Gerard Toh Floral Inspiration

Recently a few members of our staff had the privilege of attending a design show with the talented Floral Designer Gerard Toh at Pennock Floral Wholesaler. Mr. Toh spoke with witty, knowledgeable insight into the floral world and gave us a lot of ideas about how to maximize the impact of our Display and Floral Designs.
He showed us this Traditional design using grouping, that is tight but still has movement:

Two images illustrating how to upgrade a planted pot to give it more style, as opposed to just a planted pot with foil around it:



An Elegant Arrangment with luxurious rolls of ribbon spilling out created by Mr. Toh:

An Arrangement in 3 Metal cups that is traditional at it's base and gets more contemporary as we move towards the top as described by Mr. Toh:

We had a wonderful time and would like to Thank Gerard Toh for giving this wonderful demonstration, and Teleflora and Pennock for facilitating the event.

Make Your Own Harvest Floral Pumpkin

Halloween is a week away and it will mark the end of summer, in celebration of the beginning of Autumn, here is another how to post. Using a locally bought pumpkin and some fresh flowers I'll show you how to make a beautiful fall centerpiece!

First thing we need to do is hallow out the pumpkin, in the picture I am using a small (7"-9") white pumpkin:








Next I spray the exposed flesh of the pumpkin with a surface sealer. Then I insert a plastic liner to hold the water and some floral foam:





Next create a background color of rusty red leaves with these Dogwood leaves:





And add a couple stems of orange lilies:





Here you will see I put some wooden stakes in the 'lid' of the pumpkin because I want to include it in the design. This brings the color of the pumpkin up into the floral design:









Next I'll add the sunflowers:





And finally the fall daisy mums and dried wheat:




The finished design:
'Pumpkin Autumn Floral Design'





Thanks for reading, happy designing!

Designing an Autumn Floral Centerpiece

Hello everyone! In this bolgpost I will be sharing some of the techniques I use when designing at The Flower Shoppe, Ltd. I'm going to be using some local plant materials native to South Jersey, and mix them with a few fresh flowers.


In this design I'll mainly be using a technique called grouping. As the name indicates it means to 'group' similar flowers together to give them more visual impact. Ok let's get started!

We are going to be using 1/3 brick of floral foam inserted into a small plastic container:


Next we are going to add three sunflowers and some oak leaves being sure to group them together and keeping them tight and close to the base:


It is common practice for Florists (and you should always do this) to cut each stem on an angle, this allows the stem to easily pierce the foam and creates the largest possible cut surface on the stem for maximum water absorption. And then we add the 'grouped' Thistle:


Next we add some Phragmites:


Now the Phragmites and the Brown Millet looking material will create a line straight across the design, giving the arrangement a longer side and a shorter side. So we move on to adding the Brown Millet:





Next we add a Green Leucadendron:


I finished it off with some ferns:




The finished design:



You want the design to look natural and grouping creates that effect because flowers grow that way naturally. This design makes a great natural centerpiece for your table and incorporates local plants which creates a sense of place. So wherever you live go outside for a walk, pick some interesting flowers and plants, then stop by your local florist for some sunflowers and try this design out. Then post a pic of your results on our Facebook page so I can see your results. Happy designing!

A View Outside Our Front Door

I'm posting a video of the new fall plants we've just got in. The mums are just about to show color, we also have some very interesting Deep Brown or Black Millet Plants and Blue-Green-Purple Kale.

Autumn Dried Florals

Tuesday we worked on some dried florals in the spirit of Autumn. We harvested a lot of Blue, Purple & Green Hydrangeas this summer and dried them upright in buckets which seemed to work out well. Jose made this beautiful topiary from the Dried Hydrangea and Roses:




I also made a few wreaths with a mono-floral theme of Dried Hydrangeas which a lot of people seem to be into right now:



And a Dried Vase Arrangement:

Wedding Florals May 2010

Wedding Flowers