This past Tuesday evening we hosted our first Sustainable Mechanics Meet-Up. Thirteen floral designers got together to swap ideas for making their work more sustainable. And to share their passion for local flowers! It was so much fun, this will definitely be an annual tradition!
For those that couldn’t make the meet-up, we wanted to share the Cliff Notes. First off, what is a “sustainable mechanic”? It’s a support system for designing flowers that does not involve single use plastics. The support system should either be reusable (many times) or compostable. In other words, zero waste. With that definition in mind, here are 10 ways you can ditch the old school floral foam in favor of a more sustainable mechanic.
- Chicken Wire
We’ll start with the most obvious and ubiquitous. Chicken wire can be cut and molded into any size and shape, making it the Swiss Army knife of sustainable floristry. Use chicken wire in any opaque vase; that’s an easy swap for floral foam. You can also use chicken wire for any installation, rather than the Oasis “cages’. More on that below. Chicken wire can also replace the foam bouquet holders used for cascade or other bridal bouquets. Simply cut a very small piece of wire and form it into an “egg”. Then insert stems through the wire eggs until you have the desired shape.
We recommend purchasing the coated chicken wire, which never rusts and can be sanitized and reused over and over again. Plus it’s a lot easier on your hands. Source chicken wire from your local hometown hardware store.
- Flower “Frogs”
Patented in 1875, pin holders (or flower “frogs”) have been around a lot longer than microplastics or floral foam. Traditionally made of weighted metal, this mechanic sits below the surface of the water in the vase and stabilizes stems as they are inserted. Pin holders can be reused over and over again. In fact, many people cherish their grandmother’s collection and still use them today.
Variations on the pin holder include glass or ceramic discs with holes in them and hairpin holders that sort of look like bobby pins instead of needles. At our meet-up, Jennifer from Olivia Lucas Design showed us two of her Constance Spry mantle vases with built-in mechanics no doubt inspired by the flower frogs that were used so much at that time. Very cool!
The biggest downside of the metal pin frogs is their cost. It can be pretty pricey to purchase enough for a bustling floral business (small quarter-sized ones run about $15/each and large ones can be upwards of $100 each). There are cheaper plastic versions available now, but then we’re back to square one with a potentially single-use plastic product if used for an event and then tossed out at the end. If you’re collecting your vessels at the end of the event and reusing them, then the plastic may be a sustainable option.
Another frustrating detail of using flower frogs is getting them to stick to the vessel and not topple over once you’ve made your design. Ellen Frost of Local Color Flowers shared her secret weapon, Alien Tape.
- Moss
In regions where there is a lot growing naturally (i.e., the U.K.), moss has long been a sustainable mechanic for florists. It can be used in place of foam by bounding up wet moss in a cage of chicken wire or twine. Or by stuffing a compostable produce bag with damp moss and poking stems into it.
But a word of caution! Moss is very, very slow growing. And it is often incredibly important to the local ecosystem. So harvesting large amounts of moss to use in floristry can actually be anything but sustainable. Particularly if you’re buying in moss from a large supplier who is stripping way more moss from a faraway ecosystem than they ever should.
If you’d like to learn more about the ethos of moss being extracted and used too liberally, read Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmer.
- Straw
An amazing alternative to moss that won’t hurt the ecosystem is straw! Yep, think straw bales and scarecrows at Halloween. Straw (not to be mistaken for hay, which is greener in color) can be stuffed into chicken wire forms and then soaked to create a stable and easy-to-use foam alternative. The best part is that it’s incredibly affordable – one bale will cost you just a few dollars and may very well last you an entire year!
Straw in chicken wire is best used for installation work. You can create whatever size/shape of straw tube you might need and then simply insert stems into the moistened straw. Attach to arbors, chandeliers, Harlow stands, welcome signs, bars, or really whatever you can dream up. The wet straw is not nearly as heavy as wet foam, which means you can get away with some hanging designs that you would never be able to pull off with foam.
