The Chelsea Flower Show is just around the corner and anticipation is high for the beautiful flower displays that are being designed at this moment.
When it comes to the most expensive David Domoney  is going to be showing a display that is worth a mere £10m. The display is to be called The Ace of Diamonds, and the display is to be littered with precious stones from some of the top jewellers on Bond Street.
“I always endeavour to introduce something a little bit more entertaining and this is something really special. It’s high-end and extreme but with a strong horticultural message. This garden will be worth more than the rest of the show put together - worth more than this year and last year combined even,” stated Domoney.
Of course security will be high, something like what we would see for a royal visit! The diamonds will be delivered to the show by helicopter. What a spectacle!
The biggest garden ever to be shown was the Eden Project, but the value of the garden is at the highest ever seen by the show.
When it comes to smaller events like weddings, corporate or cultural, Todich Floral Design can help you out with your design ideas. We are prepared for just about any innovative floral design and we can make just about any idea to life. Of course, a scattering of diamonds might be a little over the top! But that is definitely something worth checking out at this years show!

Sources:
http://www.hortweek.com/channel/OrnamentalsProduction/article/999887/Domoney-makes-Chelsea-history-10m-precious-stone-design/

Not sure about the types of work we do? Want to see us in action but haven’t been able to? Well now you can.

After several months of development, we are pleased to announce the launch of our online video gallery!

The video facility aims to give you a chance to see live footage of the events we have done and get to know us and our style a little better. You will also be able to view videos of our flower arranging sessions, filmed in a way you can easily follow, for free, at home.

We will be updating our gallery weekly, with new videos, tips, hints and event work we have done. Make sure you stay updated for some of the hottest floristry videos in London!

Featured in yesterday’s South London Press (Left - Right: Carol, Todd, Lesley, Kalina)

We’ve been nominated for the innovation award at this years Lambeth Business Awards! The innovation is based around a brand new wedding product we’ll be offering our lovely brides from late Feburary! It’s all very hush hush at the moment but as soon as we launch it we’ll promise to let you all know!

The award ceremony is taking place on the 23rd of February and we’re up against some great competition, including our sister brand Flowers24Hours.co.uk! Good luck to all participants on the evening and see you all there!

The Snap Dragon is a flower that often escapes our thoughts, but with the development of breeding, this little beauty is becoming hardier by the year. Hybrids of this flower are less susceptible to heat, tough against the cold, sturdy and available in a new palette of colors.

No matter what the climate is like in your area, the spadragon can make itself at home at some time in the year. Usually, it is a gardener’s favourite complement for the pansy during autumn. Where winter is a bit colder they are planted at the end of winter or the beginning of spring, filling gardens with color through summer.

The botanical term for this bloom is Antirrhinum majus. Breeding of this plant has taken enormous steps forward, making it a tough little addition to the garden.

The Sonnet and Liberty variety are especially favoured, in the garden they grow to a nice height from 24 to 30 inches. This means that they do not need structural support, both in the garden or in a flower arrangment, making them nearly hassle-free.

The snapdragon is also available in dwarf varieties, with the Tahiti and the Montego being especially praiseworthy types. The Montego is a bit more sturdy in nature, and unlike the Tahiti it does not have a tendency to fall over. These flowers are bit smaller reaching a height of only 12 inches.

If you are looking for something a bit off the beaten path, the rare coloring of the “Twinny” offers something more unique. This is a double flowered version of the snapdragon, its peachy color gives off an air of nostalgia to any garden or arrangement.

The hybridization of a the Spanish Antirrhinum hispanicum and A. molle lead to the introduction of trailing snapdragons, opening new doors and looking for new solutions from designers. This development also lead to creating a more heat-tolerant version of the flower.

Those who are planting this flower at this time of year are taking a bit of a gamble, but it is still possible that this flower is in bloom in many places, meaning that it is still a possible option for flower arrangements.

There is something whimsical and lighthearted about the snapdragon, it can soften the harder edges of any arrangement. With specialized breeding there is quite a palette of colors to choose from. Using this flower as a part of your next design idea can add an element of originality, as well as take you back to childhood years to the time when many of us would gently press together the head of the flower, to see the ‘dragon’ open its jaws.

