But with the pandemic looming over the city, she felt the need to engage in more community-oriented projects: “I really felt like I needed to imbue my business with all the community work I did before,” she explains. “I started this Elderflower Project where I accepted donations and then I turned them into flowers. I dropped them off at the Ottawa West Community Support, and they put them into food baskets for isolated seniors.” This project inspired Purnett to use her work as an artist and in her garden to connect with her community by re-launching City Love Flowers as a social enterprise.

Through the winter months, she began developing a unique structure for her business that would enable her to use flowers as a community development tool. Punnett is launching this new model for City Love Flowers today, on Earth Day 2021. While she has many projects in the works with various local charities, including the Parkdale Food Centre, the initiative that is closest to her heart is her Flower Fund. This social giveback program will work with rotating charities in the area to donate flowers to people in need of the positivity, restorative effects, and beauty of fresh-cut flowers.

“As cool as it is for people to buy flowers from me […] what I’m really excited about is that people will be donating to the Flower Fund,” Punnett says eagerly. “This is my way of creating change. The role of the social artist is to find something inside of a group of people or individuals that ignites a feeling of responding to something. It’s really using art to awaken a feeling that they want to make a change.”

In a time marked by fear and isolation, Punnett hopes that the Flower Fund will allow more members of her community to experience the feeling of nostalgia, comfort, and healing that comes with a fresh, ephemeral bouquet of local flowers. “It’s really urgent, I think. Beauty and this feeling of being taken care of, this expression of giving, is so urgent right now.”

Tune into @cityloveflowers’ Instagram stories at 6pm ET today, April 22, 2021, to hear more about how the boutique floral design studio and urban garden intends to make a big impact in Ottawa by spreading the love of flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

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The city loved it. “People were really resonating with the idea of me growing tons of flowers in my front yard and buying flowers from me super locally,” Punnett says. Encouraged by this warm reception, one year ago, She decided to dive headfirst into her passion, and founded City Love Flowers, a boutique floral design studio and urban garden. Through her business, she began arranging and delivering flowers from her gardens and from local growers. But with the pandemic looming over the city, she felt the need to engage in more community-oriented projects: “I really felt like I needed to imbue my business with all the community work I did before,” she explains. “I started this Elderflower Project where I accepted donations and then I turned them into flowers. I dropped them off at the Ottawa West Community Support, and they put them into food baskets for isolated seniors.” This project inspired Purnett to use her work as an artist and in her garden to connect with her community by re-launching City Love Flowers as a social enterprise. Through the winter months, she began developing a unique structure for her business that would enable her to use flowers as a community development tool. Punnett is launching this new model for City Love Flowers today, on Earth Day 2021. While she has many projects in the works with various local charities, including the Parkdale Food Centre, the initiative that is closest to her heart is her Flower Fund . This social giveback program will work with rotating charities in the area to donate flowers to people in need of the positivity, restorative effects, and beauty of fresh-cut flowers. “As cool as it is for people to buy flowers from me […] what I’m really excited about is that people will be donating to the Flower Fund,” Punnett says eagerly. “This is my way of creating change. The role of the social artist is to find something inside of a group of people or individuals that ignites a feeling of […]

Source:

Floristry in the 21st century has reinvented itself with the Irish landscape inspiring a London studio’s cutting-edge designs 

Terri Chandler and Katie Smyth of London-based florist Worm which produces arrangements and installations for fashion houses, parties, weddings and launches, using the Irish coastal landscape as inspiration.

Just five years ago Terri Chandler from Cork and Dubliner Katie Smyth established Worm, a London-based floristry company that has ensured the duo are in demand among fashion houses, retailers and the hospitality to set the scene for extravagant events and photoshoots.

It all began through one of those chance meetings.

This flower wall is made up of dried materials, so after the dinner party or gathering is over there is no rush to take it down. Plus, there’s the bonus of not having to work in straight lines. Picture: Kristin Perers

“Then we started doing weddings for friends, and events got so big that book and a bunch has taken a bit of a back seat.”

“We’d meet for dinner in a pub as part of an extended friendship group,” Terri explains. “I was in and out of acting jobs and teaching, and Katie was doing fashion jobs. Neither of us was going anywhere very fast.”

At the time, Terri was living on Columbia Road in East London, immersed in its famous flower market, while both she and Katie had always found nature in Ireland, especially coastal areas, particularly inspiring.

“We were in our late 20s,” Katie adds, “and thought let’s start something together, even as a side project to fulfill us. We did a one day a week flower course in Pimlico and started doing a book and a bunch service where we’d make a bouquet and deliver it with a book.

“Then we started doing weddings for friends, and events got so big that book and a bunch has taken a bit of a back seat.”

A ceiling hung arrangement frees up table space. Here wild foliage is mixed with linens for a rich, eclectic look. Picture: Kristin Perers

Fashion photoshoots started adding to their repertoire along with floral installations for hotels, all of which were drawn to the distinctive Worm aesthetic.

They now count Harpers Bazaar, Town & Country, and fashion brands Erdem, H&M, Roxanda and Peter Piloto among their clients.

But it was when the business was barely a year old and they were working as a two-woman band that they got the call which was a turning point for their business: A commission to decorate Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden for the launch of the Erdem and H&M collection.

“They wanted a wild garden look,” Terri says. “It was pretty huge as there were 800 guests and everyone had to leave with a bouquet, and it was just me and Katie.”

Rallying some additional floristry help to implement their ideas which filled the venue with meadow, it took five days to complete.

It’s this natural beauty and seeing the extraordinary in something as humble as a dried hydrangea and foraged foliage that has also attracted attention from around the world. It led to Katie taking up an invitation to teach the Worm approach to students in China just before lockdown.

Wreaths for all occasions are a Worm specialty. This dramatic piece not only brings nature indoors but provides a living artwork. Picture: Kristin Perers

“Photos on Instagram bring in that kind of work,” she says. “In China, they’re really into the western floral aesthetic.”

But it’s not just far-away places like China coveting the Worm look.

Terri and Katie’s reputation is also growing here in Ireland and led to them creating the Avoca Christmas window display in 2019, and working with fashion designer Simone Rocha.

As it is with most businesses, 2020 has made its mark on their activities but according to Katie, it’s given them time to step back and think.

Source: Meet the Irish duo giving floristry a cool new image