Blooming miracle bouquets
Fresh flowers that last a whole year? It sounds impossible, but one firm has pioneered . . .
The arrangement of roses I’m holding is exquisite. The flowers are in full bloom and each petal is a warm, velvety pink. The roses are mingled with foliage and I detect a faint scent of eucalyptus. This would make an ideal bridal posy — vibrant, elegant and, I imagine, just picked.
‘This is around six months old,’ says florist erni Visser, co-founder of the perfectly named ethereal Blooms.
These flowers do indeed boast a delicate, other-worldly beauty, thanks to their having undergone a unique preservation process, which keeps them looking fresh for up to a year.
Gently I touch a petal. The only clue that this isn’t your normal wilt-in-days bloom is that it feels slightly firmer than you’d expect, and it isn’t as cool and moist to the touch.
But otherwise, it’s hard to tell. And unlike freeze-dried flowers, which always appear faded and, well, dead, these long-life roses are vivid and juicy-looking.
And as long as you don’t fiddle with them, or put them in a steamy bathroom, they’ll stay that way for 12 months — or two years at a push (after which they become drier and fade in colour).
‘We just say a year, because it sets expectations,’ says erni.
Perfect flowers that stay perfect for 12 months? No stem trimming. No watering (in fact they must not be — key to preserving their look is removal of their water content). No dropping stalks. No browning or falling petals.
No WoNDeR the idea has blossomed in the two-and-ahalf years since its launch by business and life partners erni, 34, and Kathryn Popplestone, 36. The pandemic was ruinous for the cut-flower trade, with artificial blooms springing up in their place. This was not helped by the trend for ‘flower walls’ — towering arcs of fake flowers outside shops and restaurants to provide a glamorous backdrop for selfies. But could this scientific breakthrough see the return of real flowers?
Initially, erni and Kathryn, both of whom have science backgrounds, acquired clients on London’s Bond Street. erni went cold-calling in winter, clutching a fresh-as-a-daisy, six-month-old bouquet, asking to speak to managers.
Their business has since grown 400 per cent year-on-year, with a global, largely high-end clientele, including British model Rosie huntington-Whiteley.
From a practical viewpoint, corporations, luxury yachts and hotels love that the flowers still look gorgeous a year on, and they’re economical: though they might seem expensive at first (a single rose in a cubed pot is £35, or three roses arranged with sprigs of eucalyptus in a porcelain vase costs £95), really they’re a bargain if you usually order a high volume of fresh blooms every four days.
They also appeal to anyone who loves the treat of having fresh flowers at home.
Most customers — in London, the U.S. and europe — order online.
Despite the luxury price point, notes erni, because of the longevity of the flowers, a small bouquet works out at the price of one coffee per week for a year. however, for those with deeper pockets, ethereal Blooms’ collection at harrods provides a taste of what they can offer. each arrangement is named after a female icon, and Madonna (a coffee table bouquet of roses in peach, pink, red, white, or champagne) costs a Material Girl-worthy £1,200.
Cleopatra (gardenias, large standard roses and english garden roses in pale pinks and purples, with eucalyptus and foliage in a marbled vase) starts at a queenly £720.
If you want to add fresh glamour to your hotel lobby or boardroom, it comes in ‘supreme’ size — for the royal price of £3,100.
So how does it work? ‘Foliage and filler flowers are placed in a preservation solution of alcohol, and a few other secret ingredients,’ says Kathryn.
‘They stand upright in it as if in a vase. We leave them in the sunlight so they can still photosynthesise. ‘The liquid is taken up through the stem, and that replaces the water content, and that’s how they become preserved.’ This takes ten days. No harsh chemicals are used, and a few plants, such as lavender and rosemary, retain a little scent (though most flowers don’t, which — while a boon to allergy sufferers — seems a bit of a shame to me). ‘With the larger-headed flowers, like roses, orchids, carnations, it’s a two-step process,’ adds Kathryn. ‘They’re submerged in the solution, that removes the water content. Then they’re placed in a second solution and that adds back natural oils, so the flower looks and feels supple and fresh, and won’t wither, go brown or die. It freezes it in that state.’ This takes four weeks.
KAThRyN and erni learned the basic preservation process in Asia. ‘We can’t claim to have created it,’ says Kathryn, but they’ve adapted the formulas to achieve the natural and freshlooking result.
‘A lot of work we do is with yachts, as they have issues with fresh flowers on board,’ says erni.
Roses feature prominently, with neutral shades especially popular as they blend in with, rather than dominate, decor.
erni says: ‘We tend to focus on the slightly larger-headed flowers — roses, chrysanthemums, orchids, carnations — because those are the types people usually want as part of their interiors for longer.
‘We do some english wildflower bouquets, but people like to buy those more seasonally.’
Indeed, part of what makes fresh flowers feel special is their impermanence — and I do wonder whether that element of their appeal might be lost if one bouquet, no matter how beauteous, sat on my mantelpiece for a year.
Kathryn says some clients move their arrangements around the house, and points out that even if you keep your preserved blooms for only months rather than a whole year, this would still be more cost effective and less wasteful than buying fresh each week.
As our nation becomes increasingly eco-conscious, their venture is well-timed. Personally, too, they were lucky — falling in love after meeting through a mutual friend on holiday in Bali.
They live in Central London with two small dogs and a cat, all of whom accompany them to the office which — with shelves of preserved flowers, ferns, grasses, buds and berries — is a riot of colour.
Plenty of clients order fresh-cut bouquets from ethereal Blooms, too, notes Kathryn. All the same, she adds, in terms of sustainability, ‘This is the future of flowers.’