Corporate Flowers – Hybrid Flowers

Why we are all now feeling pretty blue….

We started writing this a few weeks back, before we realised just how much our lives were about to change. When pandemic hit, initially we lost interest in writing, everything seemed a little pointless to be honest.

But then something significant happened, whilst we were watching TV in fact, it was during the ‘Clap for Carers’. We watched as the camera panned across London and we saw our beautiful London icons – London Eye, The Shard and Tower Bridge – all lit up in blue in massive celebration of the NHS. It got us thinking about meaning and symbolism: in times of crisis, the simple things in life can take on a very new meaning.

Way back at the beginning of 2020, the significance of Pantone’s colour of the year – Classic Blue – wasn’t obvious, we were just annoyed that only a few flowers out there actually grow this colour. We didn’t, for a moment, consider that this colour would become synonymous with a pandemic; symbolising the bravery and altruism of our amazing NHS staff working on the front line.

These were our thoughts on the Pantone’s colour of the year pre virus pandemic…

We have written before how each year, Pantone release their ‘Colour of the Year.’ Our first question, as florists, is always “how many flowers can we think of that naturally appear in that colour?”

If we can think of five, we are ecstatic! If we only think of three, we are “moderately satisfied.’

Last year’s ‘Living Coral’ was awesome; we could use peonies, roses, and camellia galore. This year’s ‘Classic Blue’ has influenced some stunning designs in fashion, especially on members of the Royal Family, and it is a universally appealing colour, but sadly, that appeal doesn’t apply to the flower world! We really struggled to find our five flowers.

Consider the well-known rhyme: Roses are red, Violets are blue. I’m afraid that drives us mad! You see, violets are not blue! Violets are, well, VIOLET. Similarly, blue anemones and blue hyacinths are purple, not blue. And believe us, we know this because over the years, many of our corporate clients have used a variation of ‘Classic Blue’ in their branding, asking us to echo this colour at corporate events or within their weekly flowers. But there are only a few….

Now, Classic Blue is a lovely colour; magical, unique, otherworldly almost. It evokes images of deep lakes, evening skies and Mediterranean seas. It is both calming and meditative, yet also alluring, intriguing. It is the colour of summer and, indeed, trying to find classic blue flowers in any other season is daunting. Having given it a lot of thought, we list below the three ‘Classic Blue’ flowers that are both readily available to the luxury event florist and guaranteed to have a real wow factor:

Delphinium

These truly stunning spikes of colour appear in white, pink, peach and purple, but are at their most striking when in a stunning deep blue. Often used in tall arrangements on pedestals, bars and stages, these beautiful specimens are used to create a fountain of vivid blue flowers.

Cornflower

The blue of the cornflower is a colour so striking you could lose yourself! Powerfully intense, these little fluffy petalled blooms are perfect as part of a table-scape. The Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer loved the hue, and the most coveted of all sapphires is named after it. The flower is tiny, so use as part of a rambling collection down the centre of long tables or nestle within larger contrasting flowers to form a dome shape for occasional tables and dining tables.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea come in several shades of blue from the palest powder, to the most intense. To make sure we get the right colour for our events, we always ask for Chelsea Blue as in our experience, describing the colour needed to a Chelsea Football fan will get the message across pretty well! At least, we’ve never been let down when ordering this particular colour. These lovely large blooms are perfect for both pedestal designs and as rounded table centre pieces.

And there we have it. Three stunning varieties of true-blue flowers. We were ‘moderately satisfied’ with this year’s colour theme.

But that was then…..

This is now; spring time and in the midst of a pandemic virus. But there are 2 flowers that have taken on significant meaning for us, which we had overlooked until now:

Nigella (Love in a Mist)

When many of our clients in central London nervously started to plan working from home, we wanted to send them some love, and something interactive they could do at home (we’re nice like that!). So, we sent them some seeds to grow- blue Nigella seeds to be precise.

We wrote on the card:

“To our wonderful clients, a little bit of love (in-a-mist!) for you. We hope these flower seeds bring you a little more joy and some of nature’s beauty to your homes during this difficult time.
Take care, love Hybrid”

Myosotis (Forget-me-Not)

Sometimes, a flower arrives at our studio that causes a commotion. Its sheer gloriousness is enough to make us stop in wonder and gets us thinking, what would be the best way to photograph it for our monthly photo shoot.

Sadly, we couldn’t pose for March’s shoot before current events caught up with us. But had we done so, we think Forget-me-Nots would have stolen the show. They are the colour of the amazing blue skies that we have been so lucky to see recently and, of course, the colour of our beloved NHS.

One day, when all this is over, maybe there will be a flower that comes to symbolise the seismic change the world has been through. If so, we think it should be blue in colour and represent the spring, we think it should be called ‘Forget – me – not’.

