulips, but she also had these tulips. So, and then I knew too, that I really wanted to kind of get to the point in our conversation where I touch again on the fact that I don't really buy foliage. Like, you know, florists can go on a website and buy all of this foliage that's grown in Florida and Oregon and like all over the place. But the thing that I think resonates with you and my arrangements is something you don't even know is that when there is a piece of foliage, it's something that I just went in the backyard and picked. We're very lucky to be here at this beautiful place today. So, I was like, I don't need to buy any foliage. I don't even need to ask the farmer if she has anything to go with this. I know that I can walk around Andrea's property and pick a couple of hellevore, which like, they go so beautifully together. And I picked two varieties just because also that one had, you know, the same bit of marking. And you'll notice too, like, I'm not being really particular. Like, that's a bit of an imperfection. This is, again, this is a flower that's grown outside in the field. It's had to deal with deer stepping on it and being trampled on. And to me, that's a beauty mark. That's like, I've made it. I've come so far and look at me. Like, I'm not perfect, but I'm gorgeous. Right? So, really I wanted to have our focal tulip. And then just a few things that I went around and picked before you got here from the property. That is what's really gonna make this hyper-local, hyper-seasonal, and intentional. So now that you have picked your color palette, you've got your flowers, your first step when you have the vessel, like, do you start? Just tell me how you start. Yeah, so I start differently every single time. Awesome. Every single time. So I, normally what I do is I will take one or two of my focal tulips and I'm gonna clean the foliage off for you. And I sort of, this one will become your high point. All right? So I'm gonna let you insert her. I'm gonna let you, so if you take her and you measure her kind of like, she's gonna hit the bottom of the vase there. You can't get her to be any taller than that. Okay. But maybe your heart isn't saying yes to that height yet. So you may wanna cut it. So when you want to measure your flower to where you want it, you kind of hold it against your vase. Okay. Right? And if you look from the front, peek around and I'll show you in the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? So you pull where it is and you cut there. Okay. So that's now landing there. Okay. So what I suggest, what I always do, most florists will start with their foliage and they'll do what I call making salad. So they get a whole bowl of greenery and then they start poking some flowers in it. I like my focal flowers to set the lines for me. So you're gonna set your high point and maybe set your low point on an angle going outward opposite. Okay. So my high point, I'm gonna do. I will. Did I do something wrong? No, yeah. Well, no, but you wanna make sure that this is getting into your pin. These first few inserts are all gonna go into that pin because that's what's gonna keep them in place. The chicken wire is just acting as an additional safeguard. And I will say, when you're starting out to get it into your pins more easily, a sharp angle to cut. Sharp angle to cut. Okay. All right. So this one, let's just see if we wanna do it. Look at that. Shall we just, I feel like for the first one, you just gotta stick it and then do it as it. I love that. So a lot of times when I'm teaching, I'll have a student pull all their flowers and they'll put that there and then be like, is that right? And I'll be like, are you editing? You're editing? You don't have anything to edit. Right. Like, how are you editing a room that has nothing hanging on the walls or a rug or blah, you can't. That's a good point. Yes. Don't edit too soon. Okay. So I would now, now here's where you can decide your shape. If you wanna go with an asymmetrical sort of maybe V shape, this guy might go this way. Okay. If you want to kind of go a bit more vertical in the vase so that the arrangement's kind of coming up this way, almost in that sort of Dutch masters sort of style where each bloom is kind of reaching up and getting its own moment in the sun. Okay. You could sort of pair them that way. I'm kind of feeling the Dutch masters vibe, so. All right. I'll just stick it in here where you pointed so it looks like I did it and so I can take the credit for it. Well, you're the person who actually gets it to stay in the pin is the person who gets the credit. Okay. Beautiful. So now what I wanna do is make sure that as we're designing this arrangement, we are connecting all of these flowers to the vase. And that's where some of our viburnum is really gonna come into play. So by connecting to the vase, what I mean is I literally want- Those on the bottom. I think you want them lower. Okay. It's not what I want. This is your arrangement, Bridget. Stop putting words in my