Why Some Bouquets Sell Out and Others Just Sit There

All right, good morning everybody. Welcome. I'm thrilled that you are here. My name is Ellen Frost. I'm the owner of Local Color Flowers. We are a floral design studio located in Baltimore, Maryland. We are in our 18th year in business and we source all of our flowers locally. So we do everything florists do, but we do it with local flowers. So from weddings to subscriptions to retail, all of the things with local flowers. And today for this demo, we're going to talk about market bouquets and how to elevate your market bouquet because if you make market bouquets, either for a farmer's market or a farm stand or even just for like friends, there are some really easy way to elevate your market bouquets. And the best way I think is to use a hand-tied spiral technique. And this is a technique that is not super easy to learn, but the more you practice, the better you get. It's really going to add value to your bouquets because it's going to have a little bit more of a sort of designed feel. A lot of times market bouquets were, you know, were so quick. We're just putting things in a pile, rubber banding it, and then we're done. So we're going to take just a little bit more time to learn this technique. And then once we have it, it'll be a lot easier to understand. And I want to just make a note. If you, we have a couple of things besides our shop. We do a weekly newsletter and I have signups for the newsletter here. If you sign up today at the end of the demo, we're going to raffle off one of my favorite floral design books for you to take home. So if you want to sign up, even if you think you already signed up, sign up again, because you might win a book. We also do a weekly YouTube video. Every Tuesday we put out a YouTube design video. And then we have an online community called Flower More where we invite flower farmers, gardeners, hobby designers to come together online and learn about design. It's a lot of fun. We have some of our members here. John's one of our members. So if you're interested, I'm happy to talk to you about that afterwards. All right, so let's get started. So hand tied spiral technique. Like every design, you want to make sure that your stems are prepared correctly. So I'm taking sort of these lower leaves off and I want to start with something that's really sturdy. So this is variegated Solomon's seal. It has a really sturdy stem. So nothing that's like real bendy or floppy. You want to start with something strong. And I'm going to turn around just to show you I'm right-handed. So I'm going to be placing things with my right hand and holding with my left hand. So whatever your dominant hand is, that's the hand you're going to be using to place your stems. All right, so we're going to start with a Solomon's seal and you can ask questions while we're going or save them till the end, whatever. I can talk a lot so we could be here all day. I'm going to start with my Solomon's seal. And then the next thing I'm going to use is what I would call a line flower. We didn't, Lisa's snapdragons are done for the season. So we're using this basil as a line flower. So you can see that it has this nice, strong line. And always when I'm doing spiral, what you're going to do is take your first stem and cross the next one over in an X shape like this. So, so far easy, right? Next, you are going to take it and turn it a quarter turn. Now that is not turning your wrist a quarter turn. Lots of people think if you just turn your wrist, that means you turned it. You actually want to take the entire thing and turn it a quarter turn. So now your stems are looking a different way. I'm going to take my red beckia and I'm going to do that same cross. So it's doing the same exact thing that the first stem did. And then I'm going to do that quarter turn again. Okay. And I'm going to do that every single time with every stem. Now, one thing I want to show you is that I am not like a lot of times when we're making market bouquets, I'm not holding on to this bouquet with a death grip. So this is not a full palm, holding it straight up and down, which is what a lot of market bouquets look like. Every stem is straight up and down. We are going for a splayed out stem that is going to give you a wider, more sort of natural, more gardening feel to your bouquet. So I'm only holding it really between my forefinger and my thumb. I'm not using these fingers except for like a little bit of support. So remember no death grip, death grip, no death grip. All right. So next I'm going to again, just place my quarter at my X and then turn a quarter turn. Now, if your stems are long like these, all of these flowers, Lisa grew and she grows great flowers and they have long stems. So if you need to trim them a little bit as you go, fantastic, because they start to get heavy. They start to get unwieldy. So, so far I've got Solomon's Seal and Basil. I've got some Ridbeckia. This is the Chim Chimney and I've got some Zinnias. And next I'm going to use some Strawflower and I'm using it just the same way. And I'm going to just clean this up a little bit. Normally I would say clean all of your stems, every single one of them before you start this process. Do not clean as you go. That will take you forever. All right. And next I'm going to use little bit of Crespidia. All right. So you see, I've got my first round. You can see that the stems are splayed. They're not straight up and down. And the shape might look a little bit crazy when you start because you're loose. You've got a loose grip on it, but you're just going to go with the process. Keep it going. So I'm going to start back at the beginning and I'm going to do it again. So I'm crossing over. I'm giving it a turn, crossing over, giving