And for those of us in the UK this Classic Blue hue has even more meaning as it represents the NHS.

We wrote on our Instagram:

Thank you to every NHS worker for doing your absolute best, we will never ever forget all that you are doing and if we could send you all the Forget-me-Nots in the world, we would.

And this is why, for the UK at least, Pantone’s Colour of the Year was a pretty good choice. And why we are proud to be feeling pretty blue.

The best place to start when designing Christmas Installations

Recently on Instagram we posted that; ‘the best thing about being a florist in London’ was… wait for it…. ‘the interiors’. We’d like to slightly change that if we may to: ‘the best thing about being a florist in London?…. ‘the interiors AND the buildings’ because, especially at this time of year, we get to work at some amazing places!

You see, at Christmas time, we look at these buildings through festive eyes and have the honour, bestowed upon us by our fabulous clients, of creating Christmas installations, trees, wreaths, garlands and sparkly arches that celebrate, respect and complement a building’s past. At Hybrid, we take this very seriously indeed!

We have decorated the likes of Merchant Taylor’s Hall, which has seen 671 Christmases already, The Brewery on Chiswell Street (260 Christmases), The Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden (243 Christmases) and The W in Leicester Square (8 Christmases), not to mention many other amazing buildings over the City of London, the West End and Canary Wharf. Our clients include the city’s top law firms, finance companies, media companies and brands including Coca-Cola, Groupon and Bupa. We have been asked to create everything, from luxurious classics to scandi-cosy and wild and wacky.

Working in these fabulous buildings gives us unique insight in to their history and design, we have discovered hidden secret passages and we get to see the rooms behind the scenes that not many people have the privilege of viewing. Unsurprisingly, we sometimes develop strong feelings of attachment towards ‘our’ buildings. Of course, we know that these building don’t strictly belong to us per-se, its just that as we visit them at all times of the day and night; whether to install weekly floral designs or to decorate them with amazing party installations, we feel we have some claim over them.

At Christmas, we work tirelessly to discover new ways of bringing joy and merriment to our festive creations. This year we have marveled at the beauty and variation of fir cones and the stunning variety of dried flowers which can make the most Christmassy of designs. Each year we offer different designs that will complement the buildings they adorn, not only because our clients wish to inspire and impress their visitors with something different, but because we are always influenced by the history of a building.

The magnificent Post Building on Museum Street in Central London, WC1 is both stunning and impressive, it stands on the site of the original Royal Mail Sorting Office and therein lay our inspiration for this brand new beautiful space’s first ever Christmas installation. Our brief was to add a dose of Christmas sparkle to the setting, to create an installation which is both impressive and elegant, and to tailor our designs to the story of the building. For us, a perfect Christmas design brief!

And so we set to work, with a palette of pure white, metallic and deep reds incorporating lots of wintry elements. Inspired by birch trees, we kept designs elegant and natural yet chic; we enhanced the metallics found in the interior design of the space with a deep burgundy to add warmth and tradition. We chose mirrored glass vases to echo the pattern of birch bark whilst natural birch trees, fir cones and dried flowers brought the outdoors in. Glossy deep red berries and luxury reflective and matt baubles gave contrast and texture.

And then, for the fun bit! We have a thing for brown paper and so wrapped parcels in un-waxed recyclable paper and tied them with classic red, white and green twine, we sourced perfect traditional hessian postal sacks and tied them with red velvet ribbon in giant bows. Our amazingly talented friend, Sarah wrote in glorious calligraphy personalising our letters to Santa, and to cap it off, we used traditional sealing wax to seal them with a ‘P’ for Post Building.

All this seems a while back now as we set it up at the beginning of December! We were touched by the amount of passers-by who stopped and noticed the twinkly atmosphere we had created and then looked again at the little postal touches and smiled as we explained how the Christmas story here was inspired by the history of ‘our’ building in London.

Photos by another great friend; photographer, Michael Ciancia

How to make an impact in a sustainable events world

Have you ever made a rash resolution after a particularly chaotic day? Such as how, from now on, you’ll get up a couple of hours earlier each day and use the time when you’d otherwise be asleep to do Really. Useful. Things. Perhaps go for a run, a swim even, heck! Why not do both? Make some bread, or maybe do a bit of housework? Why, you could beat the queues at the flower market and get the pick of the crop! All by 06.00 am?

Very nice, but is it sustainable?

It’s a very nice idea, and we don’t mean to be negative, but who actually does that? Or rather who can keep that up for longer than say, 3 days.

Now in the flower industry it is very easy to have moments of madness, putting spectacle over practical, such as suspending a thousand blousy peony flowers from a towering installation set within the glass walls of a baking hot orangery. Promising to tend to their delicate petals every single moment of the day and generally ignoring the voice in the head saying… “well yes this is a beautiful design, it looks amazing, but its not very sustainable is it?”. Like getting up a 4.00am each morning to bake bread, hanging delicate flowers in sub-tropical conditions may sound simple, but is it realistic?

