The Best Books for the Flower Lover on Your Gift List
If we can’t have fresh flowers from our own cutting gardens in the winter, we can dream about them, read, learn and plan the next season. I’ve been collecting all kinds of floral books for years and am excited to share a few of my favorites for you and all of your flower friends on your list this season.
Floral Design
Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style by Christin Gael
For the serious designer, Christin Gael digs deep into making full on art with flowers. When I pulled my copy off the shelf to write about it, I found the book stuffed with post it notes and well loved pages. It is a design manifesto with abundant practical advice about using flowers as an artistic medium. Anyone who wants to make any occasion into something absolutely magical with flowers needs this book in their library.
Flower Color Theory by Darroch and Michael Putnam
Flowers are overwhelming because each one is so beautiful. Where do you even start?
Sometimes, the best way around the overwhelm is boundaries and focus. As a painter and an artist myself, I adore the Putnams’ approach of focusing on color first. They find inspiration in so many places and distill it down into a color palette before even thinking about flowers. That pallet then guides their flower selection with super creative and gorgeous results. I’ve had a lot of fun taking their pallets into the flower farm as a first step in my own design work and have used their system to build some of my favorite arrangements with colors from paintings I’ve always loved.
I’m not entirely sure if this book is still in print. But it’s work finding a used copy if there is anyone out there crazy enough to let go of theirs.
The Art of Wearable Flowers by Susan McCleary
I am such a Sue McCleary fan girl. She is a creative force in the flower world and shares abundantly and generously. Give her a follow on Instagram and treat yourself to any of her design books. The Art of Wearable Flowers is a favorite go to in our design studio. Many of her techniques and ideas have found there way into our wedding work and sometimes we make a little floral jewelry or living flower tattoos for ourselves just for fun.
Growing
Cool Flowers by Lis Mason Ziegler
If you live on the Palouse with me, you know that we have a crazy short growing season. It takes some skill to have a steady wave of flowers from May to October around here. Really nailing hardy cool season annuals has been my secret to success. Nobody understands these unsung heroes better than Lisa Mason Ziegler. Let her guide you to the cutting garden of your dreams.
A Year In Flowers by Erin Benzakein
A flower growing classic, Erin Benzakein is an undisputed innovator and leader in the cut flower world. This beautiful and comprehensive book gives you all the basics to produce everything you need for gorgeous flowers all year round. It even includes easy to produce design projects for each season.
Just Flowers
Flower Confidential: The Good The Bad The Beautiful by Amy Stewart
I find that people in our region are very sophisticated in understanding where their food comes from. They are knowledgable about industrial agriculture, factory farming and its impact on the environment and our health. They value and appreciate local growers and they make it a priority to buy locally, armed with a lot of information.
The same is not true for flowers, though. Most people have no idea where those grocery store roses came from, or how they got there. Nor do they see the difference between floral imports and locally grown.
Amy Stewart’s book pulls the curtain back on the multi-billion dollar global floral industry in a way that is compelling and fun to read. Now I can’t stop watching You-tube videos of the Aalsmeer Flower Market in the Netherlands. My mind is blown.
I went into the book more aware than your average bear, but I still have a lot to learn and Flower Confidential was fascinating. Highly recommend this one!
