Winter Flowers – Hybrid Flowers

Christmas styling … why you don’t need to throw loads of flowers at it!

In case you’ve not noticed, soon it will be Christmas; that most wonderful time of the year! A time to relax, be merry, deck the halls! With social media awash with images of the perfect Christmas, from opulent flower walls to entire buildings covered in decoration, you may be forgiven for thinking that to create a Wow, you must GO BIG!

Of course, insta-images of 12 foot high Christmas trees swamped in bows, candles and glitz create a real impact, but, as a rule, at Hybrid we abide by the “less is more” adage; we believe that the essence of Christmas can still be captured using a few, well chosen, beautifully styled flowers rather than a tonne of sparkly birch trees.

For our designs at this year’s London Christmas Party Show we were asked to create a design within an alcove at the largest Livery Hall in London, Plaisterers’ Hall, which backs on to the remains of the original Roman London Wall. In this unique venue, we wanted to create a lush Christmas atmosphere without going too over the top; we wanted the warmth, the magic and the feel of Christmas but didn’t want to chuck glitter at everything.

The essence of Christmas style:

To achieve this, we decided to go back to basics and asked ourselves what is the essence of Christmas? What are the most Christmassy colours, scents, textures around, and which little touches can we add to our design to make people feel the magic of Christmas?

We challenged ourselves to create a timeless design that would be in-keeping with a Christmas scene from when the original Plaisterers’ Hall, was built back in 1556, as well as combining the essence and spirit of a contemporary 2018 Christmas. Our solution: a colour scheme of red, amber, gold and emerald green mixed with velvety textures and lots of shiny things.

And so we set about creating a bit of an optical illusion within our curved alcove. Appearing as if a rounded table was set into the wall (when really it was half a table making the most of the deep curved alcove behind) we filled the space with lots of Christmassy details. We used two different textured velvet cloths sourced from our friends at Borovick Fabrics in Soho and a beautiful lace edged chargers. We used brushed gold cutlery, tumblers and goblets and added beautiful, rich, warm coloured fruits like pomegranates, oranges and grapes.

And of course, no Christmas table would be complete without a scattering of cinnamon sticks and candlelight. Our key flowers were scarlet coloured roses, opened to perfection, combined with traditional poinsettia flowers and glossy green foliages.

Bearing in mind our “less is more” philosophy, the next question we asked ourselves was quantity: we knew these lovely festive details would speak for themselves but what if – What If – we went BIG, just this once? We ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’ for all of 5 minutes before deciding that whilst a smattering of Christmas details would hit the festive spot perfectly well, should we not throw caution to the wind and really indulge in the joy of Christmas?

And with that, we were off! We ordered ourselves not one, but two types of velvet red rose, ‘Red Naomi’ and ‘Freedom’ which we set amidst the shiniest, deepest green aralia leaves we could find, contrasted with touches of Cupressus foliage and combined with the most beautiful faux silk poinsettias. There was no holding back as we sprayed pomegranates gold and studded the oranges with different patterns of cloves, finished off with a red ribbon. And what Christmas table isn’t complete without a full-on floral arch full of red flowers and winter foliage completely surrounding the festive setting?!

Looking back, we feel a little giddy! Those glass-urns, the goblets, That Arch! All adorned, stuffed, embellished with hundreds of breathtakingly beautiful roses. Was our flirtation with opulence worth it? Well! We think it might have been, especially as we won the award for Best Stand was as voted by the visitors (a delightful surprise).

Our top tips for creating the look:

But truly and honestly, we feel that the same effect can been created with a lot less, our ideas for decorating your own Christmas party without breaking the bank are below:

Use red, sparingly, in the same way as a movie star may use a dash of scarlet lipstick, to create a hint of glamour and colour without drenching the senses. To do this, you must find the most vivid red flowers you can afford, but here, less is definitely more, don’t get too many: roses or poinsettia plants are perfect (you can cut poinsettia flowers and place in vases of water for a more delicate look).

Green

Combine with green shiny and textured foliage. Deep green glossy leaves, such as evergreen camellia, laurel or aralia leaves from a garden are perfect, and combine these with common or garden stems of conifer (yes, we said conifer!) or, if you are bit posh, stems of rosemary.

Gold

Add a touch of Gold: buy yourself a can of gold spray paint and spray pots, tumblers, little vases or candleholders deep, rich opulent gold (pears also look gorgeous touched, but not completely covered, with gold).