it a turn. And you can see again, I'm keeping my hand nice and loose and I have my stems laid out in a way that makes sense to me. You might lay out your stems differently. I have a few little marigolds too. This is the White Swan. If you haven't used this before, it's fantastic for design. It's extra special for like wedding work and sort of more, I don't know, if you're doing fancier work where people don't want like bright yellow or bright orange, these White Swan are great. And they also do not have any scent. I know a lot of people have issues with marigolds because they don't like how they smell. And actually it's not the marigold itself that smells, it's the foliage that smells. So if you strip all the foliage off a marigold, it's no scent. But these, the leaves or the flowers do not have any scent in these. So I'm going along in my same format and I'm keeping everything nice and loose. I'm going to skip over my foliage for right now. All right, any questions while I'm just going to keep placing in this same exact format? Yes? Good question. How many varieties of flowers do I use or how many stems do I use in a bouquet? So I always like to use, I have a sort of framework, six elements. So six elements that I try to use in every single arrangement, if I can, because I use locally sourced stuff. Sometimes I don't have a line flower. So I would be using foliage, line flowers, focal flowers, secondary focals, maybe a little bit of filler and then some little bits and pieces. So those are my six elements to start. I would usually use about three of each. So that's like, how many, 18 stems. That's about like where I would start a market bouquet for myself. Now again, that six elements might not work if you're growing your own flowers and you don't have any line flowers that week. Or a couple weeks ago I had, we didn't have any foliage. So I was like, well, what can do the job of foliage? So foliage is, adds volume, it adds texture, it adds color. So I was looking for an element that could be replaced, you know, could replace foliage in my arrangement. So I would say that's usually where I start, but it really just depends. Like whatever you have available, you know, we're all using what we have available to us. So I would say about that. Other questions? So as my bouquet is getting bigger, I might say, okay, I want to, now you can see my stems are still splayed out. They're not straight up and down. I've got a nice, wide, loose bouquet. And I might look at it and say, well, I've got a little bit of a hole in the stems right through the middle, but I really want to make sure that my stems go in the same direction instead of the opposite direction. I want to follow along with the other stems, keeping that spiral nice and tight. Okay. So you can, once you get things going, thread things through. And I just am always trimming as I go, making sure that nothing is too heavy. And don't be afraid, you know, to trim off a little more. I know people hate trimming off flowers and leaves and, but really you want your bouquet to look the best it can. And sometimes that means trimming off those bottom stems. So again, I'm going to thread this one through, but keep that nice and loose. All right. I try to start with this, like a strong stem. And usually my foliage has like a really strong stem. If I had something like, I don't know, what's a, like apple mint, like that probably would not be strong enough for me to start with. Then I might start with something like, if I had snaps, those have a nice strong stem or stock, but I try to get a nice strong stem to begin with. Yep. Yep. I like to start with foliage just because I think that makes, it helps create the bones of the design. So I do prefer to start with that, but if the stem is too soft, I won't, I won't start with it. Good question. Other questions? Solomon's seal by far. This, this variegated Solomon's seal, I'm just going to take it out to show you all again. Variegated Solomon's seal, absolute favorite. It's, I know we talked about it before. I can tell you some others too, but variegated Solomon's seal, it blooms, it's ready to harvest maybe for us in zone 7b mid-May. And it's really great because there are not a lot of foliages available at that time. And so up until then, when I'm, when I'm designing, you know, January through March, I'm using evergreens. But when you get to March, like nobody wants evergreens in their designs. It's starting to feel like spring. Nobody wants pine or magnolia or any of those things. So then we go from March to May with not a lot of foliage. So this is really the first one that comes available for us. It has a really strong stem. I was saying before it lasts forever in the vase. Like it can last two, three weeks in the vase. It is not that easy to find to grow it. I know that ball seed, if you're a business, ball seed had some available. I think Dave told me that the other day they had 400 plants left. But the best thing to do, we were saying before, is find a friend. And there's a couple of friends here that have some Solomon's seal that you want to dig up a clump from. That's the best way to just grow it, is to get a clump from a friend and grow it from there. Yeah, good question. All right, other questions? Yeah, right. They do have a lot of clumps. All right, so you can see now, one thing about this bouquet is that because it is wider, all of your flowers have enough room to shine. Unlike a lot of market bouquets where everything is really crowded because everything is straight up and down. So you're basically piling things on top of each other, and that's when it starts to feel very vertical and very crowded. But with this method, your flowers really have plenty of room to shine. When you wrap it, you're going to