Let’s talk about wedding flowers… and how to stretch your budget. 

A bride recently came to us with the unique request of Bougainvillea bouquets. My guess is, at some point in her life she has spent quite a bit of time in Florida or another tropical area and naturally fell in love with the stop-you-in-your-tracks electrifying pink of this warm-climate beauty. Our floral design consists of flowers grown at our farm, or if we need it, sourced from a nearby grower. 100% locally grown floral design from four-season Kentucky which is Zone 6. Bougainvillea grows in Zone 9 or 10.  I must have been feeling rather bold, because saying no to the bride’s tropical request didn’t feel right. Of course we can provide bouquets of locally grown, tropical bougainvillea.... from Kentucky..... in May. Quite a bold commitment on my part. Perhaps, even crazy. I contacted a prestigious local nursery and they happily agreed to hold many of their bougainvillea plants for nearly a year until game time. Finding locally grown bougainvillea wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I was feeling pretty confident about this challenging project I had taken on.

 

Getting locally grown tropical flowers nailed down for a May wedding in Kentucky should have been the hardest part..... right? Boy, was I wrong. Closer to time I was checking on the flowers weekly, and getting more and more nervous. This “ever-blooming” plant blooms in 3-4 week cycles which can be shorter or longer due to the sunlight and other elements. Ever-blooming would be the correct term for someone enjoying this as a plant in their yard or from a distance, not as a cut flower that is being viewed closely and handled frequently. Thankfully, out of the 23 plants (much more than I would need) they weren’t all on the same bloom schedule. So when it came time for hacking these beauties up for bouquets, I was guaranteed that at least half would be blooming beautiful long tendrils of fiery magenta.

 

A week out, I realize how crazy it is to rely on these 23 baskets. I envision myself frantically driving 12 hours to hack on someone’s bougainvillea plant in the deep south….. I think I better call a florist and see what the options are for ordering bougainvillea in the event that something horrific happened to ours. Ordering non- locally grown back-ups would go against everything we stood for, but it would be much better than letting down the bride - which is simply NOT an option. 

 

Well guess what is also, not an option? Ordering any cut bougainvillea what-so-ever. Bougainvillea is NOT sold as a cut flower. Not anywhere, not any time. I start panicking and googling.....googling and panicking. “Bougainvillea, while gorgeous, is a horrible option for a cut flower, it wilts almost immediately and is covered in thorns.” “Bougainvillea, covered in thorns, shatters and wilts within hours.”

I also find that there is little to no research conducted on bougainvillea as a cut to avoid this wilting problem. 

 

I found a few strange and unique conditioning options in the depths of the internet other than our usual method of conditioning most all of our cut flowers (flora-life and locked up in the cooler for 24 hours- which was not mentioned anywhere on the internet for bougainvillea). Do they simply not store in the cooler because they are tropical? I have no idea, and apparently no one else does either, because I literally found 2 bits of advice on bougainvillea as a cut flower throughout the entire world-wide web other than "do not use this as cut flower."  I had to find a way to make this happen.

 

48 hours before the wedding I conducted an experiment using 5 different conditioning methods on a few tendrils of bougainvillea. Like you would for any woody stem, I split the bottom of each stem, in order to allow them to drink as much water as possible. 

1. In water with flora-life & conditioned in the cooler for 2.5 hours

2. In water with holding solution & conditioned in cooler for 2.5 hours

3. Placed in HOT (not boiling) water then immediately sealing the bucket with a plastic bag creating a tent of humidity for 2 hours (no cooler)

4. Place freshly cut stem tip into BOILING WATER for about 10 seconds and then place the spray (blooms) upside down fully submerged in a bucket of COLD water for 2 hours (no cooler), then set up to drip dry.

5. SEARED freshly cut stem with blow-torch and placed in bucket with flora life. (no cooler)

 

I pulled all 5 of these experiments (each in a bucket), set them side by side, and played the waiting game…… Within a few hours it was clear that they all looked pretty good, but the best was the humidity tent. At this point I am thankful that something is working, but terrified that I am going to run around like crazy making hundreds of little saunas for each tendril of bougainvillea. What have I got myself into!?! 

 

When 24 hours was up, I was very thankful to see that each and every one of these experiments worked!!  Shew! The only problem that is evident is the double-bloomed bougainvillea  (which made up about 20% of my bougainvillea plants) did not hold up as well as the single-bloomed. It still works and stays intact rather than shattering, but will wilt rather quickly. By wilt, I mean simply droop over, it did not lack any color, or fall apart. In fact, it actually worked quite well on the bottom edges of two large arrangements providing a lush, over-flowing element. 

 

In addition to the 5 experiments, I had one tendril that I simply cut and left in the cooler overnight (our usual method of conditioning almost every cut flower at Three Toads Farm). I compared all of these and guess which one looked as good as any…. the one that was cut and simply held in the cooler all night long. I may have done all of that stressing for nothing. But at least we know now! (My fear before the experiment was that the cooler would have zapped the life out of these tropical, warm-weather loving southern plants.)

 

All of this experimenting delayed the actual bouquet making till 1:30 PM the Friday before the wedding, less than 24 hours before I had to start delivery. But it was important to figure out what was the best way to condition these beauties. And thankfully, this was not an extremely huge wedding- I had enough time to make the amount needed for this wedding. I successfully created some out-of-this-world arrangments and slept well knowing they'd condition over night in the cooler and be in tip-top shape the next day for the wedding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to thank the bride for requesting these impossible pink, thorn-covered beauties. Without her unique request I would not have gained this valuable knowledge, nor would I have been pushed to do something way out of my comfort zone. I sincerely hope another designer brave enough to promise bougainvillea to a bride gains knowledge from this experience. Half way through the process I swore I’d never use bougainvillea again, but after seeing the end result, how could I hate these beautiful vibrant flowers? Call me crazy, but I would love to recreate this late Spring beauty for another bride in the future. 

 

-Elizabeth B.H. Montgomery