Florist Christchurch New Zealand News

Christchurch florists influence London dinner tables

New Zealand flowers decorate dinner tables in London.

Who says the holiday dinner table decorations have to revolve around traditional poinsettias and pine boughs? There’s no need for hostesses or their guests to suffer from red and green affliction syndrome this time of year.

Floral designer Miriam Landsman, owner of Beautiful Flowers in Greenwich and a who’s who in the world of flower arranging, sought-after on the garden club lecture circuit, recently whipped up several holiday designs for Duck River Garden Club of Old Lyme and Lyme Garden Club members. Old Lyme resident Beverly Ahlers, DRGC member, and winner of flower design competitions, worked for 15 years with her.

Living in the hedge fund capitol of the world, Landsman has designed and decorated homes and halls for elaborate weddings, parties, and holiday season entertaining. Here are some of her tips and trade secrets.

Years ago, home decorators found little more than pompom mums and carnations at their grocery store floral section, Landsman said, but not anymore.

“We live in a global economy that affects everything we buy. If you have enough money there isn’t anything you cannot have, flowers from anywhere in the world,” she said. “Now the flowers in the supermarket are all extraordinary,” she said.

She frequents the floral section of big discounters for exotic flowers and combs farmers markets for fruits and little vegetables in season, all which end up in her creations. Discretion is the key—don’t just tell everyone where you find your treasures.

“One bad thing about having everything available is that you don’t lust after what you used to,” she said, admitting that some of the excitement and anticipation for the advent of seasonal blooms as nature intended, in our hemisphere, goes missing.

“If you just must have the latest flower, make friends with your local florist or flower shop. They can get you anything you want, if you give them a little notice,” she said.

Landsman, who loves to work with roses, is pleased to see the number of new garden rose hybrids coming out. The blooms are much flatter and more open than hybrid tea roses that are more tulip-shaped, and work better in arrangements. Gypsy curiousa roses, thornless and with beautiful foliage have been around for years. These are grown in Ecuador. She recommends Cherry Brandy, the newest thornless choice.

Although she considers carnations as some of the most boring flowers around, Landsman still uses them selectively in arrangements.

“The problem with carnations is that they don’t do anything. They don’t change during the life of the flower,” she said, contrasting them to rose blooms that unfold as they age and cut tulips that follow the light and stems that continue to grow, even in an arrangement.

Tulips have become a winter flower, she said, being shipped in from Oregon as well as Holland these days. Miniature calla lilies, which come in multiple colors and last a long time, are a hot trend.

Flower conditioning is key

Whether the flowers come from your backyard—we can dream of warmer weather for now—or from around the world, she said, many people are mystified with the required step of conditioning them. This is the crucial step of prepping blooming flowers so stems don’t droop and blossoms don’t flop.

Landsman heeds the advice of Irish floral designer, Reverend Mac. That’s the Very Reverend William McMillan, Presbyterian minister on the outskirts of Belfast for those of us who don’t follow ecclesiastic or gardening lectures. He likens a cut flower to a trauma patient.

“What you’re doing when you cut a flower, you are immediately putting it on life support,” she said. “You have to be very aware of what this poor patient needs. We have very big expectations for it when we cut it.”

Dehydration is the big problem for flowers, especially anything with woody stems, she said. This includes roses, hydrangea and lilacs, and is true with flowers cut fresh from the garden as well as any cut flower coming from a shop. The first step is to trim off some bottom stem and put the cut flower in water for at least a couple of hours.

“They need a really big drink, and like warm water,” she said. “Some people swear by cold water for cut flowers, but I haven’t had good success with it.”

Landsman cautions that inexpensive roses, those found at grocery stores and some farm stands, have probably come straight from a farm, often in another country, put on an airplane and get their first drink of water many hours later at the store. They may have been pre-cooled, but not pre-conditioned.

The big frustration with roses can be “bent head syndrome,” or a droopy-necked blossom that quickly dries out.

“A rose will drop its head if it has no air passage. This comes when something is blocking the stem—it’s usually bacteria,” she said.

Landsman never uses the little packet of preservative that comes with cut flowers, after reading in florist trade publications that too much or too little of it can do more harm than good to a flower. It usually is a mixture of sugar, which can breed bacteria as it breaks down, with some anti-bacterial agent such as bleach.

Instead, she just uses a couple of drops of chlorine bleach in the water, which is also all she uses to clean out her vases. She doesn’t use soap to wash her containers because the scum that it leaves is a form a bacteria and can contribute to the problem.

“Flowers hate sun. They never want to be in strong light and they hate heat. They also don’t want to be in dirty water,” she said.

Florists form and function

Before even picking out a container or contents, Landsman recommended, consider where the arrangement is going and its function.

For the dining room table, it has to look good from all sides and it can’t be too high to obstruct conversations.

“Men hate it when they can’t see over the flowers on the table,” she said.

Whether it’s greens cut from your yard or fresh flowers on the table, Landsman says not to stop with just one centerpiece, especially on rectangular tables.

“People at the far ends of the table feel ignored, so spread out the arrangements and make your whole table come alive,” she said.

Oasis to the rescue

Once the container has been selected, Landsman is a big fan of oasis, the blocks of rigid green foam that soak up water, to hold her arrangements together. It can be found at crafts shops. She’s not into big vases full of long-stemmed flowers flopping around.

“Oasis will make your life so much easier,” she said, cautioning to always have it setting in a bit of water in the finished arrangement and to pour some water on the top of it every day or so. Air conditioning also sucks the moisture out of it quickly.

Not-so-traditional combinations

Although she said anyone looking for pure white flowers is going to be disappointed because there is no such thing as all white in nature, Landsman whipped up a classic number out of white hydrangea, shipped in from South America in winter, with cedar and green china berries in a white container.

“Everybody loves hydrangeas,” she said. “They need to have a lot of water—or they will pass out.”

A trick she recommended to extend the shelf life of hydrangea, either fresh from your garden in the summer or shipped in, is to dip the freshly-cut stem into a bit of Alum. Look for this old fashioned health remedy powder, also used in pickling, near the spice section of the grocery store or ask a pharmacy if they can get it.

For an all-red arrangement, she splurged on cut peonies, shipped in this time of year from New Zealand, red tulips, red mums, carnations and pepperberry, grown in California, together in a red container.

She threw in some highlights with Big Fun, a red rose that really is more orange than red.

“When you make an arrangement of just one color, be careful. Blue, purple, or really dark colors, they just disappear. You need some variety, some brighter colors to make things pop,” she said.

It’s not all flowers

Especially for the holidays, Landsman recommends decorating with fruit, from apples and oranges to grapes in a variety of colors to more exotic persimmons or smaller pumpkins.

She also secures clusters of grapes and fruits that might roll away with inexpensive wooden picks with wire attached that can be found at crafts shops. Lay along the stem of the grapes.

As a trick, she sprays the whole fruits with PAM or a similar cooking oil, to extend their display life.

Not everything has to come from outside the home or cost a fortune. Landsman pops the hanging cap off of old Christmas ornaments, fills them with water, and sets them on napkin rings to create little vases, each filled with little flowers, for instant mini-bouquets to set around tables.

“People like a surprise and something unexpected,” she said.