DAY IN THE LIFE: Lorna's bouquet life

A summer series exploring the working day of locals with jobs that are unusual or rare.

By Navjyoti Dalal

When strung together, the words entrepreneur, owner, and floral designer, evoke a beauteous image. A room filled with flowers, neatly arranged to please the eye, scents wafting in the air, a sensorial delight. But the life of a self-employed florist is pretty only in parts. There's chopped stems, plucked out leaves, bits and pieces of strings, tape and chicken wire strewn on the worktable, and of course flowers to balance the sight. “There's a lot of mess and a great amount of cleaning involved,” said Lorna Stuart Trainor, founder and owner of A Room in Bloom, floral designing business. We caught up with her in between a busy wedding season to know more about the day and life of a florist.

Working with flowers

Lorna starts her day early, around 9am. “I come to my studio in Creggan at 9 in the morning, but each day is different. Some days I have flower deliveries to take, while on others I have to deliver bouquets, or cut flowers to clients. It depends on the orders and season,” Lorna shared. Each morning, she takes stock of the deliveries to be made, and keeps them ready to be dispatched or picked up.

She sources the flowers from Netherlands, where flowers from across the globe are traded. Orders are placed two days in advance of the delivery date. Lorna explained that deliveries are followed by 'conditioning' the flowers. This involves taking off the unnecessary leaves and bruised petals and hydrating them in a bucket of water. Afternoons, she informed, are reserved for admin work and planning the next few days. “It keeps us organised and well-planned. For instance, if there's a wedding coming up, we do the cleaning of the vases, accumulating the hardware, and do all that can possibly be done beforehand, so that when the d-day arrives we are ready,” she said.

Wedding Works

Weddings and events, Lorna told us, are a big part of her life as a floral designer. It is where much of the business and revenue comes from. But weddings are also time and labour intensive. The discussions with the bride begin well in advance. Catalogues are used for classic arrangements, while some clients favour newer designs to be developed. "In recent years, many of my clients have shown interest in wildflower weddings. So instead of the traditional cut flowers like roses, hydrangeas, carnations or different varieties of lilies, we use Irish-grown wildflowers. These include poppies, peonies, sweet peas, cornflowers, nigellas, anemones, scabiosa and the like," informed Lorna, who enjoys this trend. She noted that the wildflowers bring a character of their own, for they are not hybridised to deliver a certain look.

A Florist's essentials

Lorna's studio features a cornucopia of tools and apparatus, some common while others specialised. Her set of reliable workstation companions include Japanese ikebana scissors for the cutting, floral tape (stemtex), rose pliers (to strip thorns and leaves), cable ties, water sprayer and more. For arrangements she uses vases, ribbons, candles, battery candles, chicken wire and the likes. “But one of the most important gadgets for a florist is a refrigerator. It doesn't need to be specialised, but set to a certain temperature for flowers to last long,” said Lorna.

While these are the mechanical essentials for a florist she also stressed the pertinence of upskilling and learning new techniques and crafts to enhance one's repertoire as a floral designer. “I try to do a course at least once a year with other, more experienced florists either in Ireland or abroad,” shared Lorna, who is set to do a course with the internationally acclaimed botanical designer, Joseph Massie, in October. It is organised by the Institute of Flowers (IOF), an Irish not-for-profit organisation, which promotes floristry and has also designed various courses for budding florists.

A Late Bloomer

No one in Lorna's family imagined her making a career in flowers, not even Lorna herself. Of the four Stuart Trainor children, she was the only one without a creative streak. Her skill was on the playground, as a hockey player and, later as a rugby coach. “I actually wanted to become an archaeologist. I even took it up as a graduation programme at University of Galway. But as we actually began to study, I realised I wasn't enjoying it. So I left it and pursued arts and business instead,” explained Lorna. After a professional stint in Dublin for a few years, she went travelling with her friends for a year. They covered Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. She returned after a year richer in experience, but with depleted finances. She began working at Fernhill garden centre, which was a few steps from her home. The job became her window into the world of flowers and foliage, inspiring Lorna to pursue courses in horticulture and floristry.

In 2010, she opened her flower shop in the centre of town, and ran it with finesse until 2019, when she decided to move the business unit into a studio setting. “Most of the orders were online or on the phone, with not as many walk-ins. It made more sense to move to a studio instead of continuing the shop. Also, a studio-based operation gives me more flexibility,” she added.

Perks and challenges

Lorna loves her work. Getting to work with a beautiful product is one of the obvious perks of her life, but there is more she told us. “You get to work with your hands, keep moving, it's not a sedentary job. I enjoy meeting the variety of people I get to meet because of flowers. There's flexibility in it. Also, when you have flowers leftover, you get to bring them home. I have a business that I enjoy running, it gives me a lifestyle I enjoy,” she explained.

On the flip side of it, a career in floristry comes with some industry-specific challenges. “It can range from getting the wrong orders, like receiving red instead of white roses, to a deadline crunch. There's a big amount of cleaning involved. You actually get to touch and arrange the flowers only 20-30% of the time, the rest is spent in cleaning, doing admin work, making spreadsheet after spreadsheets, sorting and disposing the cardboards and natural waste. Not as pretty as one imagines,” she elaborated.

The work also has some health areas one needs to take care of. “It's a job that requires you to be fit. You are standing the whole time, there's lifting involved. Your feet take a toll, back begins to ache,” shared Lorna. To counter the issues she keeps herself fit with lifting weights, pilates, walking, swimming in the lake, apart from functional measures like using supportive footwear, and using a cow mat to stand on. It helps that the room, despite the aches and pains, continues to smell of blooms.