mouth. Sorry, sorry. It's not what I want. Anyway. I want them on the bottom. So if it's here, right? Right. It's disconnected from the vase. Although if you put it in sort of on an angle and you're looking at it that way, it seems connected, but you're really sort of creating a lot of design space the further out it goes. If we wanna kind of build on this Dutch masters, you wanna have them a little closer and actually kind of touching the lip of the vase. And that's sort of, that was the first thing that struck me about your Easter design was that it felt very modern and statuesque, almost like a fountain. Yeah. And it was cool, but it felt almost not like a flower arrangement, more like a structure. Yeah. They felt like two separate things working in tandem together to create one goal. Whereas this, you want to feel more harmonious. Okay, yeah. So as they do like three different points, I would go in a triangle. One, two, three. Okay. Let's put you. Sorry, I'm gonna correct you again. Sorry. Yeah. You wanna always keep your foliage from going under your waterline. Nope, you're gonna. So here's the thing. Yeah. This is what I love about you. You're forgetting what you do so well, which is to stop and, well, yes, that too, edit that, but look at it for what it is. And where do you want it to be? You go around curating all these incredible little things because you look at them and you're like, oh my God, that's such a cool thing and I can see it in this space. Yeah, but your eyes are on me now and now. Double. But I'm nice. Aren't I nice? Aren't I reading as nice? I'm very nice. You're very nice. But yes, you're very nice. Okay, so what would I do with this? But you told me a triangle, so now I'm thinking triangle. Yeah, but I also said the rules don't matter and I gave you a rule and said, let's see if you break it. Okay, now I'm stressed. Okay, I need everybody to shut their eyes. It might be great. No, I'm just kidding. I'll go away. I'm literally so stressed right now. Don't be stressed. It's flowers. And the beauty, so let me tell you, you're putting flowers in water, which is where they naturally want to be. So there's nothing to be stressed about it because nothing you're doing here is permanent. Everything can be adjusted. Everything. That's very true. And that's what I say with home too. It's like, you can play around. So why? So it's the same with flowers. Yeah. Well, I have to see it from the front. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, so here's a little thing that, if you raise it up a little bit closer to, because you're tall, I'm tall. When we're designing down, all of our stems are going in like this. As soon as you lift it up, you're able to take a step back and see this is actually beautifully connected to the vase right there, right? Yeah. That's your front. Now you can sort of start to see your shape and you're not looking down at it. You're looking at it the way the camera would look at it, the way I would photograph it. Okay, yeah. No, that's good. All right, well, I think I want to move it. Yeah, move it. And I think I would put her, personally, I think I might put her there, but- Okay. But- But that's good. Well, that's good. You still don't really have a whole lot to over edit yet. Okay. So I'm going to say, play with a little bit more of the viburnum. Do you mind if I help you a little bit? No, please do. All right, good. Just kind of- Let's see. Fill in a little bit. You do actually have a triangle here. One, two, three. You have another triangle. This could be one line. Creating a triangle there. You're creating a triangle there. And don't cut your fingers. Good, good. Okay. Good. So, for the viewing audience at home, Bridgette neither got that stem in the pin frog, nor is she actually locked underneath a bit of chicken wire, but this is Bridgette willing that flower to be exactly where she wants it. And so far it's working. So we'll see if we continue with that. Okay. So, it's just who I am. I can't help it. See, it's fine. It's fine. I just wish I had some of that confidence. I like to make sure they're in there, but- I'm going to be more aware. You're going to. So look at the front. Let me try. Let's turn this to you for the front. Okay. So you have that. Now let's create a triangle. One here, and then our third one that's maybe kind of gonna come up at the back. Okay. Okay, so. I like that. So then- So, but this one you want to be a bit more vertical. So you're going to measure her a bit more vertical. Okay. So the measuring is if you want her to go out here, you hold her that way. If you want her to go vertical, you hold her a bit more vertical. That makes sense. Yeah. Let's try there. And then. There you go. So I say complete your triangle and get this one right out, kind of there. So you've got her where we want her, but I want to reinforce that idea of connecting the flowers to the vase. So see how there's sort of that gap there. So for me, you really get this connection when the actual stem is. And so now, now that