87 Fun Facts About Flower Arranging

From Old French bosc, 'wood', bouquet first meant what?

Little wood, or thicket: bouquet is a diminutive of Old French bosc, a cousin of the English word bush. English borrowed it for a bunch of flowers, and it later named the scent of a wine too.

In floral design, what is the term for the first thing that attracts the viewer's eye?

The focal point is where the eye lands first and keeps returning. Designers often build it just above the container's rim, with a solid group of blooms or the strongest colour in the piece.

Which ancient people were among the first known to arrange cut flowers in vases, favouring the sacred lotus?

The Egyptians left the oldest evidence of flowers arranged in vases: Old Kingdom tomb reliefs and paintings show lotus blooms and buds set in bowls, the lotus being sacred to the goddess Isis.

Ikebana's three main line placements correspond to heaven, earth and what?

Heaven, humans and earth: the tallest stem stands for heaven and is traditionally cut to at least one and a half times the size of the container, and the two shorter lines are measured against it.

Ripening fruit left beside a vase can make cut flowers wilt early by giving off which gas?

Ethylene is a plant hormone that fruit such as bananas and apples release as they ripen. Even traces of it speed the ageing of cut flowers, which is why florists keep their stock well away from the fruit bowl.

What is the alternative name for ikebana, meaning 'way of flowers'?

Kadō joins ka, 'flower', to dō, 'way', the ending shared by judo, aikidō and chadō, the way of tea. The name presents arranging as a discipline to be followed, not just a decoration.

Ikebana is one of Japan's three classical arts of refinement, with tea ceremony and what?

Incense appreciation, or kōdō, is the least known of the three. Guests are said to 'listen' to a sliver of fragrant wood warming on a mica plate rather than smell it, and try to tell the scents apart.

In a traditional Japanese home, ikebana arrangements were placed in which alcove?

The tokonoma is a raised alcove for a hanging scroll and flowers. By custom the guest of honour is seated in front of it with their back to the display, so the most honoured person in the room is the one who cannot see it.

Which shōgun, a great patron of tea ceremony and ikebana, built Kyoto's Silver Pavilion as his retirement villa?

Ashikaga Yoshimasa was a weak ruler but a great patron: after passing the shogunate to his son in 1473 he built the villa that became the temple Ginkaku-ji, where tea and flower arranging flourished.

Which school of ikebana, begun by Kyoto temple priests, is the oldest?

Ikenobō is the oldest school of ikebana: a Zen monk's diary for 1462 records that people of taste in Kyoto vied to see the flowers arranged by its priest Senkei.

The oldest ikebana school is based at which Kyoto temple, named for its six-sided hall?

Rokkaku-dō, the 'six-cornered hall', is where the school's priests made the altar flower offerings that grew into an art; the temple has been looked after by the school's own headmasters for generations.

Which tea master is said to have cut down his morning glories so that Hideyoshi would find just one, in a vase?

Sen no Rikyū, by the story, stripped his garden of its prized morning glories before the ruler's visit and set a single bloom in the tea room; his spare flowers for tea fed the looser styles of ikebana.

What does the ikebana term rikka mean?

Rikka means 'standing flowers': the style grew out of flower offerings set upright in vases on Buddhist altars and became a highly formal way of picturing a whole landscape in one vase.

In rikka arrangements, what do pine branches symbolise?

In rikka, pine branches symbolise endurance and eternity: the evergreen pine, which keeps its needles through winter, is a classic Japanese emblem of longevity.

Nageire, an informal ikebana style, takes its name from a word meaning what?

Thrown in: nageire sets a long branch and a few flowers in a tall vase so that they look fresh and spontaneous, a deliberate contrast to the strict rules of the formal styles.

Which ikebana founder devised the moribana style to suit newly imported Western flowers?

Ohara Unshin devised moribana after Japan opened to the West and European flowers began to arrive, and went on to found a school of his own; older schools later took up the style too.

What kind of container does a proper moribana design use?

A flat, shallow one, called a suiban: it lets branches and flowers spread sideways into a small landscape, breaking with the vertical lines of the older styles that rose from tall vases.

