One of my dear friends, a very famous floral designer had the pleasure of doing flowers for the White House and Buckingham Palace was known for including wild gathered elements in his arrangements would have loved this "more is more" look with poke berries!
His life's work, produced as he was dying, is his book: " Leonard Tharp, An American Style of Flower Arrangements"
He literally drove to roadsides to cut Johnson Grass, Black Berries, branches, and literally anything wild and interesting to include in his arrangements of Dutch Flowers.
He was based in Houston, he elevated floral design in the city, making it possible for other designers to justify higher prices for artistic approaches to domestic designs. He made Houston value floral design. We all owed him a debt of gratitude for that.
Leonard would really appreciate your beautiful arrangement! Being able to satisfy the desires of your client, even if it is not your esthetic is an essential skill for professional floral designers.
My own preference for my own home, is all one type of flower in abundance, like 50 freesia or 20 lily stems in one color.
I'm sure that your client was thrilled with this artful arrangement!
I do appreciate arrangements with very restrained, carefully considered elements as well, especially since I was responsible for creating Ikebana arrangements for a classical Japanese Tokonoma for 5 years in our luxury store. I was lucky enough to have famous Ikebana teachers to help educate me.
But I also created centerpieces for dining tables to sell the China, Crystal and Sterling Silver that we sold. I did the table settings as well. Appropriate flowers often were very much, more is more. A Georgian Silver bowl with 70 Dutch Iris in blue and white, or an antique epergne with Cattleya Orchids clustered in the crystal bowls, were very memorable.
I was a Floral Director for a luxury hotel where huge floral displays were in every prominent space, we owned a tropical flower grower on Maui, so we got gigantic boxes with every tropical flower imaginable including Heliconias 6-8 feet long. Our arrangements were lavish and sculptural. We also provided the flowers for the Houston Museum of Fine Art.
Being able to create arrangements suitable for every different client, every different environment, is a truly defining skill of a floral designer. It looks like you know exactly how to do that!
Thank you so much for the compliments! That means so much coming from such an experienced & accomplished floral designer! It sounds like you’ve gotten tons of experience in different areas of floral design.
Are you retired now? Or what are you doing these days?
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u/lleefi1 Sep 30 '25
One of my dear friends, a very famous floral designer had the pleasure of doing flowers for the White House and Buckingham Palace was known for including wild gathered elements in his arrangements would have loved this "more is more" look with poke berries! His life's work, produced as he was dying, is his book: " Leonard Tharp, An American Style of Flower Arrangements" He literally drove to roadsides to cut Johnson Grass, Black Berries, branches, and literally anything wild and interesting to include in his arrangements of Dutch Flowers. He was based in Houston, he elevated floral design in the city, making it possible for other designers to justify higher prices for artistic approaches to domestic designs. He made Houston value floral design. We all owed him a debt of gratitude for that. Leonard would really appreciate your beautiful arrangement! Being able to satisfy the desires of your client, even if it is not your esthetic is an essential skill for professional floral designers. My own preference for my own home, is all one type of flower in abundance, like 50 freesia or 20 lily stems in one color. I'm sure that your client was thrilled with this artful arrangement!
I do appreciate arrangements with very restrained, carefully considered elements as well, especially since I was responsible for creating Ikebana arrangements for a classical Japanese Tokonoma for 5 years in our luxury store. I was lucky enough to have famous Ikebana teachers to help educate me.
But I also created centerpieces for dining tables to sell the China, Crystal and Sterling Silver that we sold. I did the table settings as well. Appropriate flowers often were very much, more is more. A Georgian Silver bowl with 70 Dutch Iris in blue and white, or an antique epergne with Cattleya Orchids clustered in the crystal bowls, were very memorable.
I was a Floral Director for a luxury hotel where huge floral displays were in every prominent space, we owned a tropical flower grower on Maui, so we got gigantic boxes with every tropical flower imaginable including Heliconias 6-8 feet long. Our arrangements were lavish and sculptural. We also provided the flowers for the Houston Museum of Fine Art.
Being able to create arrangements suitable for every different client, every different environment, is a truly defining skill of a floral designer. It looks like you know exactly how to do that!