The Gold Medal Garden at Tatton

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to create a gold medal garden in two weeks, look no further.

Philip Dugdale and Alan Burns, of C³ Landscape Architects, have recently won the gold medal for the Best Visionary garden 2009 and have been kind enough to share some of the pictures of development with us!

Recent graduates of Leeds Metropolitan University, these two young landscape architects have surpassed any expectations held of them. The garden took two years of planning, 6 months of non-stop work (including growing all the plants themselves), 3000 flags of ethically sourced Indian Sandstone, 283 wire cages (gabions), 17 tonnes of stone, 3 tonnes of steel and a collective weight loss of 3 stone between the duo!

The Duo Hard at Work!

They describe their concept as, “Fusing together the infinite possibilities of landscape architecture with restrictive urban landscapes to create sustainable design solutions that are unique to their surroundings”. And unique they are! Tatton is the show that aims to “break the mould of garden design and show innovation and foresight”, which is taken entirely literally in the case of this magnificent cubed garden.

“Some of the plants are 30-50 years old - the gunnera came from a plant more than 100 years old,”  Alan explained. “The judges couldn’t believe we weren’t gardeners. We have an eye for what works, including in nature.”

Philip, of Marton Moss, labels himself as  a new generation “Mosser”, and concedes he’s influenced by the local coastal, urban and rural sprawl of the area, and concludes: “Now more than ever we need to have more ecological sustainability within our surroundings - and that’s key to the Cubed ethos.”

The garden will be on display in Liverpool at the Kirsty Doyle Store from the 25th of August.

For more information about the inspirational cubed garden, please visit http://www.cubedgarden.com

Alan cutting stones up for later use

Protecting the ground with permeable membrane

Santa's little helpers!

The finished garden!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

We are about to launch our new floristry school in London, Todich Floral Design School!

Starting at an absolutely unbeatable introductory rate of £25 per 3 hour session, you will learn how to make a variety of different arrangements. We promise to teach you how to get that vase on your kitchen counter livened up again!

Learn the secrets from the professionals! You will discover what type of flowers suit and compliment each other, which flowers are best value for money, what colours can be used for different occasions, how height and juxtaposition effect the overall design and much, much more! Our head florist, Maryline, is incredibly easy going and a fantastic teacher (NB: I should know, she very patiently taught me how to make a buttonhole!)

You can even bring your kids along (if you let us know in advance!) and they can be taken care of by a certified child minder whilst you laugh and learn your way to professional floristry!

We will be hosting two types of sessions. The first is a 3 hour session, where people can develop their skills over time. The second is an intensive 1 day course, where you learn the whole floristry process: from visiting our suppliers to creating button holes for weddings!

3 Hour Sessions

In these 3 hour sessions you will learn how to create a basket arrangement, a hand tied arrangement and a vase arrangement! These will be held at our studio  on:

August 9th 1:00-4:00
September 13th 1:00-4:00
October 11th 1:00-4:00

1 Day Courses

These intensive one day courses start with a early morning trip to our suppliers. You will see the large variety of flowers you can get right here in London and be able to select the flowers you will be working with for the day! Once you get back, you’ll be taught how to make a variety of arrangements and something specific you would like to learn! You will also be able to have a chat and listen to our guest speaker discuss the importance of floristry!

July 31st
August 14th
September 4th

(Times to be announced)

For any more information, email us at info@todichfloraldesign.co.uk or give us a call on +44 (0)20 7737 1166

Book soon as places

are limited!

Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the World’s Largest Flower Garden

Spring Tulips in bloom

This spectacular annual event was opened to the public by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands’ on the 19th March in Lisse, Holland. Keukenhof, known in Dutch as ‘Kitchen-Gardens‘, has been the world’s largest flower garden for the last 50 years running.

This year, Keukenhof is not only celebrating it’s own 60th anniversary, but also the 400th anniversary since English explorer, Henry Hudson, sailing under Dutch authority, landed on the ‘New World’, now known as Manhattan, which led to the founding of New Amsterdam (New York).

