Flowers keep their freshness through centuries of home décor

Fish or flowers? Torontonians wanting to celebrate their mothers encountered this enticing choice at St. Lawrence’s Market a century ago.

Becquerels were promoted for 25 cents a pound, the Toronto Daily Star reported on Mother’s Day in 1925. But just like pansies, peonies, and roses are fresh and fragrant.

Flowers won the nose as an expression of love and appreciation in those early days of the annual Motherhood Celebration, which falls on May 8 this year.

Posies are more than just pretty faces in our homes as they are also prized as mood enhancers and air fresheners. The Victorians showed how they placed small bouquets of fragrant herbs and flowers around the house to get rid of odors.

One passionate petal pusher is Becky de Oliveira of Toronto, who “eats, sleeps and dreams in a world of flowers.

“Fresh flowers add life and beauty to a home,” says owner and creative director of design studio Blush & Bloom. “It’s a simple touch that goes a long way.”

Arranged flowers are a bestseller for more than 80 percent of florists, according to a survey by Floranext, a software platform for 2021 florists. In her living space, de Oliveira loves “the moment of a little flower on my dining table, and a stem or two in my bathroom.” ” Her little boy also enjoys having a few legs in his bedroom.

Flowers are easy to absorb. “Jugs, ice buckets, wine bottles, cereal bowls, you name it—anything can be used to pop flowers,” says the industry expert whose studio makes floral arrangements for weddings, orders, and events. “Porcelain is really there at the moment. I love pottery, stoneware, and terracotta.”

The Egyptians are believed to have begun designing bouquets that light up the room around 2500 BC. In fact, they were the first florists by trade, according to Floranext.

Florentine credits Italian artists with helping to sow the seeds of floral design in Europe by painting flowers in a vase around AD 400 or 500. The Italians also used baskets as a kind of wonderful welcome mat.

Early on, botanical beauty found its way into the paintings of the greats, including Bosschaert, who painted them in minute detail in the seventeenth century, followed by Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, and O’Keeffe among others.

The profession enjoyed turning into the spotlight when unlucky florist Jennifer Aniston found herself in a blossoming romance with self-help author Aaron Eckhart in the 2009 movie Love Happens.

Floral art was raised even further at La La Land where designer Maurice Harris called himself “Beyoncé for Flowers.” Like a superstar recording artist, Full Productions moves on with his vibrant models, which has earned him over 280,000 followers on Instagram.

“I’m really, really, really excellent at what I do,” the founder of Los Angeles studio Bloom & Plume said on a recent episode of “The Quarantine Tapes.”

Harris said the fresh flowers in his hands – “the epitome of beauty and aesthetics” – became a “transcendent experience”.

His home is a multicolored wonderland of everything from giant painted flowers to peonies in a vase. The fun-loving celebrity florist explained that he surrounds himself with the colors, collectibles, and artwork that bring him joy, in a video with design website Clever last year.

For those who want to create their own floral magic, Harris teaches a 30-day course on YouTube.

Becky de Oliveira, who has a sister company called Bloom School — evening classes coming May 25 and June 8 — offers her tips for budding designers.

“Stick to an easy color palette to get started,” she says, suggesting three types of monochromatic flowers. Choosing seasonal and local “will always result in the best blooms any time of the year.”

For her arrangements, she usually chooses from among three categories: a whole or group flower such as hydrangeas, airbrush roses, and daisies; a linear or linear-shaped flower such as delphinium, lily and gladiolus; and focal or tissue flower, including peonies, dahlias and garden roses, or raspberries, wax flower and various foliage.

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