Asking ourselves whether an is idea sustainable or not has become a bit of ‘a thing’ the team at Hybrid. For us, sustainability means creating something that will stand the test of time. We promise our clients something that will not only look beautiful, but will also last as long as the client needs it to.

And of course, there is the definition of sustainability in an environmental sense. This too has been preoccupying our minds at Hybrid: how can we ensure that what we do in the events industry is much more mindful of the environment.

So, when the team behind The London Summer Event Show came up with “Sustainability” as the theme for their 2019 Event’s Industry Show, we thought to ourselves:

We need to take part in this. Now is the time to honour our “is it sustainable” mantra and encourage people to think about ecological standards for future floral event design.

The show’s Director Clare McAndrew described the message of the two-day event thus:

Sustainability is not just about being green. It’s about running a commercially successful event that contributes to a stronger and more just society, whilst at the same time reducing its impact on environment.

Never ones to take a theme lightly, we wanted to do this justice. We were determined to create a super cool design concept which would stand the test of time whilst generating as little waste as possible. Our design was to be set in the ‘Heat Wave Room’, a space which encourages guests to consider the impact of global warming, and our creation was to be the centrepiece of Banking Hall, on their iconic grand staircase.

No pressure then!

We decided that we would not, under any circumstances, rush out and buy cut flowers solely for this event. Instead, we wanted lots of planted material, recycled containers, dried flowers, locally grown floral material and to recycle recently used flowers from previous displays.

Our mission was to bring these items together to form one strong visual look. The Heat Wave theme inspired us to create some kitsch looking designs, hinting at tropical motifs and mixing fun vibrant oranges, yellows, pinks and coral along with tropical greens.

And the result came to together perfectly! The design was a dream to put together and was created on-site in record time. We created bold striking shapes and achieved height with tall plants and props, all without the use of floral foam. We used huge recycled oil-drum containers painted in shades of orange and pink, some even wrapped in recycled astro-turf (note: this astro-turf had already been used countless times, but we still had reservations about whether to use it!). We borrowed plants from our wonderful plant supplier friends using gorgeous tall kentia, ficus, strelitzia and monstera plants surrounded with vibrant British grown orchids and begonia plants all of which could be used again after the show.

We used coconut shells as containers and painted dried tropical seed pods the most vibrant coral pink. Our next-door neighbours, the wonderful Pollen and Grace, gave us catering sized empty tins of coconut milk (the design of the labels just perfect for the event!) which would then go on to be recycled again after the show. All cut flowers had been pre-used in our past displays and had spent the previous week being admired in reception areas across the City.

The installation proved a talking point for many events professionals and wonderful backdrop for the brightly coloured and gloriously talented dancers from Ultimate Event Dancers.

At the end of the show, we were so surprised at how easy everything was to take down and remove from Banking Hall. Hardly anything needed to be thrown away; the tall plants went back to plant suppliers, the containers went on to be recycled, the orchids and begonias were donated locally, and the dried items stored away ready to be used again in the future.

And whilst there is always room for improvement, we were proud at what we had achieved and happy that we had challenged ourselves and in doing so, opened the minds of other events professionals. As to finding the answer to our favourite question “Is it sustainable?”, the answer to that was definite “Yes!”.

Ways to do your bit:

Clare McAndrew the Show Director adds:

“It’s easier than you think to add sustainable options to your event. First of all, question your current suppliers. Often suppliers although not branding themselves as sustainable although they may have lots of sustainable options that you may not be aware of. For example, can your florist provide you with seasonal or locally sourced flowers or potted plants that can be re-used after the event?

When printing materials opt for recyclable paper, if this is not available then check your paper is 100% FSC approved. This means that for every tonne of paper used they plant 2 tonnes of trees.”

All images courtesy of Splento

The two flowers that make a florist’s life worth living over the winter months: Part Two

As florists buying from London’s biggest flower market, at Hybrid, we know for certain when winter is on its way when we spot the Dutch flower trollies neatly stacked with slim, yet surprisingly heavy, rectangular boxes full of an indispensable floral hero.

Like children opening long-awaited-for presents, we feel a genuine sense of anticipation and awe as we lift the cardboard lid to one of these boxes. Similar to a box of toy soldiers from another era, we are met with rows of individual stems: fresh green, chunky, and topped with full-to-bursting buds of giant flowers resting on pillows of foam. And we rejoice! Our beloved amaryllis has returned!

Without a shadow of doubt, the amaryllis is up there as one of the top two “Florist’s Life-Saving Winter Flowers” (and yes, that is a Thing). We looked at its partner, the cymbidium, in an earlier post, but for this piece, my aim is to create within you the same sense of wonder, respect and admiration that we feel towards the amaryllis. I shudder to think where we would be at winter time without these beautiful, powerful blooms.