be able to see like all of the flowers. And also there's like a perceived value. So when you're selling flowers, we're always thinking about perceived value. How am I going to convince a customer that this is worth what I'm charging for it? And size is one of those things. Also color palette is an indicator of value. And so like for this, I didn't use every color I have. Lisa picked all kinds of flowers for me. I didn't pick every color. I picked a palette that is about three colors. That's usually about how many I like to work with. One that's more dominant, maybe a secondary, and then something that's a little bit of a splash. So mostly yellow, maybe a little bit of this burgundy, and then a splash of peach. That feels more intentional. And not to say that I'm certainly an every color looks great together kind of person. But when you're selling flowers, there is a perceived value of this is an intentional color palette. You've chosen these colors together. Not just like I picked one of everything from the garden and I put it together and now you're going to buy it. So I like to have a little bit of a more intentional color palette. And then I had a rubber band. I have a rubber band. So once you're done, I would just trim it up again. I use the farmer method to rubber band. So if you haven't done that before, I just take it and put my rubber band on one strong stem. Actually this one's stronger. And then do a wrap around and then bring it up on another strong stem. And the reason I do this rubber band is so that when the person who buys this gets home, they can take this off easily. If you're doing like regular rubber banding and twisting and turning, that person's going to have to cut the rubber band off. Whatever, that might be fine. But let's try to reuse rubber bands. Like we don't have to always just cut them off. So I like to try to just use that that method. And then I'm going to trim it down to where every stem is even. If I was using this method for a bridal bouquet, like I use this same method, I would be wrapping at this pinch point. So wherever my hand is here, I would be taping at this pinch point. Since I'm thinking this is going to be a wrapped bouquet, somebody's going to take home and just pop in a vase, I can just put the rubber band down because they're going to take it off. But you can use this same method for a bridal bouquet, bridesmaid. I just was at my friend Jenny Love's farm last week or two weeks ago with our Flowermore community. We went up and did a tour and then we did a class. And Jenny makes all of her vase arrangements in her hand like this. So she makes a hand-tied bouquet, then she trims it down, and then whatever vase she's going to use, she just cuts it down and pops it right in the vase. So this is also a method that you can use to make hand-tied bouquet, you know, a vase arrangement with your flowers. All right, any questions? Yes. Sure, yes. If you've seen any of my videos, I oftentimes trim, stand it up. Trim, it still won't stand. Trim, this could go on forever. So let's see if I can get it to stand. If I had it taped, it would be a little bit more splayed. But see what I mean? Like you really have to have these stems. I could just keep, I have a paper cutter. I mean, it's a bunch chopper. A bunch chopper will give you that faster and easier. While I answer questions, I'll keep trying. Other questions? Bunch chopper is a thing. I'm surprised actually, I wonder if Lisa has one. If she doesn't, I think we just bought ours. I'm not sure where we bought ours. I think we bought ours at our like local wholesaler, like a in-person wholesaler. But it basically just screws on to like a piece of wood or a wood table and then you can chop your bunches. And it's great if you're doing that for like market bouquets or you're making a ton of bouquets at once. That's a great tool for that. All right, other questions? What would you charge for? Oh, what would I charge for? So for us, we are, because we source all of our flowers locally, we have like a very different way of pricing in that everything we do is on an average stem cost. So because we don't know what the growers will have for us week to week until a few days before. So I can't say to a bride, wait till three days before your wedding and then I'll tell you the price of what your wedding flowers are. So instead, we do everything on a per stem average cost. So we usually do about $3 a stem for our calculations. So you know, this would be maybe like a $50, $55 bouquet. And again, this is depending on your market, like we're in a city, so we're in an urban area, different than maybe if you're selling in a rural area or even a suburban area. Also, because in our city, local flowers are at a premium, people want local, there's demand for local. So you have to, there's a lot that goes into pricing. And actually, I don't know if I mentioned, but I offer two classes through the gardeners workshop. And one of them is called preparing to sell to florists. And in that class, it's just a, I think it's a two hour class. And maybe it's for sale. I didn't read this flyer, but I think that maybe it's for sale. In that class, we talk a lot about pricing and how to price because there's so much goes into it. It's not just what will your market bear? How much energy and effort did you put into growing this flower? What are your competitors charging? There's lots that go into it. And so that's a good, that's a good option to check that out. And also in our flower more community, if you're curious, I can tell you more, but in our online community, we talk a lot about pricing. We have an entire, Laura can say, we have an entire feed of people posting an arrangement and then saying, how much would you charge for this? And then we go through