stem is slightly in a pin frog, definitely under this tulip, also under some chicken wire and touching that vase really right there. And that's binding that connection of these flowers to this vessel. That's good. So just so you guys know, we're working, this is the front. Yes. So you're looking at the back now. I say, get yourself a few more fun focal flowers in there. I am just sort of breaking the tulip. And I think this is fun. I'm just going to sort of hand you different sizes and let you sort of play. Now, the first thing I'm going to notice, see, I can't stop teaching. I'm sorry, Bridget. I want to be taught. I can't even let you get in there. No, please do. So I... The leaf, I keep forgetting about the leaf. Well, yes, there's the leaf, but also look, I've actually cut this so that it's, depending on where you put it, you don't want it to be exactly on the same plane. In your arrangement, all those daffodils were right at the same plane. And that was a balancing trick, keeping your mechanism in the vase. What you see in my work is this dimension. And that's because I'm very consciously trying to make sure that all of my flowers are on different planes so that I'm not creating a visual block of flowers. All right. That is also a beautiful bella pock that turned out to be a bit of a single one. And it would be really neat to see you reflex that and see what that one looks like reflexed. I'll do it. Do what I say. All right. I can't get over in this green circle in the middle too. It's crazy, right? And also the stamens, how purple they are. It's amazing. Wow. Look at you. Amazing. I'm a professional now. I told you, lead designer. Okay. So that's on a different plane. Florist, yes. Perfect. All right. Florists around New Jersey are gonna be reaching out to you, asking you if you can freelance. Oh gosh. I'm just gonna take your work from you at this point. Please don't. It's competitive enough as it is. Okay, I'm just gonna see. So think about the relationship that you want these flowers to have with each other. This is, this tulip is our focal, right? And so there really is, should be a relationship between them. And that can be whatever you want it to be. You can think about them as like steps and ladders or like little hats on top of each other. You can think about them as having conversations, looking back and forth at each other. I love that idea. Yeah, right? That's so fun. But there's definitely a relationship happening. I want a closed one. Okay, here you go. This is a nice closed one. Okay. No, I'm not even gonna cut it. You're just gonna have to figure it out. All right. Cause I feel like, where do you wanna be? I want you there. Let's do that. So let me help you. Sure. Okay. Exactly. It's easier to get it into your pin frog if you're a little lower on the stem. Okay. Instead of trying to step it up. Yeah, right. So what if gravity or you get more pressure the closer you are to the insertion point. You know what's so fun too? I'm noticing first, I'm gonna turn this around and show you what it's happening so far. But what's so fun playing with flowers that are locally grown, is that if I had these tulips, where did they even go? Over there? Like these stems give you, there's so much movement in them. Whereas this one, there's only so much you can do with this. Whereas this, I feel like. So I'm glad you brought that up because I pulled this one out and this is where I'm always trying to stress to my clients, folks that I'm teaching, look at things for what they are, what they can be and what you want them to be. And I'm just looking at this and I'm thinking, that interesting, weird thing happening on the foliage is just gonna create, like I always think about these arrangements as relationships between these flowers, but I also always think about, what is the camera gonna see when I push click? And so like, see how that, it definitely looks like maybe a bug got in there and started eating it or something. It's clearly a bit of an imperfection, but it's just gonna give it so much kind of character. I'm also feeling like we need to raise our height a little bit. I agree. Okay, so I say, she's the perfect stem to do it. I like that. Right there. Yes. Okay, that's exciting. That took it to another stage. A whole new thing. Okay, yay. So now let's let the viewers look at the front. You've got to work on the back a little bit here. Yeah, you're right. Cool, all right. So let's get working. Let's get working on the back there. Talk to me about what the relationship is you're creating here. Okay, so as I was putting it, I was like, this guy is all alone. This one? Yeah. Yeah, he is. And he probably doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't. So. Who wants to be alone? Okay, so this one, this one's gonna go up to this guy and he's gonna be like, hey, look at me down here. They're gonna talk. Yeah, I like that. I see that relationship happening there. Okay. And he's kind of like talking to him a little bit, but you see, you've got this line