Orange(s)

And last but never least, our most favourite Christmas decoration of all time will always be clove studded oranges. They. Are. A. Must. Easy to create and heavenly to smell.

Image courtesy of the great guys at 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:

Turn the flower upside down and cut the end of the stems
Fill the hollow stems with warm water
Seal the stem with cotton wool
Quickly turn the flower back upright and place in more warm water
Leave to open in a warm room

Trust us: it works!

With thanks to our friends, the wonderful Marrewijk Amaryllis, amaryllisinfo.eu and Funny How Flowers Do That.

Where do florists find that magical Christmas feeling?

One might be forgiven for thinking that a busy London corporate and event florists would be made up of a group of hardened professionals, immune to the magic of Christmas. After all, we do spend a large part of the year focused on finding new festive colour schemes, sourcing unique decorations from near and far as well as carefully counting baubles for opulent pine trees. And don’t even get us started on Christmas spreadsheets!

With so much time spent on perfecting festive floral designs, transforming hotel ballrooms into winter wonderlands and creating kitsch holiday-themed table centres for fun corporate parties, perhaps, just perhaps, that sparkly Christmas feeling which ‘normal people’ experience may just pass us by.

However, sometimes the spirit of Christmas can strike you when you least expect it. Take the magical feeling we experienced the other day whilst passing the ice rink outside The Natural History Museum; hearing that eerie muffled sound of a cold winter’s night and the swish of skates on the ice. Looking up and seeing the naked plane trees covered in thousands of twinkling lights against the backdrop of the iconic museum. All of a sudden that lovely Christmas feeling makes you stop in your tracks.

So imagine our delight when we were sent a video of one of our own Christmas installations. We felt that tingly Christmas feeling just by looking back at our own work!

Let’s be honest; we do harbor a not-so-secret adoration of Merchant Taylors Hall. Such a building set within the imposing stone streets of the City of London will always give us that special feeling of excitement. One of the Great Twelve Livery Companies of the City of London, Merchant Taylors’ was established in mediaeval times in order to protect the interests of the tailoring trade. The threads and needles representing the trade of The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors’ may well have given the name to Threadneedle Street where The Livery Company has been based since 1347.

That’s six hundred and seventy Christmases!

Whenever we are granted the great honour of decorating such a building it gives us a special sense of joy. Especially when you consider that this landmark venue has literally played host to hundreds and hundreds of Christmases; 670 to be exact.

With such a rich cultural history within its ancient walls this unique events venue embraces the very latest events trends so how could we not strive to reflect Merchant Taylors’ vast experience of hosting London’s finest Christmas events. As our Alan reflects;

It is every florist’s dream to get their hands on a space as stunning and historical as Merchant Taylors’, especially at this festive time of year, so my creative juices were overflowing when I set about submitting our ideas! Imagine my joy when they chose everything we had designed!

The overall styling was understated, incorporating lots of traditional fresh pine, cones, branches, silk pheasant feathers and artificial apples and oranges; combined with glittered poinsettias and sparkling leaves. Along with gold asparagus fern, these were to feature throughout the decorations, including archways over the doorways, the wall light decorations, the stunning carved staircase through to the giant wreaths in the Great Hall and of course the 14ft tree!

A Hybrid Christmas at Merchant Taylors’ Hall from HybridFlowers on Vimeo.

The team at Merchant Taylors’ have always been a wonder to work with and had this to say about our Christmas decorations;

As Merchant Taylors’ Hall is an iconic mediaeval Livery Hall with a historic heritage and busy modern event space, it is hugely important to find the right partnership for its Christmas decorations. From the beginning, the Hybrid team worked closely with us, offering support, guidance and time. The creative design process was seamless and embraced the Hall and its heritage.

Looking back on these floral festivities still has the ability to revive our Christmas spirit. It just goes to show that the right floral decorations, combined with a truly stunning venue, can spark the magic of Christmas within even the most hardened of London florists. If that isn’t a Christmas miracle then we don’t know what is!

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

A while back, as a welcome break from short, dark, drizzly autumn days the team at Hybrid were given a special treat in the form of an evening at the stunning Royal Observatory Greenwich, where we were lucky enough to be taking part in a venue showcase. We were greeted with the perfect autumnal evening and a magical, starry atmosphere in a truly amazing setting.

