Craft
Foliage is not filler
Most people are taught that greenery is what you add when the flowers run out. That lesson produces bouquets that shout. Every head is a soloist. Nothing rests. The eye has nowhere to land, so it leaves.
In the studio, foliage is the first decision. A line of beech can hold a whole table. Eucalyptus can cool a coral peony that would otherwise look like confectionery. Lady’s mantle is a kind of light. Seeded grasses in September do the work that people try to do with more dahlias, and they do it with air.
A bouquet that is only flowers is often only noise.
What we mean by structure
Structure is not a grid. It is the difference between a gather that can sit in a low bowl and a gather that collapses when you take your hands away. Chicken wire and tape help. Foliage helps more. Woody stems create pockets. Soft stems then have somewhere to drink and somewhere to lean.
This is why we walk the market foliage-first, as in the Thursday diary. If the floor is empty of decent branches, we buy fewer flowers. We do not compensate with more colour. More colour on a weak frame is how a dinner starts to look nervous by the main course.
When foliage is the point
Winter work is often a foliage study with three anemones. A ceremony aisle can be more branch than bloom. A desk can be one good stem of something dark and one pale flower. Clients who ask for “just flowers, no green” are asking for a photograph they have seen. We will do it if the stems can stand alone. Many cannot.
If you take a bouquet home and the leaves sit in the water, they will rot first. Strip the waterline. That single habit is in the care studio because it saves more arrangements than any ribbon.