following this line. These two lines are sort of following. So we've got, look at this. Again, I don't ever really follow these rules, but once you know them, and you know this from your own interior design work, once you have the rule of triangles, right? Like triangles are aesthetically pleasing. I don't ever consciously set out to create triangles, but I trust in my own abilities and my own eye. And then I take a step back and I go, oh my God, triangle, triangle. Yeah. Like you can create triangles through how you can draw these lines to these triangles. So the lesson there is, is trust in your own intuition, right? Yeah, definitely. I want to see you actually create that connection again to the gaze with that big, beautiful tulip. So she's gonna be low. She's gonna be a small cut. Okay. You can probably even just weave her underneath some chicken wire there and get her connected to the back of the vase there. Okay. Let me correct you and see, you put her in the pin, which is automatically gonna force her up a little bit. Okay. Right? Cause you're, right? So I'm going in, I'm weaving her through this chicken wire. And this is what I mean by like, like, look at that. She's now connected. She's like. I love that. I've never thought of that. Yeah. And that, this is, this will resonate with your audience because there are lots of florists who would be like, Oh, he shouldn't do that. That's wrong. That's not the right thing to do. The right thing to do is whatever works for you. Right? Like that's, that is the right thing to do. If it works for you, you're happy with the way it looks and it meets all of your expectations. You can do whatever the hell you want. I just cursed on national YouTube. it's feeling a little sort of like me when I was 13 and six foot tall and a hundred pounds, just like a giant string bean. He needs a little, or she needs a little like reason to be going so high that immediately takes it from Ikebana style where it's all about the negative space and brings it back down. Nope. This is a really garden inspired, inspired design. I love that. I want to see a full bed. Yeah. So now we have some work here. Oh wait, we have this beautiful maple we haven't even played with yet. Like, and like, even with your intuition, tell you where to go with it. So I'm going to stop teaching for a second and be the student. Okay. All right. So we're going to start by doing, so what we're going to do TJ. Yes. Is you're going to cut this stem here. Do you cut it on an angle? Yeah. Okay. Let's start here because I want to see what you do. It's not going to work out for me. Why isn't it going to work out for you? Because then it's going to smush it together. It is going to get smushed together. And that's such a pretty little piece by herself. Isn't she? Yeah. And even, even there on the tree, she was a little bit mushed together. So let's, let's make them both be superstars. So this is the front of your arrangement. I'm teaching again already. Sorry. It's, it's in your nature and I want to be taught. So she is so pretty. I'm going to see how I'm kind of like, I'm not afraid of breaking anything. Wow. Right? So you're getting that color. It's playing off of that tulip. Now I'll give you this one back. So this is, this is a good time to use your designer's editing eye and looking at, comparing at what's in your hand to where you want it in the arrangement. So let's see. I'm just going to play. Don't judge me. I don't judge. Sorry. I don't know why I say that because I know you're not judging me. I might make fun of you behind your back, but I'm from New York. We do that. I think I would do that. Yeah. That's pretty. I like that. And look at your, look at your hellebore that was not in a pin frog and not in chicken wire, still willed exactly where you want her to be. Where there's a will, there is a way. This is what they say. I haven't seen proof of it until today. I love what this is doing for the arrangement, but I fear like say, if I were to do like something like this, I don't like that. It's like covering this moment and also losing this. You don't want it to become filler. I love that, right? So we don't want to just create noise and create a disturbance to all the movement that we've had. And so, so I think it would be really cool if it kind of mimicked that line a little bit. You can try to get her into the arrangement in such a way that she's just barely touching the pin bride, but see how she's kind of now played with that. This is where your real editor eye comes in. It still feels heavy to me. Yeah. Yeah, that made a difference. Right? For sure. That's pretty. That's all you have to say. Snip away. Look at this guy just naturally opening up on its own. Like something coming up here maybe. Yeah. I love how this is now turned into like a collaborative design. Wow. Or like, that's kind of cool. Although now they're sort of exactly on the same plane and that's driving me crazy. What if? He's got to come a little lower because now- Oh, you think? Like