The kenzan, a spiky flower holder sharing 'ken' with kendo, literally means what?

Sword mountain: ken is the 'sword' of kendo and zan a mountain, a fair picture of the heavy base bristling with upright needles that fix a stem in place.

Which ikebana school was founded by Sōfū Teshigahara in 1927?

Sōgetsu began as a break with set forms: at a time when ikebana meant copying established patterns, Sōfū Teshigahara treated it as a creative art that anyone could practise anywhere, with any material.

Hiroshi Teshigahara, who took over his father's ikebana school in 1980, was better known as what?

A film director: Hiroshi Teshigahara made Woman in the Dunes, which brought him an Oscar nomination for directing, long before he succeeded his sister as head of the family school.

Ikebana International, founded in 1956 to spread the art worldwide, takes which phrase as its motto?

Friendship through flowers: Ellen Gordon Allen founded the group so that people around the world could meet through a shared love of ikebana, and it deliberately teaches no single school's style.

Which brand of water-absorbing floral foam did the Smithers company launch in the 1950s?

Oasis foam soaks up water and grips any stem pushed into it, so a design holds its shape while it drinks; its inventor devised it in 1953 and formed the Smithers-Oasis company a year later.

Which guild ran the Paris flower trade from 1677 to 1791?

The Maîtresses bouquetières, a guild of women flower sellers chartered in 1677, controlled the Paris flower trade until French guilds were abolished in 1791.

Flower auctions use which pricing system?

Flower auctions run on the Dutch clock, a descending-price system: the price starts high and drops until a buyer stops the clock.

The world's largest flower auction, run by Royal FloraHolland, is held in which town?

Aalsmeer handles so many flowers that its auction hall ranks among the largest buildings in the world by floor area, and buyers have only a few seconds to bid on each lot.

Covent Garden's wholesale flower and produce market moved in 1974 to which London district?

Nine Elms took the traders in 1974 because lorries had choked the old streets; the new market rose on a former railway locomotive depot, and the emptied piazza reopened in 1980 as shops.

London's Columbia Road Flower Market opens on which day only?

Sunday: the market began as a Saturday one, but a Sunday market was set up as the area's Jewish population grew and the Saturday trade lapsed; traders could also sell flowers left over from Saturday.

FTD began in 1910 when American florists agreed to swap out-of-town orders using which technology?

Telegraph: florists meeting in Rochester, New York, agreed to wire each other's out-of-town orders, so that a shop near the recipient could make the delivery. FTD first stood for Florists' Telegraph Delivery.

Which Roman god has fronted the logo of flower-delivery network FTD since 1914?

Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, became FTD's 'Mercury Man' in 1914, picked to promise speedy delivery; the company later named its electronic order network after him too.

The British arm of FTD, formed in 1923, adopted which name in 1953?

Interflora became the name of FTD's British arm in 1953, thirty years after 17 UK florists first joined the American network; in 2006 FTD bought the business outright.

Jim McCann, who ran a chain of New York flower shops, bought which struggling flower-delivery brand in 1986?

1-800-Flowers had already failed under two sets of owners when McCann bought its assets; he made the phone number itself, which spells out the product on a keypad, into the brand.

Constance Spry was commissioned in 1953 to arrange the flowers for which event?

For the coronation of Elizabeth II, Spry dressed Westminster Abbey and the processional route with flowers sent from across the Commonwealth; she and the cook Rosemary Hume also devised coronation chicken for a lunch of foreign guests.

Constance Spry travelled to France in 1937 to arrange the flowers at whose wedding?

The Duke of Windsor had been one of Spry's favourite clients as Prince of Wales, so after he gave up the throne she went out to decorate his small private wedding to Wallis Simpson.

Which Flemish painter, nicknamed both 'Velvet' and 'Flower', pioneered the lavish flower still life around 1600?

Jan Brueghel the Elder began a tradition of flower painting that arrangers still study, though the canvases are idealised compositions and not records of bouquets that ever stood in a vase.

