Sustainable Floral Design: Curriculum and Projects

Introduction, Opportunities, and Approaches

Flowers are used to communicate thoughts and emotions that are difficult to put into words. Before the days of commercial floriculture production, flowers and ornamental foliage were harvested from the wild, gathered, and formed into bouquets, wreaths, and garlands. Today, consumers think of flowers as a natural gift and a way of bringing the outdoors inside. Flowers bring color and life to rooms, frame special occasions such as weddings and graduation exercises, and console people in difficult times.

As the world becomes more eco-conscious, consumers will demand floral products that are earth-friendly. This demand can enable florists to market an aspect aof flowers that is not often discussed. Part of flowers’ value is their ability to fade, leaving minimal physical impacts. In a material world, giving and receiving a gift that commemorates occasions, then disappears over time, should be seen as a great benefit.

Many of the practices associated with commercial floral design involve products that increase floral longevity and decrease labor. Worldwide, florists and floral consumers are concerned about the effects of commercial floristry, including its products and practices, on the environment. Modern floristry relies on a variety of plastic products to wrap, contain, and arrange flowers. Increased use of plastics has led to an enormous amount of plastic litter in the oceans. Phenolic resin floral foam is not biodegradable and can be ingested by aquatic animals.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) banned phenolic floral foams at both the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Festival, announced in January 2020 and put into effect for the 2021 show. This rule opened the eyes of many floral design enthusiasts worldwide.

Floral foams and floristry plastics are important to the production, longevity, and sales of floral products. They will continue to be used, but it is possible to use less floral foam.

This curriculum uses the three Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) as an approach for teaching and learning floral design. The most efficient ways to save natural resources, protect the environment, and save money are found in reducing and reusing products. Recycling involves collecting and processing materials that would be discarded and composing them into new products. Making a new product requires extracting raw products from the earth. It also requires energy to manufacture and transport it. Reducing the number of products used and reusing them saves natural resources, protects the environment, and saves money.

Opportunities for Teaching and Learning

Opposition to sustainable floral design practices is expected. Industry members have habits built from many years of best practices. The challenge of sustainable floristry should not be seen as a burden; rather, it should be viewed as a great opportunity for refreshed teaching and learning.

Teaching can be organized around the three Rs, giving instructors the opportunity to vary the ways they design with flowers. New methods can bring about innovations in techniques and products. Instead of using products that have remained unchanged for decades, teachers and students can develop new ideas for products, methods, and techniques.

Making the choice to delve into sustainable floristry involves keeping an open mind to doing things differently and fixing the flaws along the way. Initial attempts at mechanics or plant material choices can always be improved upon in the floral design studio or classroom—places of trial-and-error practice. This is part of the beauty of floral design education versus on-the-job training, where there is little room for error.

A key component of any sustainable floristry curriculum is to help learners see the benefits of change and weigh the potential for positive outcomes. Sustainable floristry education helps learners understand why the environment is important, how they can help to care for it, and that they are essential to its existence. Sustainable practices provide the floral industry with opportunities to highlight the fresh floral side of floral design and its earth-friendliness. Much of sustainable floristry is being developed now by florists who have identified that the new generation of students will want to pursue a cleaner direction. We invite our teaching colleagues to be a part of this future.

Approaches in the Classroom

Floristry sustainability can be measured on a sliding scale. Many schools are already doing this and do not realize it. For example, rather than eradicating floral foam from the curriculum, just use less. Teaching students to create a fresh arrangement in a reusable glass vase is sustainable, while a single-use plastic bowl with fresh floral foam is not. Another simple idea is to require students to bring their “studio container” back to class every week. In this way, what might have been a single-use plastic now has a longer lifespan.

As teachers, it will be challenging for our studios to be consistently highly sustainable, but it is possible to be greener in the floral design classroom—and to train our students to pursue new methods and invent new products that save time and money, and suppress plastic pollution.

Here are some approaches to sustainability to consider:

• Teach students to buy and/or sell flowers. They are natural and compostable. Retailers may make more money selling flowers than gifts and accessories that have a lower markup. Often, cut flowers are marked up three times their cost, while gift items have a 2:1 markup. When floral customers shop, they intend to express their sentiments with flowers rather than hard goods. Encourage students to steer customers toward flowers.
• Think about floral design construction in the days before plastics. Many of the materials our predecessors used were fully compostable and sourced nearby out of necessity. They included moss, wood, sawdust, foliage, and other, locally produced materials.
• Help students identify supply products used in floristry, from those that are fully compostable to plastics. An important part of their learning is that they can observe the floral designs they create after the design activity. How did each flower perform during display? Did any of the materials remain beautiful and useable over longer periods of time?
• Make the time to compost floral green waste. Your floral design studio creates loads of valuable green waste consisting of foliage, stems, and petals. Learn the ins and outs of composting and use it to your advantage.
• Grow some of your own floral materials. Often, there is space near the floral studio or your home to grow plant materials for cutting. It may not be feasible to grow cut flowers, which can be difficult considering irrigation needs, pest infestations, and disease. But you might consider growing foliage that can be cut and used in your designs. Plant materials vary according to your U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant-hardiness zone, so dig into your state’s Extension website for information. Also consider growing your own floral design mechanics (flexible stems, vines) rather than purchasing imports. You may want to begin with evergreens, corkscrew willow, grapevine, birch, holly, and simple-to-grow cut flowers such as zinnias, marigolds, sunflowers, and lilies. Consider growing deciduous materials such as quince, cherry, pussy willow, and forsythia if your climate allows. Invest in woody plants and perennials as early in your teaching career as possible because it can take 3–5 years for a plant to mature to a size that will yield cut material.
• Select containers that will be used many times by the student. For example, workshop participants are more likely to reuse a good-quality glass cube vase than an inexpensive, outdated plastic bowl. Teach students to encourage their floral consumers to return their containers to their shops in exchange for a stem of flowers or a percentage discount on an immediate purchase.
• Make conscious decisions about using less plastic wrap. Recycle plastic sleeves when possible—use them as packing material and to protect flowers to wear/carry designs during refrigeration and transport.

If you use all or part of this curriculum, we value hearing from you. Please email [email protected] and let us know your thoughts.

Our Sustainable Floral Design Projects Curriculum

This curriculum arose from the August 2022 Celebrate/Elevate/Educate Floral Design Teaching: Sustainability short course sponsored by Mississippi State University Extension. Presentations were made by James DelPrince, PhD, CFD, AIFD; Elizabeth Englebretson, MA; Cole Etheredge, PhD, CFD; and Hitomi Gilliam, CFD, AIFD.

The purpose of this short course was to expand participant knowledge and practices in sustainable floristry. In a blended academic and industry program, floristry teachers gained knowledge in pre-plastics floristry history, consumer perceptions of floral products, green floristry practices including composting, excessive plastic use, sustainable floral design systems classification, plastic product alternatives, sustainable floristry practice theory, and green burial practices. We coordinated these approaches based on our expertise and what we felt were floristry teachers’ educational needs.

Previous Celebrate/Elevate/Educate Floral Design Teaching short courses were held in 2019 and 2020. During those programs, the need for sustainability education arose. In our 2022 short course, faculty and student discussions revealed a need for academic content with practical project ideas appropriate for adult learners in colleges, universities, and floral design studios.

This curriculum provides an overview of the topics covered in our short course and a list of suggested floral design projects and objectives to help others teach and learn sustainable floral design theory and practice. We hope to expand upon this curriculum in the future, introducing sustainable floral design theory and practical applications to shops and studios through a variety of methods—from single workshops to multilevel certificate and degree programs.

Several short course students agreed to help with design ideas and manuscript editing, and their names are listed as authors. We are grateful for their work and support. We encourage you to adapt the projects to suit your learners’ needs.

Download the PDF above for the full curriculum and projects, or contact your county Extension office to order a copy of Publication 4019 Sustainable Floral Design: Curriculum and Projects.