Yesterday I discovered a new flower shop in my neighborhood. I mainly get my flowers from the SF Flower Mart in SOMA, but I believe it’s closed until further notice. Stumbling across this tiny flower shop in my neighborhood made my day!

Unlike at the Flower Mart, I was able to purchase individual stems (rather than in bulk), cutting down the cost of materials significantly. The downside is that there isn’t much variety, but it’s way more convenient than getting in the car and driving down to SOMA.

I was tempted to make another Moribana arrangement… but I was already kind of disappointed in myself for not trying to venture out of my comfort zone at all. I decided to make one vertically focused arrangement, and one horizontally focused one – a throwback to my last lessons in formal ikebana class.

Thistles and dahlias arranged in an elliptical vase, with a hole in the middle of it

The vertical arrangement is pretty simple. I haven’t used this vase in a while, so I figured I should dust it off and put it to use. This arrangement feels like a combination of two or three other arrangements I’ve made in the past. It was fun, but didn’t feel super exciting to me.

Dahlias and eucalyptus arranged horizontally, in a white hand molded vase

When I make a freestyle arrangement, I try to introduce one new element each time. Most of the time, it means working with a new type of plant… however, I’ve already worked with dahlias, thistles and eucalyptus, so I had to figure out a new way to introduce novelty. I decided to make a cross-bar fixture, or jumanji-dome, inside of the white vase used in the horizontal arrangement. The vase is pretty irregularly shaped, so creating a cross-bar fixture inside of it was slightly difficult.

I also decided to employ a technique my ikebana teacher taught me. The eucalyptus portion of the arrangement is comprised of 3 eucalyptus branches that I piled on top of each other, to give the effect of pretty even leaves/foliage throughout the length of the branches. The intent is to create the illusion of one, extra leafy branch.

Creating these arrangements was pretty fun, and slightly more challenging than a traditional Moribana arrangement. I am super excited to discover this new flower shop in my neighborhood. I’ll hopefully be posting more consistently in the future, since it’s now so easy to get materials! …Ikebana is one of the most ideal activities for a quarantine world.