Florist Jane Packer designed the wedding bouquet of which royal bride in 1986?

Sarah Ferguson carried Packer's bouquet when she married Prince Andrew; the florist, then only 26, went on to open a flower school of her own three years later.

Which principle of floral design describes the visual flow that leads the eye through an arrangement?

Rhythm is the visual flow of a design: repeating a shape or colour in graded steps, or following a curving line, keeps the eye moving in, out, up and down instead of stopping in one place.

Celebrity florist Jeff Leatham made his name as artistic director of which Four Seasons hotel in Paris?

George V: Leatham took up floristry at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills after a spell modelling in Paris, then transferred to the chain's Paris hotel, where his lobby displays became an attraction.

Who designed Catherine Middleton's shield-shaped bouquet for her 2011 wedding?

Shane Connolly designed the shield-shaped bouquet and the bridesmaids' flowers to match it; inside Westminster Abbey that day, the aisle was lined with an avenue of tall trees.

Which flower in Meghan Markle's 2018 bouquet was handpicked by Prince Harry in honour of his mother?

Forget-me-nots, Diana's favourite flower, were picked by Prince Harry in the Kensington Palace garden for the bouquet that Philippa Craddock designed.

Where was Meghan Markle's bridal bouquet placed after the wedding, following royal tradition?

Meghan's bouquet was sent to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, a custom begun in 1923 when the future Queen Mother laid hers on the grave on her way in, having lost a brother in the war.

Royal brides' myrtle is cut from bushes at which former residence of Queen Victoria?

Osborne House on the Isle of Wight holds the myrtle planted by Queen Victoria in 1845; royal brides from her daughter Vicky in 1858 to Meghan Markle have carried sprigs from it.

Queen Victoria wore a wreath of what instead of a tiara at her 1840 wedding?

Orange blossom also trimmed Victoria's dress; wearing a wreath of it where a queen might have worn a tiara is thought to have been her way of appearing as a bride first and a monarch second.

Which ball-shaped bouquet, hung from a ribbon loop, shares its name with a medieval ball of perfume?

A pomander bouquet is a sphere of flowers worn on the wrist by a ribbon; the name first belonged to the 'apple of amber', a ball of scents that people carried to ward off infection.

Traditionally, who holds the bride's bouquet during the wedding ceremony?

The maid of honour holds the bouquet for the bride during the ceremony; afterwards the bride throws it over her shoulder, and whoever catches it is said to be the next to marry.

At a wedding, what is the masculine equivalent of the bouquet toss?

Throwing a garter: the groom takes it from the bride's leg and tosses it to the unmarried men. The custom is often traced to an old belief that a piece of the bride's clothing brought good luck.

A bouquet of flowers packed in tight concentric rings is named after which design period?

A Biedermeier bouquet takes its name from the cosy German and Austrian style of 1815 to 1848, itself named in mockery after Gottlieb Biedermaier, a fictional mediocre poet in a Munich comic magazine.

In the 15th-century word 'nosegay', the 'gay' is an old noun meaning what?

In 'nosegay' the old noun gay meant an ornament or bright thing, so a nosegay was literally an ornament for the nose: a small sweet-smelling posy.

Victorians exchanged small 'talking bouquets' known by what name?

Tussie-mussies were small posies of symbolic flowers, often carried in silver holders, that Victorians exchanged as coded messages in the language of flowers.

What is the technical term for the language of flowers?

Floriography, the language of flowers, assigns a meaning to each bloom; Victorian dictionaries of the subject let a posy carry a coded message.

Which English letter-writer, also famed for championing smallpox inoculation, is credited with bringing the language of flowers to England?

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought the idea of sending messages in flowers home from her travels in 1718; a century later the first flower dictionary, published in 1819, helped turn it into a craze.

In the Victorian language of flowers, lily of the valley meant what?

Lily of the valley stood for the 'return of happiness' in the Victorian language of flowers, a hopeful message that suits its long use in bridal bouquets, Catherine Middleton's among them.

