Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers Review

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A Year in Flowers is the flower arranging book that I’ve been looking for for years. Floral arrangements and the people who make them have always seemed to be part of some closed-door secret society. It felt like floral designers were just born with some innate ability to arrange flowers beautifully. When describing floral designers, people say things like “they have a gift” or “they have an inimitable artistic vision.” And if you didn’t have that gift, I guess you are out of luck. Creating floral arrangements never seemed like something you could learn. And, if you wanted to try to learn how, you had to pay out the ear for workshops or seminars most of which still seemed to leave you with one bouquet and no actual knowledge of how to arrange flowers. So, us mere mortals were left to either buy arrangements from grocery stores or florists at huge markups, or attempt to make our own by just throwing random stuff together, or looking at Instagram and poorly attempting to imitate. In walks A Year in Flowers.

I’d been thinking for quite a while about how I wished garden design and flower arranging books would be more like cookbooks. An endless line of people have made recipe books that clearly outline how to make a wonderful dinner. Sure, chefs and recipe writers can “have a gift” and have incredible creative vision. Yet, they can still write a list of ingredients, some easy to follow steps, and anyone can create that delicious meal. Many cookbook writers discuss substitutes – what ingredients you can change out for similar ones. They also might note when ingredients are fundamental to the dish. They can take something that is difficult for many – cooking a meal – and break it down in easy to understand components. So, if you can read, and you can follow directions, you can make a meal that tastes just as inspired as when the chef first made it. This is what Erin Benzakein and the Floret Flower team have achieved with A Year in Flowers.

Supplies

Like any good cookbook begins with necessary cooking equipment for the recipes ahead, Erin begins with the necessary tools and supplies for making floral arrangements. From pruners to twine to pin frogs (a new one for me) to vessels, she takes you through what you need and why. She discusses sources for flowers (hint – it’s not the grocery store) and how to care for flowers once they’re cut. There is an ingredient list in the back of the book which has every flower and foliage mentioned in the book as well as tips for harvesting and vase life.

Design

Once you are set up with supplies to make the arrangements, Erin takes you through design. I like that she mentions modifying ingredients if part of the ingredient doesn’t fit the overall design. Like recipes, if I don’t have something on hand, I’ll swap it out for something similar. Or, you can use only part of the ingredient if, for example, the foliage works with your design, but the flowers don’t and vice versa. I appreciate that she is teaching you how to cook, rather than just be able to make one recipe.

The first element of design she describes is color, and she begins with the difference in warm vs. cool tones in both flowers and foliage. She goes on to talk about the importance of limiting your colors to one or two main tones when you are first starting and then incorporating color bridging to marry colors farther apart on the spectrum.

Next Erin covers the fundamental ingredients to creating lush seasonal arrangements. She classifies them as structural foliage, supporting ingredient, textural ingredient, supporting flowers, focal flowers, and airy accent. For each ingredient type, she lists, along with Chris Benzakein’s pictures, possibilities for that ingredient in each season. I think it would be really helpful to take those pages out and hang in your workspace for an easy reference of examples of each ingredient. Of course I wouldn’t dare take apart this beautiful volume!

From there, she walks you through the different types of flower arrangements: statement piece, centerpiece, vignette, posy, hand-tied market bouquet, bridal bouquet, and en masse. Once Erin has walked you through each technique with a description of what it is, when you would use it, and how to do it, she moves on to the big focus of the book – seasonal arrangements.

Seasonal Bouquets

For each season, she covers each one of the above techniques with flowers and foliage elements available in that season. She also covers a bonus technique for each season – a flower crown for spring, a wrist corsage for summer, a foraged wreath for autumn, and an evergreen wreath for winter. With these bonus techniques included, Erin has covered just about every type of arrangement you could ever want to make. Except maybe kokedamas, but who really wants to do that anyway?

Eager to try one of the winter arrangements with ingredients from my own garden, I opted for the “Rose and Plum Posy”. I have hellebores at their prime, purple kale that has somehow lasted through planting it last spring, tons of nandina in the neighborhood, and some other possibilities for the other ingredients. Like I do with typical recipes, if I didn’t have a particular ingredient, I tried to find something similar. I didn’t have the supporting flower Poinsettia ‘Freedom Marble’, so I used various heuchera leaves in its place. Since the colored part of Poinsettia is actually foliage, not flowers, I figured that would substitute well. I also didn’t have the Viburnum called for in the supporting ingredients section, and I couldn’t really find a suitable substitute. But, the arrangement was looking pretty good without it, so I didn’t worry about it.

Here is what I ended up with:

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. I would never have thought to include so many foliage/structural elements in the arrangements, but they really pull it together and take it to the next level.

I was worried when all the people with advanced copies were talking about how pretty the book is, and don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful. But, I wanted a book that actually delivered on how to arrange flowers. This is just the book I was looking for. A Year in Flowers de-mystifies flower arranging techniques and breaks it down like a recipe so that anyone can follow it. From key ingredients to clearly delineated steps you will be on your way to making beautiful arrangements in no time. I can’t recommend it highly enough!