It was one of those happy, sociable nights that just fly by and we were so delighted simply to be there, amongst such inspiring people and industry experts (although I suspect the canapes, which tasted sublime, and free-flowing drinks from Party Ingredients contributed!). We found ourselves immersed in conversation with other guests, discussing the merits of London over New York, the trials and tribulations of event photography and loft living in Wapping. However, the one discussion that really got me thinking was about, wait for it…. flowers! Specifically:

Which flowers capture the very essence of winter?

We all know that, nowadays, you can get your hands on practically any form of fresh produce, regardless of season. That makes our lives as florists easier and gives us far more creative choice with design. There are nearly as many different varieties of rose available in January as there are in June and you can easily buy dianthus or hydrangeas in your local co-op in March! Nevertheless, I felt the need to dig deeper. Maybe it’s the purist in me. That or the maniacal new-age hipster in search of the perfect sour dough starter. For me, the quandary I wanted to solve was:

Which flowers would completely mess with a florist’s life if they weren’t readily available during winter?

After much thought and more than a little pestering of our Contract and Event Designers from me, the Hybrid consensus of opinion was thus:

There are only two truly magical, wintry varieties that qualify: the cymbidium orchid and the amaryllis.

In this blog I’ll be looking at the cymbidium, a wonderful, fascinating and infinitely adaptable orchid that we never tire of due to its amazing versatility and variety. Hybrid have the privilege of working with some amazing cymbidium suppliers in Holland and their knowledge of this plant is second to none.

Sandra, husband Leo and team have been growing cymbidiums for eighteen years. They produce some of the highest quality orchids under the brand of Cy More Flavour. Their obsession with the variety knows no bounds.

The longer you work with them the more you love them. When you look at any variety closely you’ll find out that every one of them have beautiful details.

The cymbidium plant originates from Asia and each variety flowers once per year, but we wanted to know why they are a winter flower:

Originally, it is thought of as an autumn/winter product because that’s the time that most of the varieties bloom from origin. It depends on the genes of the variety to which month that is, but a variety that blooms in November from origin is not suitable to bloom in April or May.

The sheer variety of cymbidium is vast, each with unique patterning and colour tones. The name Cy More Flavour reflects the idea: ‘See More Colour’. The food mentioned in the flower’s name represents its colour, with coconut for white, cherry for red and caramel for the brown and oranges.

All these colours give us the most amazing palettes to work with. At Christmas time the green and red tones are very popular, and in autumn the copper and brown colored varieties perfectly represent the season. And for a winter wedding white is wonderful.

It can be used in so many different styles, in classic arrangements as well as contemporary and every style in between.

Hybrid have used these magnificent flowers in all manner of ways, for example:

Showcasing their tall towering stems in event pedestal designs
Creating wide fanned shaped designs for tall table centres in hotel ballrooms
Submerging the whole stems in clear cylinder vases for weekly corporate reception designs
Arranging individual stems into clusters of modern vases to fill luxury, contemporary spaces
Hanging them upside down from ceilings and arches at parties and weddings
Using the individual heads in vials of water amongst bouquets

The possibilities really are endless!

Growing a Cymbidium is not mean feat and creating such a beautiful plant can’t be rushed, in all, it takes seven to eight years from the moment of cross pollination to harvest! First, the grower selects two features of individual plants that they would like to incorporate in a new one. Pollen is transferred and it takes around 9 months for germination. 400 ‘cotyledon’ can be created from one seed but, incredibly, after three years, only 3 or 4 plants will make it through Cy More’s selection criteria. It then takes another three years before the flowers first bloom. And to think that we get impatient having to wait for them just over the summer months!

I asked Cy More which variety was their favourite, Sandra told me:

The variety “Madelon” is a beautiful deep red and named after our daughter. I think George Harrison “Flying High”, a gorgeous red variety with nicely shaped flowers, could be the new classic.

I asked Sandra which florists, in her opinion, did the flowers the most justice:

There are so many florists from all over the world who create wonderful arrangements with cymbidium. The Norwegian master-florist, and former world champion, Stein Are Hansen, is a real cymbidium lover who designs wonderful arrangements. Mark Pampling, an Australian based floral designer, often works with cymbidium in a very fresh and contemporary style.

Cy More’s recommendations:

The orchid is the symbol of pure friendship so they make perfect gifts.
Never throw away the lower heads of orchids on a stem, use them in a tiny vase in fresh tepid water.
Look after cymbidium by cutting 1 cm off the end of the stem and repeat this every five days.
Never use cut flower food and do not put the cymbidium stem into direct sunlight.
Avoid touching the stigma as this will accidentally distribute the pollen and the lip from the cymbidium flower will turn red earlier.