Which Shakespeare character hands out pansies, rosemary, fennel, columbine, rue and daisy?

Ophelia, in Hamlet Act 4 Scene 5, hands out rosemary 'for remembrance', pansies 'for thoughts', fennel, columbines, rue and a daisy.

The renewed Victorian interest in the language of flowers is traced to the tulip obsession of which court?

Ottoman Constantinople's court was gripped by a tulip craze in the early 18th century, and travellers carried home its sélam, a way of sending coded messages with flowers and other objects.

The word 'corsage' comes from the French bouquet de corsage, corsage meaning what?

Corsage means bodice, from the Old French cors, 'body': a bouquet de corsage was the spray pinned to the bodice of a dress, and only later did the flowers alone take the name and move to the wrist.

On which lapel is a boutonnière traditionally worn?

A boutonnière is worn on the left lapel, through the buttonhole there, on the same side as the pocket handkerchief.

Which flower, most formal in white, is the classic choice for a boutonnière?

The carnation, white for the most formal dress, is the classic boutonnière; Oxford students still wear one to their exams, white for the first paper, pink in between and red for the last.

The word 'wreath', a cousin of 'writhe', comes from Old English writha, meaning what?

Old English writha meant a band, literally something wound or twisted around; only later did the word settle on a twisted ring of flowers or leaves worn on the head or hung up.

In myth, Apollo began wearing a laurel wreath after which nymph turned into a laurel tree?

Daphne, fleeing Apollo, was turned into a laurel tree; the grieving god made laurel his emblem, and laurel wreaths came to symbolise victory in Greece and Rome.

On many Advent wreaths three candles are violet; the third Sunday's, for joy, is which colour?

Rose: the third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin for 'rejoice', a pause in a penitential season, so its candle lightens from violet to rose, as the vestments do that day.

Victors at the ancient Olympic Games were crowned with a wreath of which plant?

Ancient Olympic victors received the kotinos, a wreath of wild olive cut from the sacred tree at Olympia; laurel went to Pythian winners and pine to Isthmian ones.

By Hawaiian tradition, a pregnant woman should be given only which kind of lei?

An open-ended one: by tradition only open lei go to a pregnant or nursing woman. A giver also offers any lei at heart height, because lifting hands above another person's head is thought disrespectful.

Who coined the phrase 'May Day is Lei Day'?

Columnist Grace Tower Warren suggested holding the new festival on May Day and gave it the slogan; the poet Don Blanding had first called in print for a day devoted to making and wearing lei.

Each Hawaiian island has its own official lei; the one for tiny Niihau is strung from what?

Shells: Niihau's lei is made of tiny white pūpū, so the island's official 'flower' is not a plant at all, while Oahu's is the golden ilima blossom.

The RHS's great May show has been held since 1913 in the grounds of which institution?

The Royal Hospital Chelsea first lent its grounds for a one-off international exhibition in 1912; the site worked so well that the RHS moved its Great Spring Show there the following year.

When Brooklyn Botanic Garden tested folk tricks for making cut flowers last, which vase additive worked best?

Packet flower food beat aspirin, sugar, vinegar, vitamin pills and pennies: the sachet combines an acidifier that lowers the water's pH with a disinfectant and sugar to feed the cut stem.

Which US city hosts the world's oldest and largest indoor flower show?

Philadelphia has held its flower show since 1829, pausing only during the two world wars; in 2021 and 2022 the pandemic moved the famously indoor show outside into a city park.

America's oldest flower show was first held, in 1829, in a hall belonging to which fraternal order?

The Freemasons' building housed the one-day show of fruit, flowers and plants, where hundreds of visitors had their first sight of the poinsettia, then newly brought into the country.

Which group first staged Pasadena's Rose Parade in 1890?

The Valley Hunt Club, a Pasadena social club, staged the first Tournament of Roses parade on 1 January 1890 to show off California's winter blooms.

Zundert's September flower parade, part of a UNESCO-listed Dutch tradition, covers its giant floats entirely in which flower?