he's the new alpha. He's the sort of like, look at me. Start here, work your way down. Okay. That's what he's saying. And this is the beauty of not working with that nasty floral foam stuff that everybody can buy on Amazon is when you work with water in a pin frog, you can easily take your stems in and out. When you do this with that floral foam product, this is just the sustainability piece coming in. That is a microplastic and you're basically shredding it and creating microplastics that once the syringe gets dumped over, if it was floral foam, those would go into your waterway. But see how they're now really sort of... Should we show the audience? So here's a good lesson, right? So from the front, I think they're giddy with how pretty you've done. However, this becomes very important in my sort of design process because I kind of like what's happening at the front right now and I don't want to think that much about it. And actually every insert you make at the back will sort of change the front a little bit, just even if it's from that depth perception. Right. Perspective. So I think you need to work on this back again. This is where I go from being like super speedy and being able to produce an arrangement in 10 minutes, a beautiful arrangement in 10 minutes, is sometimes... Sorry, there's a bee. Oh, there's a bee. Well, that's nature. Right here, there you go. So you go, this is where you go from being fast to it taking a little bit longer because now I've sort of perfected my front, but I have to finish the back and I don't want to ruin what's happening at the front. Right. So you do have to have a lot of intention. So I would go around and take a look. What does that do to your front? I like it. Okay. This is your arrangement. It's going along with you. So if you like it, that's all that matters. I do. I like it a lot. Okay. All right. Okay, now, yeah, you have to go somewhere. Oh, goodness. Right there. See, this is the beauty. So, but let me just point this out. I know I'm terrified of being stung and have to be rushed to a hospital. However, like what I am happy about is I know that the farmer who grew these didn't use any chemicals. And so bees are very important. Maybe not this bee, but bees are very important to our environment. So it's nice to know that these flowers are not poisoning the bees because they were treated with so many chemicals. Right. Yeah. No, that's good. So, but at the same time. We've got a beekeeper. Thank goodness. But at the same time, we don't want to get stung. Yeah. I don't want you to like die through this video. That would be really unfortunate to say the least. Yeah, that would just like totally ruin this video. Seriously, if I'm going to die for anybody's audience, it's going to be mine. Let's try to go a little further. She's looking good. She needs a little something there. And I feel like maybe one here. We have a major disconnect happening there. I think we can break this off into pieces even. Right? Okay, yeah. See, come back out to the front. This is a hole, which I actually never say. I never say we have a hole. I say we have a visual opportunity. And so from here, you can see all the way to the back of the vase, correct? Right. But you just go like that. And where does your eye stop? It looks like that arrangement is done. Yeah. Right? That's a visual opportunity. When you think of it as that, rather than a hole, if you think of it as a hole, you're going to put a bunch of things there. You're going to end up overcrowding it. Okay. Now, the reality is, if you look at it from this side, there's still more visual opportunity, but if this was going on a long dinner table and you had companion little pieces, that might not be such an issue, but I would finish it off. It could be a bit of foliage. Okay. Tucked in low. It might even be, this is interesting too, right? So this is, let's take it back to, what is it and what can it be? That's really pretty. The leaves are doing weird things though. So now, we've taken this to just being this berry sort of textury thing. So cool. That adds a whole other element to the design. Yeah. Right? How fun. How cool is that? So to me, this is really quite beautiful and done. Yeah. Could you add a few more things? I wouldn't necessarily, I might add another tulip here to balance that weight of tulips at the bottom. But if I were to add anything, what I would be going is out into the garden to look for something else like textural rather than another sort of flowery moment, because I think you've done a really good job of creating relationships between the flowers that are in the vase, that that is working. And if you start to add more, you start to basically have an Irish family of 900 and you're all having your opinions at dinner at the same time. Yeah. No, that's a very good visual, actually. I'm gonna give you a halibut, you play with that. Okay, I'm gonna play. Yep. She looks so good even from far away. Yes. Okay, I brought in a little game changer too. Oh. Oh, wow. So