Moss in Floral Design
Can You Design with Moss?
Moss can create beautiful, natural structure in floral design—but it isn’t always perfect. Watch as Leanne demonstrates how moss works as a mechanic, sharing practical pros, cons, and design tips along the way.
Video Transcription
Today, looking at alternatives, sustainable options. There's so many choices, but which one is best for you? Here in the Pacific Northwest, sphagnum moss is amazing. Let me show you how you might use that.
When you work with moss, you can use the sphagnum moss. Here in Oregon, we have so much of it. Then you can combine it with floral netting, or maybe you want to do the wax twine, or even just standard twine. Any of these things work together to create a beautiful moss base.
You can take the moss, bundle it together, and then tie it off with the twine or the wax twine to give yourself a nice base. If you want a little more structural stability, take it and place it into floral netting, pulling it together, wrapping it around, and then binding it very tightly. You want it to be very secure and tight. Pulling it in so that you have the bundle that then can support your flowers.
Once you have your base, whether it's with twine or with floral netting, you can set it into your container, secure it in, and add more water. And then you can go back and add your flowers as you desire.
As you finish, you can go back and add water. Moistening the moss, adding into the water reservoir. And then, as you go forward, just cutting your flowers, and then setting them straight down in. Now, you may discover it's actually a little harder. So taking your knife, creating a little hole, and then sliding it in, that will hold it in place just as you need it.
Utilizing moss as an alternative mechanic is wonderful, and also a little bit of an issue. All of a sudden, there's less moisture to support your flowers, and you don't have as much control. If you had long stems, it doesn't give them that support, but a kenzan might give them. And you're introducing contaminants into the water. So all these things we all have to think about as professional florists. What works best for us? Moss is a great mechanic, is it perfect? Maybe not. So what works best for you? You'll find more creative inspiration, more design ideas, more mechanic ideas on our website, flowerschool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. But now it is your turn, experiment, see if moss works for you and let us know. Be sure to take a picture, post on social media and #floraldesigninstitute. That way we all can see what you do as you do something you love.