Dahlias, millions of them and mostly grown in the town itself, are the only flower allowed; neighbourhood teams spend months building the floats and add the fresh blooms in the last days before the parade.

About how many flower bulbs are planted each autumn at Keukenhof, the Dutch spring park?

About 7 million: some 40 gardeners plant the bulbs, donated by more than 100 growers, between early October and early December, all for a single spring season of bloom.

What does the name Keukenhof literally mean?

Keukenhof means 'kitchen garden': in the 15th century the land supplied game, fruit and vegetables to the kitchen of Teylingen castle, home of Countess Jacoba van Beieren.

The Japanese custom of hanami almost always means viewing which blossom?

Hanami almost always means viewing cherry blossom (sakura), which flowers from late March; plum-blossom viewing has its own name, umemi.

Who took up oshibana, pressed-flower art, after leaving Hollywood in 1956?

Grace Kelly gave up acting to become Princess of Monaco, where she made pictures from pressed flowers and wrote about the craft in My Book of Flowers, published in 1980.

What is a kokedama?

A moss-covered ball of soil with a plant growing from it: kokedama means 'moss ball', and because it needs no pot at all it is sometimes called the poor man's bonsai.

Who is credited with creating the first terrarium, a sealed glass plant case?

Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, a London doctor, noticed a fern sprouting in a sealed bottle where he kept a moth cocoon; the glazed cases he then built let live plants survive long sea voyages.

Potpourri, literally 'rotten pot', began as the French name for which Spanish stew?

Olla podrida, a Spanish stew of many ingredients, was rendered word for word in French as pot pourri; the name then passed from the stew to any medley, and to a bowl of dried petals and spices.

The world's first floral clock was planted in 1903 in which city?

Edinburgh's floral clock, the world's first, was planted in West Princes Street Gardens in 1903 with only an hour hand; a minute hand followed a year later and a cuckoo in 1952.

Poinsettias are named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, who held what post?

Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first US minister to Mexico (1825-1829), sent the plant home to South Carolina; its Nahuatl name is cuetlaxōchitl.

Which state adopted a red flower as its state flower in honour of the assassinated William McKinley?

Ohio chose its scarlet state flower in 1904 in memory of William McKinley, the Ohio-born president assassinated in 1901, who thought the bloom lucky and often wore one.

Which white flower, 'gyp' to florists, is the classic bouquet filler?

Baby's breath is a Gypsophila, a name meaning 'gypsum-loving'; the florists' favourite has also escaped gardens to become an invasive weed around North America's Great Lakes.

Lilium longiflorum is forced to flower out of season for which market?

Lilium longiflorum, the Easter lily, flowers months later when grown in a garden, so growers force the bulbs under controlled conditions to have the white trumpets open in time for Easter.

In France, lily of the valley is traditionally sold tax-free on which day?

On 1 May, La Fête du Muguet, anyone in France may sell lily of the valley on the street tax-free; legend says Charles IX began giving sprigs as good-luck tokens in 1561.

Many hydrangeas produce blue flowers in what kind of soil?

Acidic soil makes aluminium available to the roots, turning many Hydrangea macrophylla flowers blue; in alkaline soil the same plants bloom pink.

The imperial crest of Japan is which flower?

Chrysanthemum: the 16-petalled crest stands for the emperor, so it is stamped on Japanese passports and gives the monarchy itself its name, the Chrysanthemum Throne.

The flame-striped petals that made bulbs priceless during tulip mania were later traced to what?

A virus: the tulip breaking virus 'breaks' a petal's single colour into streaks and flames, and it also cuts the number of daughter bulbs a plant makes, so the most coveted tulips were sickly ones.

The heraldic fleur-de-lis is a stylised form of which flower?

The fleur-de-lis is literally the 'flower of the lily', though a theory dating from the 17th century holds that its model was really the yellow flag iris of the marshes; it appears on Quebec's flag.

Which Japanese aesthetic term for empty space or interval is prized in ikebana composition?

Ma, the Japanese concept of negative space or interval, is prized in ikebana, where the gaps between stems count as much as the material; wabi and yūgen are other aesthetic ideals.