like, okay, here's what we would do. We would charge, you know, let's do a recipe. What are you using? Then take that and put a price tag to it. So it's a great resource for people that are just getting started and need like a little bit more help to be like, I don't know how much to charge for a centerpiece like this or things like that. So other questions? All right. Thanks everybody. Oh sure. Yeah. Let me tell you. So our online community is it's kind of like if you picture like a private Facebook group or like that's how it sort of works. And we have flower farmers, gardeners, hobby designers some people that do flowers for their business. And we have a number of things that we do in there. The first thing is we have a floral design challenge every month. So there's a theme. Oh, Pam's here too. We have a themed challenge every month where at home you make your own design, whatever it is per the theme. This month we are doing, last month was design in your signature style. So everybody made their design, whatever their style was, they post it. And then at the end of the month, we have an online Zoom call where we talk about all the designs and how people made them and how they made their color choices. We also have daily posts where we just talk about like this morning somebody was like what's eating my dahlias? Somebody else was like this arrangement I made looks weird. Why does it look weird? Like so there's just almost instantaneous answers to questions. And then we also do in-person meetups. So we have some people here today. Last month we went to Jenny's Farm. That's in Philadelphia. We've gone to the Biltmore. We did a private tour at the Biltmore. We did a private tour at Longwood. So we do in-person stuff too. And we have, it's $20 a month or $200 a year is the discounted price for folks that come today. So if you're curious, I can get you, Eric can help get it, you know, set up if you're interested. Okay, perfect. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I watch your YouTube. Uh-huh. And you talk about farm work. Yeah. I didn't realize you do in-person. Yep. I do the Zoom part. Yep. And I mean I retired so I just started. Oh yeah. You're a perfect. And so I don't, beginner would be my style. That's great. Oh yeah, we have people who, we had a woman who joined the other day who said I've made two arrangements in my life. Right. And I said, okay, great beginner. And then we have people that have been in the community now almost two years and are starting to do weddings and starting to do. So it really just, you know, we have people at all levels. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. I mean, I think it's, I'm biased. It's not scary. No, it is. Is it scary, Pam? Well, some of those arrangements. I mean, those were crazy. It was. We have a couple, we have a couple of retired members who love to do, I mean, very inspiring, awesome designs. And then there's, you know, some of us that are like. Totally. And they're so generous with their compliments. Yeah. The more beginner you are, the more generous compliments you get. I know that girl who joined the other day, she was like, where can I take classes? And then like 20 minutes of people just like, do this. You can learn here. You can do this. Like, it's very supportive. Yeah. No, it's, it's very fun. Yeah. And you're not without reach. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, and I'm in the community every day answering questions. I mean, I'm question and answer or a lot of like, I'm growing this, check it out. Or I made my first bouquet. Check it out. You know, there's a lot of that. So, I mean, I think together you could, yeah. Would you want to do it together? I think it could be fun. We don't have any, we have young people, but not, you know, kids, but I think it could be cool. It's a great way to learn. I grow the flowers and she arranges them. That sounds perfect. Yes. We have lots of John and Maureen are a grower, designer, husband and wife duo. So lots of duos. That would be fun. Did you have any other questions? Anything? What kind of stuff do you like to design? Um, we just started our farm this year. Okay. Sold anything yet? Yeah. She's been creating bouquets. Nice. Ready. That's great. Getting our skills right. The best way to get better at designing flowers is to practice designing flowers. That's the best way to have your hands on flowers as much as you can. What's your favorite stuff to work with? Foxglove. Oh, Foxglove. That's good. That's fancy because florists love Foxglove. That's like, that's a good one. We have lots of Foxglove. Nice. Yeah. You should give it a try. If you take the, um, take our card or if you want to like leave your name and put a little star next to it that just says flower more, I'll send you the discount link. Hi Ellen. I'm Erin Doherty. Oh, hi. Nice to see you. Then I started following you on Instagram. I don't know if you recall, but yeah, I was sitting there with all my flowers. I had ordered wholesale and I was like, I have to wrap these and I don't know how. I'm not paying another class to this person who's already teaching me. So I saw your bouquet wrapping. You have wonderful resources. Thank you so much. I'm so glad. Where are you located? Central Virginia. Okay. Beachland. Okay, cool. So yeah. Are you growing flowers too? I'm trying. Okay. So once I become profitable, I definitely want to come and join. Yes. But like right now we're on threadbare. So yeah, I really appreciate everything. I love it. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to see that you are going to be here. It's one of my favorite events of the year. Awesome. So you're here every year? Yep. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for stopping over. Nice meeting you. Bye.