To create something spectacular, you need the best, most versatile materials you can find and the amaryllis come up trumps here, giving us the option to use their amazing height and presence to create real impact. We have positioned them in giant fan-shaped vases for high-end hotel lobbies and bound together in ‘wands’ to look like a giant lollipop, which is perfect for corporate reception areas.

Their magnificently bold open blooms look fabulous used completely on their own or when placed alongside other winter and spring flowers set into all manner of simple or striking vases and vessels.

With colours ranging from the purest of whites to the most shocking of candy pinks, with oranges, peaches, reds and almost-blacks, in between, the amaryllis ticks all the boxes.

As with the cymbidium, in our view, the best amaryllis are cultivated over the water in Holland. Our Dutch friends, Lisa and Arno van Marrewijk have run a family business growing amaryllis since 1994. Despite being growers of the most beautiful varieties of amaryllis, they like to keep the company small so Arno can remain in his beloved greenhouses and not be confined to the office. Lisa also works with amaryllisinfo.eu to promote amaryllis growers in the Netherlands. Together with their three daughters they maintain an inspiring Instagram account: @marrewijk_amaryllis
I asked them a few questions:

Why do we think of amaryllis as a winter flower?

Years ago, most amaryllis were produced in November and December because the flowers were only used at Christmas time.

An amaryllis bulb will stay in our glasshouses for the whole year and, a bit like tulips in the garden, bulbs will only flower when they have been kept for two months at a temperature below 15 degrees. One bulb can grow two or three stems within a year, so we have 6 sections in the greenhouse, each with a different cooling temperature. This enables us to produce amaryllis from September until March.

Just how popular are amaryllis in Holland?

They are popular, but there are still people who don’t know what an amaryllis is! I tell them about the bulb with big flowers at Christmas time in their grandmother’s house. But I really think that their unique selling point is that when you buy them they are completely in bud, and then they change every day and almost quite magically, become vibrant and beautiful.

Perhaps the boldest of all the amaryllis is the red variety but the wealth of colour variation for this flower is truly spectacular. Lisa van Marrewijk loves all varieties of amaryllis, but whenever a new variety is produced it goes to the top of ratings.

In my house I always cut the stems short and arrange them with some foliage from the garden, but in churches and hotels they should be tall to create impact! Amaryllis will open sooner in a warm environment and so to keep them lasting longer, place them in fresh, clean water. Every time you change the water, re -cut the stems.

At Hybrid, it has to be said that the amaryllis can inspire some quite eccentric behaviour in our florists, who may otherwise, on the whole, be quite normal (although who wants to be normal!). Our Creative Director, Alan, adores the satisfying echoey-crunchy sound made when an amaryllis’s hollow stem is cut. I find that painstakingly picking each individual fresh anther from the opening flower bud is just too irresistible (I like to get them just before their pollen turns yellow and dusty!).

However, the effect the flower has on us at Hybrid is nothing in comparison to the Greek myth which tells the story of the amaryllis’s creation! Our resident Greek florist, the gorgeous Sofia, loves to tell the tale of how the amaryllis came to be:

In Greece, the amaryllis symbolizes pride, determination and glamorous beauty.

The story goes that a beautiful maiden, Amaryllis, fell in love with a shepherd called Alteo. Alteo was as beautiful as Apollo, and mighty as Hercules and he had a passion for flowers. He insisted he would only fall in love with a girl who could bring to him a new type of a flower, one that he had never set his eyes on before. Amaryllis was determined to bag Alteo for herself (and wouldn’t you be with those attributes?) and so she turned to the great Oracle of Delphi for advice.

The Oracle told Amaryllis that in order to win Alteo‘s heart, she must wear a white dress and sacrifice her own blood for him. Amaryllis stood in front of Alteo’s house for thirty nights piercing her own heart with a golden arrow (they did things differently in those days – no I guess we’d just right-swipe?). The drops from Amaryllis’s heart fell into the soil and on the thirtieth day, a crimson flower grew where the blood had fallen. In return for this horrific, and no doubt painful, sacrifice, Alteo fell in love with Amaryllis. And maybe they all lived happily ever after!

At Hybrid, we want you too to rejoice in the beauty of the amaryllis and appreciate all the possibilities it has to offer. You won’t need to sacrifice your blood either, amaryllis bulbs can be bought from most reputable florists and garden centres now.

Hybrid Top Tip

As corporate and event florists, often, we want amaryllis to open up as quickly as possible. Key to achieving this is room temperature and we abide by a tip from one of our, now retired, flower market trader friends, who started his career in the original Covent Garden flower market as a barrow boy back in the seventies: