If you’ve ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, we speak to someone from a different profession to discover what it’s really like. Today we speak to florist and founder of Snapdragon Edinburgh, Catherine Traynor…
No one is a florist to become rich, that’s for sure… Salaries range from around £27,000 for an inexperienced or trainee florist to around £40,000 for an experienced senior florist managing a shop, with various stages in between depending on skills and experience.
There are some college courses but… most florists train on the job, learning from colleagues with perhaps some private floristry courses undertaken along the way. We always find creative people with a passion for flowers make the best florists.
Generally, if a flower is fully open, it won’t last long… but there’s no way of knowing for sure how long they will last. There are so many varieties with different vase lives. There are exceptions, of course, to this rule of thumb with hardy varieties such as chrysanthemum.
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The best way to make flowers last longer is… to cut the stems diagonally, place in cool, fresh water, top up the water daily and replace the water every two to three days or so, re-cutting the stems and removing any stems that are past their best. Also, place the flowers out of direct sunlight and away from radiators; the cooler the spot, the better.
We no longer advocate flower food… our experiments over the years show no improvement in vase life – the steps above are much more important.
To cut the stems, you should use… sharp florist scissors or a sharp knife. Anything that avoids crushing them.
To keep our flowers fresh, we make sure… our shop is always cool even in summer, and we have deliveries from our wholesalers every couple of days, so flowers are not in our shop for long. So plenty of fresh cool water and a cool place are key.
The biggest problem people face when arranging their flowers is… placing them in a vase that’s too small and too short to support them. If the florist has arranged them, then choose a vase about two-thirds the height of the bouquet, and loosen the string when placing in the vase so the arranged shape is maintained, but they have a natural flow.
When arranging flowers yourself, choose the appropriately sized vase for the flower type as above, and sticking to single varieties of flowers always works, and we love foliage. Always use it as it helps support the flowers and gives a natural, garden look to the arrangement.
Florist prices take into account… the general markup on wholesale in the industry for cut flowers, just as in retail and the fact that flowers are a raw material that need to be conditioned and prepared. We don’t just open a wholesale wrap and place it on a shelf. We also add a design fee element onto the flower cost when arranging into bouquets, table arrangements, floral arches, etc., and the fee depends on the complexity and time involved in creating a particular design.
I would also point out that supermarkets use flowers as loss leaders, and sell on at a level not much more than what they’ve paid for them, which, due to their buying power, is a lot less than a small business pays.
Flowers at supermarkets… are also often a little uninspiring and ordinary.
The costs at peak periods such as Valentine’s and Mother’s Day do rise… and it’s simply supply and demand causing that, and the pressures to produce a huge volume of perishable stock for a specific date.
My favourite wedding flower trend is… a natural, romantic, garden style of work. We dislike dyed flowers and flowers manipulated into shapes and designs that are odd and unnatural.
Weather does have an impact on growers… that’s an ongoing problem that can cause scarcity of a variety and push up prices. Brexit added layers of bureaucracy, which means increased costs and delays at customs, but those increased costs are levelling out now and prices have been fairly stable over the last year or two.
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Our busiest time of year is… the whole month of December plus Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. But we are busy all year round with weddings, particularly May to October, with Edinburgh being a wedding destination.
For Valentine’s Day, men are generally buying flowers and they tend to pick… red roses or bouquets that include red roses, but pink bouquets are always popular, too.
No, prices going up at times like Valentine’s are not for profiteering… huge pressures on supply with a much higher than usual demand, within a very tight timeframe, mean that prices rise to ensure every business in that supply chain can deliver.
The most expensive bouquet I’ve made was… a mixed rose bouquet for around £400, but on an everyday basis our most expensive item is a large vase arrangement for £150.
There’s not really any request that we dread, but… for weddings, if we are shown an image of a bouquet that is way off our style of work, even though our style is evident on our website and Instagram, our hearts sink a little.
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We do give flowers away for free… we support various charity fundraisers throughout the year with flowers. Sometimes we donate flowers to local nursing homes and nurseries if we have excess stock, but that doesn’t happen often these days with the way we buy now.
One thing I would love customers to know is that… this is a physically demanding job, which most don’t realise. We’re lugging heavy buckets of flowers around, and on our feet for most of the day. It’s often cold, and the stress at times can be high when creating for larger weddings, for example.
The thing I hate about my job is… the cold.
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Something that makes me laugh when someone comes in looking for flowers for their partner is… the last-minute urgency for something very specific, that we probably don’t have – but we can always suggest something beautiful to fit the occasion.
We always work seasonally, which keeps costs reasonable… but flowers are a luxury which are never cheap to buy. For example, a bride may love a specific garden rose with an eye-watering £10 per stem price, but we can always suggest and buy in another variety that is equally beautiful but half that price.
A few stems in a vase on your desk or mantel look just as beautiful… and lift the spirits in the same way as a large vase of flowers will. The little affordable posies and flower wraps we sell outside our shop, day in and day out, are so popular for this reason.