The floral tribute to the 400th anniversary is made of more than 53,000 tulips and has been designed to mimic the Statue of Liberty to celebrate ties between the Netherlands’ and the United States.

Hosted in a 77 acre park, an estimated 7,000,000 flower bulbs get planted annually for this two month attraction. Known most famously for its bright tulip displays which are best seen around mid-April, Keukenhof sees over 600 stunning varieties of this particular flower, amongst many others. The best time to visit is now, where you can see almost everything blooming in symphony.

In March, visitors can see the beginning of spring blooms with flowers such as crocus, daffodils and narcissi. By April, tulips begin to blossom and towards the end of April, hyacinths start emerging. Other displays include orchids, Japanese cherry trees, lilies, azaleas, rhododendrons and many more. Growers compete amongst themselves for the most imaginative display in the gardens.

Keukenhof is only 30 minutes away from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport by bus, so it is no surprise it attracts over 750,000 visitors a year, making it one of Holland’s top tourism attractions for many years. The serene flower garden first opened in 1949 when the mayor of Lisse decided to hold an event that enabled European flower growers to showcase their hybrids and boost the flower export industry, one of the most important exports to Holland.

If you’d like to attend Keukenhof, it is open until 21 May and there are still many events left this season, such as the ‘Biggest Lily show in the World’, Bird of prey displays, the flower parade, traditional costume festival and Orchid Weekend, which is the 8-10th of May or you can have a look at their brochure here.

We’ve been working in the past weeks to enhance your experience on our site. Among the many planned additions to the content on our site, we are happy to announce the release of the Todich Floral Design product gallery, which contains all the products we offer as part of our services. With no particular order or categorisation, you are free to browse all the product images. In case you like a particular design, please jot down its unique identification code (shown under each image) and give it to us when you contact us.

This is by no means the end of development in this area. There are efforts being taken to improve this part of the site even further to allow you to use quite a sophisticated interface to let us know which designs and products you are interested in. Stay tuned!

Additionally, we are preparing some additional and informative content as well, especially for the weddings section, so look for an announcement about this very soon.

Ever heard of Botanicalls? These guys were the ones who introduced a way to make phone calls to plants in order to find out how they are doing, whether they need more or less water. No, seriously, they did it. There are even samples of various responses from different types of plants for requests like “need water”, or “notification of unnecessary watering”.

Well, they’ve gone a bit further this time, and introduced a way to use the popular micro-blogging service Twitter. Yes, plants can now actually twitter their “feelings” in real time. Again, the idea is the same - know when your plant needs water, or has too much of it and take action accordingly.

We at Todich Floral Design have been doing covert SMS mesaging with our plants at various offices around London. Our plants notify us via SMS when our clients talk about us. It took years to train them, from generation to generation, until they got it right. For some reason, they always started SMS-ing each other and everything went crazy…

Okay, joking aside, electronic communication with living plants is not that new. In fact, it’s something that has been researched over decades, and there are indications that plants indeed are able to communicate, as the example above shows. Taking proper care of plants we can all enjoy their presence every day is what we do as professionals, but technological advancements that would make this easier are always welcome.

How about you? Would you twitt with your plants?

We are always happy to help people organise an event. It makes us feel as though we are a part of something bigger than us, something that will inspire a whole lot of people, and bring a little joy to everyday life.

This year the borough of Newham is home to a special Christmas event called Lithuanian Christmas. In cooperation with the Lithuanian Embassy, this fair is to take place on Meridian Square, starting on December 13. The Lithuanian Embassy has donated to Newham a huge Christmas tree, provided through Todich Floral Design. The tree has been placed in the middle of Meridian Square, to be part of the three day fair.

Newham has one of the most culturally diverse populations in the UK, and the Lithuanian community plays an important role in contributing to the vibrant atmosphere of the borough. This is a formidable opportunity to bring closer Lithuanian culture and tradition to the residents of London. If you are in the neighbourhood, stop by and enjoy the festivities. We are only too happy to have taken a small part in preparing this event.