Part 1: Our Floral Philosophy
In this three-part blog series we’ll be unpacking some of the questions you may have about how we function a little differently as a florist and all our reasons behind it! Why do we just offer one design a week? What does it mean to be sustainable as a floral retailer? How do we minimise waste? Why do we charge what we charge? Read on for all the answers, and check out the FAQs in Part Three…
In every corner of the world, in every culture, flowers are synonymous with beauty. They are a natural phenomenon to be marvelled at and enjoyed. One of the wonders of the world that make our hearts sing. They adorn our celebrations and our most poignant moments in life, and they are given as a symbol of hope in the midst of our darkest times. Flowers are beautiful. And yet - we would argue - the flower-buying experience in our country is often about as inspiring as popping to the off-license for a packet of crisps. Either it’s a quick dash to the supermarket or petrol station to buy a sad-looking, ill-arranged bouquet wrapped in plastic and desperately clinging on to dear life. Or, it’s an intimidating venture into a traditional florist where you have no idea what to ask for and the options seem confusingly endless. Or most commonly, and certainly must un-inspiringly, it’s a few clicks on an Interflora website. Certainly none of these experiences (in our humble opinion) honour the beauty of the product that is being purchased, or the significance of the event or person the flowers are being purchased for.
Several years ago we began to dream of a different way. We asked ourselves the question of whether it might be possible to design a flower-buying experience that in some way captures the beauty of the flowers themselves. You can read more of our story on our About page, however in brief we decided to bring together our favourite things (flowers and coffee), and design a retail and hospitality experience here in Bournemouth that re-imagines what a florist can be. From the way our customers are welcomed, to the quality of the food and drink we serve, to the array of treats we have on offer, to the theatre of watching your flowers be arranged by our floral designers whilst you sip on a coffee, nibble on a divine pastry, read a book or chat with a friend. Our desire is that anyone who steps out of Little Perth clutching a bouquet will be able to say it was a truly beautiful experience that honours the flowers and their whole journey, and was utterly unlike any flower-buying experience they’ve had before!
So, what are the elements of our floral philosophy that shape this experience?
We are design-led.
We have a team of experienced floral designers who work hard each week to create what we call our ‘Florist’s Choice Bouquet’. Available in three sizes or as a low-bowl arrangement, this bouquet uses flowers that are in-season at source, and are arranged using naturalistic, contemporary techniques that allow the stems to shine (rather than being padded out with lots of foliage)! The bouquets are generally front-facing, and are tied in such a way that you can simply place them straight into a vase and not face the frustration of trying to arrange them yourself at home. We hope that the artistry involved in creating these arrangements captures your imagination, and when you watch our designers at work and chat to them, you’ll see that they’re not just quickly churning out basic arrangements, but are allowing the stems to guide them in creating interesting, beautiful and eye-grabbing designs. Being design-led as a florist is by no means revolutionary, however we’ve noticed over the years a worrying trend towards florists being increasingly customer-led. As consumers we expect to go into a high-street florist and self-design a bouquet based on our budget, preferences, and expectations. That’s become the norm, and there is a place for it, but we’d never go into a wonderful restaurant with a highly-trained chef and tell her what ingredients to use and how much we want to spend! We trust the chef to produce something wonderful based on her skill, artistry, knowledge of seasonality, and understanding of value. We often get a lot of blank looks when we tell customers that we don’t operate as a ‘pick n mix’ florist, but rather allow our designers to use their flair and years of training to produce something beautiful. It’s then up to the customer as to whether they’d like it or not! We’ll write more in later blogs as to why we feel the customer-led approach to buying flowers is killing the artisan nature of floristry and holding the industry back with regards to sourcing sustainably (especially in the Wedding world)…
We aim for zero stem waste.
One of the main reasons we only offer one design each week is that it dramatically reduces waste. You’ll often see floor-to-ceiling walls in traditional florists full of buckets of flowers. It looks beautiful, no doubt, but we know from experience just how many stems go to waste, are sold for next to nothing as they age, or are snuck into bouquets knowing that they wont last as long as the others! At Little Perth we only buy from our wholesalers what we need for our floral menu, and when they’re gone they’re gone! If there’s anything left we select stems to dry in-house for our dried bouquets. The drying process takes a few weeks, but we always have a rotation of preserved stems in our dry room in Southbourne, and they are arranged into bouquets that are super popular! The result is a system where we are moving ever closer to zero stem waste, and we’re always looking for ways to get there quicker.
We do a few things, well.
Finally, we have a philosophy of just offering a few things, but ensuring the quality is always outstanding. We get daily requests to do weddings and events (more on those in a future post!), but our main focus is on retail flowers and ensuring that the way we source, design and sell retail bouquets is consistently excellent. As in any area of design or retail, it is very easy to become too thinly-spread and to chase areas of perceived profitability. Our experience has shown us that doing this too quickly will usually result in lower standards and tired staff! So for now, we’ll be focusing on ensuring that when you come into any of our stores in Bournemouth to buy flowers you’ll receive our full attention, your bouquet will have been carefully and lovingly designed and arranged by a well-trained florist, and that the whole experience isn’t rushed, confusing or awkward.
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In Part Two, we’ll go into a bit more detail about the floral industry in the UK and some of the challenges we, and other florists, are currently facing, along with some of the ways we are trying to overcome them. Thanks for reading!