Fastest Roses Ever

Video Transcription 

Welcome to the Flower School.com video library. I'm Leanne Kesler, director of the Floral Design Institute. Today, we want to talk about speed designing. When it comes to crunch time, when you have hundreds and hundreds of orders to get out, how can you do it the fastest ever without sacrificing quality? A little extra effort at the point of preparation helps to make it the fastest roses ever. 

First off, hydrate your roses really well. Using the quick tip, put them in the holding solution, and one more thing, when you do the cleaning, remove the thorns and the leaves just like normal, nothing different there. Then, bundle 12 roses together, and when they get the roses they often have those two lengths. Do half of the longer, half of the shorter. Bundle together, and then put it with just a bit of paper. I like the paper over a rubber band, because then it's not so tight that it is a tourniquet, but it's very easy to know, "This is 12 roses." That way, when you go to design, all you have to do is grab your bundle and you don't have to count. 

I've chosen a beautiful vessel for this, but it can use any vase. I just wanted something a little fancier. Then you just take your roses, and holding them, cut them all at once. You need a very sharp knife to do this. Make sure, give them a fresh cut, and then just drop them in. 

Then, rather than foliage, using a bit of hydrangea. Give it a cut, dip it in alum, and then set it in around the lip. Now, alum, it's a pickling spice. You'll find it at the grocery store, and it keeps your hydrangeas alive so much longer. So, it's cut, dip, place it in. Depending on the size of hydrangeas it could be three or it could be five, it just depends on the size of their head. The color is great, the texture is great, having that luxury bloom just makes it all look fabulous. 

Next step is to unwrap right where I taped it, and then fluff it out. You can see it starts looking beautiful with six inch insertions, one for the roses, five for the hydrangeas, and a little bit of a fluff. 

You could stop here, have a very sleek, contemporary design, or if you want to add a little bit of foliage, just go back, tuck it in, some fatsia aralia coming in at the side, feeding it under the hydrangeas. A little bit of Italian ruscus to give some movement. Maybe some lily grass for softness. And then just adjust to make it be your design. 

As I was preparing for this video, I practiced the technique and experimented with different ways. Tried it with rubber bands, tried it with plastic, tried it with butcher paper, tried it in different vessels. It works so well. The only thing that was an absolute was to make sure you use the butcher paper. That worked better than anything else I tried. If you don't have butcher paper, newspaper would work, and that would be fine. 

Then I timed myself, and my average was one minute and 33 seconds. That's amazing, isn't it? But it does take preparation ahead of time. Remember, your flowers have to be fully prepared and hydrated. You need them pre-bundled so that they're in dozens, so you don't have to worry about that. The vase already had the food, with the flower food and water and everything in there, so that all I had to do when it comes to crunch time is the actual fresh flower design. One minute 33 seconds, definitely the fastest roses ever. 

Find more inspiration at the website, Flower School.com. The website contains hundreds of floral design how-to videos, floral design classes, online floral classes and DIY Flowers. 

If you've got questions, you can reach us through there, or pick up the telephone and give us a call at 503-223-8089. And of course, I love to see what you create. You can send it to my email, or better yet, post it on social media, tag #FloralDesignInstitute, and let us all see. 

Now it's your turn. How fast can you go as you do something you love?