To make those trendy “meadow” installs on every couple’s inspiration board right now, use landscape staples to secure the straw tube(s) onto the ground so they won’t topple over. Or if the install will be on a hard surface like a brick patio rooftop, put brick inside of the straw/chicken wire tube for invisible ballast.
You can design in advance with wet straw and place in your cooler up to 36 hours in advance. Straw can even be reused. When the event is done, remove all floral material to be composted and then let the straw dry out in a warm sunny spot. Once dry, store inside away from moisture so mold doesn’t grow. Remoisten to use again.
Source straw from a local farm.
- Sand
Another affordable and deeply sustainable mechanic is wet sand! If you’re creating low, long designs, you can mound wet sand up in a shallow dish. This is a classic application for a low Biedermeier design. If you’re hoping to make a design that’s a bit taller than the sand itself, cover the sand with chicken wire for a little extra security.
The weight of wet sands can be a positive or a negative, depending on what you’re designing. For outdoor weddings in windy locations, that weight is a major perk. However, if you’re going up three flights of stairs from the loading zone to the event space, you might be cursing a bit.
- Willow Branches
If you’re designing into a clear vessel and don’t want chicken wire showing, but need some sort of mechanic to stabilize your stems, you can loop some slender, pliable willow branches (defoliated) around inside the vase to create a natural grid. Willow is the best branch for this because they are typically pretty uniform, easy to work into a shape, and won’t make the water murky like some other branches. But experiment with any slender branches you might see laying around. If your vessel isn’t clear, then you can use any small branches.
- Hand-Tied Bouquets
Any time you have a round vase, you can create the bouquet in your hand in the classic European spiral hand-tied technique, and then simply cut the stems to proper length at the end to slip the finished design into the vase without the aid of any mechanic. Granted, you’ll need to master the spiral hand-tied to make this method work. But it’s a technique any florist worth their salt should have down pat.
If you’re using a vase that’s extra large and would be too difficult to make one big bouquet in your hand, make two or three smaller bouquets in your hand and then combine them into the vessel for one cohesive design. Or just make a big hand-tied of greenery only, sink it into the vessel and then insert your flowers stems into the support of all the greenery.
- Eco Bouquet Wraps
Piggybacking on the hand-tied bouquet tip above, for installation work, create little bouquets in your hands. Then use an eco bouquet wrap to provide a water source for the stems. Insert the little bouquets into a larger installation. This is an alternative to water tubing individual stems, which we all know is time consuming and still requires those damn little plastic tubes that inevitably get crushed or lost (i.e. landfill foder). Eco bouquet wraps are plant-based and compostable.
- Agra Wool
Agra Wool is a product that was designed to imitate traditional floral foam but be sustainable and plastic-free. It comes in a brick that’s the same size as the classic green foam, but this one is brown and made of spun basalt rock. Yep, rock. It’s a solid attempt to solve a big problem. But after hearing from the designers at our Sustainable Mechanics Meet-Up, it seems it may fall a bit short of perfection. The repeated critique is that it falls apart easily and doesn’t really hold stems securely. It works if encased in chicken wire, but at that point you might want to just go with the straw or moss mentioned above. Still, it’s nice to have the option and may be useful in certain applications like sympathy work.
- OshunPouch
Another product on the market is the OshunPouch, which uses coconut coir in a plant-based bag. This had mixed reviews from the group at our meet-up. Some thought it was good, some thought it was tricky and tended to fall apart. That being said, we want to mention OshunPouch and commend the efforts of its inventors to provide a sustainable alternative to foam. Bravo!
Our Sustainable Mechanics Meet-Up was not only a great chance to swap idea, but it was also a wonderful evening of shared kinship around the challenging worth that is flowers. Everyone left with a new friend and a full heart. We’re really grateful for this community of ours! Can’t wait to get together again!
To read more about sustainability in the floral industry, check out this previous blog post.