like, there's a, but. Wow. Yeah, I don't even, I forget what this is called. There's tons of it outside. So I don't have this in my garden. I have heuchera, which is coral bells. There's lots of different varieties. It's a bit more of a maple leaf shape, but it's a great kind of piece of foliage that just can kind of, like. Uh-uh. Oh, my. Like, now you could almost say to yourself, yeah, who cares about anything else that's happening? We've given her a definite front, but like, she's cool. From the balance perspective, she's a little weighty here. Okay. And I think it might not be add, it might be just zhuzh. It's a very fancy word. Zhuzh. That line up, just bring a little bit more weight to kind of balance that. That's beautiful. Isn't that fun? Wow, that's amazing. I would think, I guess in my mind, that breaks the rules, because you can't just have like one. You can have whatever you want. But I love that because it, just the one is what you need, like I feel like looking at this. Yeah, it would really become overdone. It would become a very different arrangement. That immediately changes the look of it, right? Yes. But I like it. Yeah, I like that. That makes it, so for me, adding a piece of foliage like this, this really brings it to that sort of idea of, this is now kind of a modern take on a Dutch masters, because it's very botanically driven, right? We're highlighting each individual flower. And there's always in those Dutch masters, some emphasis on some part of the foliage, which I think really kind of gives us a cool modern twist. I think you pop those in somewhere there. Okay. And you've got yourself basically a work of art. Goodness. And possibly a new career. Take me under your wing, I'll be your assistant. Okay, wait. Will you get a QuickBooks? I don't want to be that kind of assistant. Okay. So I feel like she's a little, little tiny bit lost. Okay. If we just kind of pull her in a little bit. Yeah. I'm in love. Okay, yeah. I am truly in love. This is incredible. How gorgeous is that? Compliments. Wow. You're a good student. You're a great teacher. You are a very good teacher. You think? Yes, and it makes sense because of all of the workshops that you do. So you have to follow TJ on Instagram and also sign up for his newsletter, which you'll update your subscribers there because when he's doing a workshop, you want to jump on it because it's like this, but on steroids. Yeah, I mean, it is, it's definitely, we definitely get, you know, flower enthusiasts. We certainly really appeal more to like people who are looking to get into it or have been doing it and want to sort of refine the passion for it. Or even just, I have one gal who comes every year to the spring one because it's how she gets her year going. Like it's her creative refresh before she even starts the year. So yeah, and it's really nice. It's full, like immersive experience. You get to tour this place with Andrea. The food is amazing. I don't eat the food. It's too good for my taste buds. Which by the way, we are at Jardin de Bouilly and in Pottersville, New Jersey. So yeah, when you do a workshop here with TJ and the other amazing people he brings on, you can also tour the property, which is a whole other experience in itself. Where else, what else do you want people to know? We are conditioned to think we're Americans, right? We think if we see it on our shelves, the government has given it a stamp of approval. It's safe for us. It's all other things. And the reality is, is this industry, which seemingly is good for the planet is actually very bad for the planet, but it doesn't have to be. And you can make simple little changes in your daily or your ritual of bringing flowers into the home by knowing where they came from or looking around and seeing if there's a cut flower farm that you could go to and buy local. You're doing so much for your local economy. You're doing so much for your local ecosystem. And they just, they just feel better. Yeah. And they look a lot better. They, yeah. I mean, there's no powdery, like chemical residue on any of it. It's nice. This is amazing. I learned so much. And I know that viewers watching learned so much from this. And if you want to learn more, we're actually having TJ on for a live call inside of our membership community. All the information is down below. It's going to be Thursday, May 22nd. And TJ is going to be walking our members through how to create an arrangement in real time. They're going to create theirs. They're going to have an opportunity to ask TJ questions. We do monthly live calls every month with different industry experts. And so this one's going to be, I'm really excited for this one. So if you want to join for that, head to the link down in the description below. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more content like this. Tell them. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more content like this. And don't forget to follow me. Yeah. That's the most important. At TJ underscore McGrath, I think. Cool.