Essential Florist Tools and How to Use Them.

We get asked about various techniques and tools when it comes to floristry quite often. A lot of times, these techniques use various tools to make them work effectively. So we decided to put together an overview of the most common floral tools and what they are used for.

In general, the most common florist tools and supplies are floral tape, pin frogs, water tubes, cutting tools like shears or clippers, vases, chicken wire, floral foam, and paddle wire. With these items, you will be able to tackle almost any floral job.

Let’s take a look at each one and why you need them in your studio space today.

Floral Tape

Floral tape is extremely useful in many areas of floristry. The first thing to know is there are different types of floral tape. There is the regular floral tape that is used for wrapping around stems, and then there is waterproof adhesive floral tape. 

We prefer to use the waterproof adhesive floral tape for all situations that we would need tape for. Our favorite brand of this kind of tape is Oasis and we love the thinner quarter-inch (¼) size. Here is a link to Amazon if you are interested in picking some up for yourself.

The reason why we love this floral tape so much is that the adhesive sticks well to floral stems, and everything else for that matter. We love to use it for bridal bouquets, bridesmaids’ bouquets, and boutonnieres. It is really strong and reliable when wrapping the stems of your bouquet together. It doesn’t come unstuck easily as well due to its waterproof nature. We find it to be dependable. 

Another great use for it is for making a tape grid on vases. (If you don’t know what a tape grid is, we recommend signing up for our newsletter, and downloading our free book. In our book “How to Make an Arrangement with Grocery Store Flowers.” we show you how to make one.) Again its strength and waterproof nature make reliable tape grids that will not come apart even during transport to our clients. 

You will likely find tons of uses for floral tape in your studio. We use it every day, all the time.

We have nothing against the regular stretchy floral tape. Some people swear by it and that’s great. But we have just found that the adhesive floral tape works best for us.

Pin Frogs

Pin frogs are reusable, heavy metal discs with small nail-like spikes that stick up from the base. It looks like a small circular bed of nails. The pin frog must be adhered to the bottom center of your vase with floral clay adhesive tape. When designing, flower stems are placed into and in between these spikes, this provides the structure needed to hold up the flowers. 

Pin frogs allow floral magic to happen. They provide structure in the base of the arrangement that enables you to place floral stems in all kinds of wild directions. 

This arrangement above is an example of our work that where the vase is using a tape grid with a pin frog at the bottom. This is probably one of my favorite combinations. 

Lastly, since pin frogs are heavy, they add a nice weight to the bottom center of your arrangement. This can help prevent your arrangements from tipping over in windy situations. This depends on how strong the wind is, but it does help.

You can buy Pin frogs at your local floral supply store, or on Amazon here (link to Amazon), and you can get floral adhesive clay here. (also a link to Amazon). We normally use white adhesive clay, but it comes in green as well. 

Water Tubes

Water tubes are essential for placing a flower in locations that have no access to water. They are small tubes that you fill with water with a rubber cap. The rubber cap has a hole where you insert the stem of a flower. The stem will have access to its very own private water supply. This will keep them hydrated for a while, depending on the rate at which the flower drinks the water (every flower is different). 

This item works great for events. It allows you to put flowers in that unexpected location. For example, when we make floral table runners from scratch, we use water tubes on flowers that will be sitting out all night. We simply tube the stem and then cover it with greenery, and no one will ever know that it has a water tube attached.

Another good use is for arches. This removes the pressure of making sure you have a stem long enough to place into the foam cage on your arch. You can simply just water tube it and move on. As you can see, they are extremely helpful.

Water tubes are inexpensive tools to keep in your toolbox. You never know when you are going to need one. Here are some water tubes on Amazon. We prefer these because they have spikes at the tip. We think they stick in your mechanics the best and hold a good amount of water.

Cutting Tools

Cutting tools are probably the most essential tool for florists. Clippers, saws, loppers, you name it, florists use it. 

We have already written about these in length in two separate articles.

• If you want to know about our favorite floral clippers, read more here.

• If you want to know about other important ways to cut floral stems, read more here. 

Vases

An often under-considered, but never overlooked item is the vase. The vase is extremely important in floral design, not only because it simply holds your flowers, but because the shape itself determines the shape of the floral arrangement. I would argue that vase choice is just as important as flower choice in the arrangement. 

The physical characteristics of the vase impact your overall design. The color of the vase will play off of the colors in your arrangement. The size and the shape of the vase determine how many flowers you can place, and what direction the florals will go, and how tall or wide your arrangement will be. 

The shape of the vase also affects which of these methods we are explaining in this article are best for your arrangement. It is best to test each of them and find something that works. Also, if you don’t know which method to try for your vase, you can always do a tape grid. 

We think it is best to use a tape grid in combination with another method, like pin frogs or chicken wire. 

Chicken Wire

When you think of chicken wire, your first thought is probably not flower projects. But chicken wire is one of the most useful items in a floral studio. It is also important to note that the chicken wire should be the green vinyl coated version. This will keep it from rusting in your vases. 

The best floral uses for chicken wire is using inside of vases or forming it into a structure for installations. 

Placing chicken wire into a vase is great to give your flower arrangement some structure for the stems. Think of it like scaffolding on a building. You simply cut some chicken wire, and crumble it up in a ball like you would a piece of paper. Be careful not to cut yourself, the cut edges are sharp.

We have used chicken wire to create large installations such as cloud-like structures that hang from the ceiling. We simply shaped it into a ball, spray-painted it to match the color of our greenery, and started sticking plumosa fern and other greenery into it. Once fully covered, you can start placing your flowers (make sure you water tube them). 

Chicken wire solves a lot of problems in the studio, its strength, ability to hold flowers, and while still being lightweight make it an ideal canvas for your floral design.

Here is an example of the chicken wire we use from Amazon. You can get this at any hardware store.

Floral Foam

Floral foam has become a hot topic these days, and not in a good way. It is not very sustainable and inhaling the powder that is created from cutting the foam is not good for your lungs. 

But sometimes you need to use floral foam. We tend to use it as a last resort if we can’t find a better solution. 

Floral foam is a dense green foam that soaks up water. It can and will keep your flowers hydrated through an entire event, even in the sun. When using floral foam, you don’t need to use a tape grid, or any other type of mechanics to give your florals structure. The foam is dense enough to hold up the florals. The one caveat is this, every time you poke a stem into the structure gets weaker. So if you keep trying to replace the same flower into the same spot, it won’t hold as well. But, if you keep that in mind when designing, it’s not that big of a deal. 

One great thing about floral foam is that it can be cut into any shape. You can simply slice up a piece and stick it into your vase of choice. 

When soaking the floral foam, we recommend getting a bucket filled with water and placing the foam on top of the water’s surface. It will float. Let the water soak up into the foam on its own. Eventually, it will sink to the bottom. This is the best way to soak the foam. If you press the foam down into the water, it will not fully soak up the water. Honestly, we have tried this, and have not had that big of an issue, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Allowing the foam to soak up on its own will ensure the center of the foam gets saturated with water properly. Also, it’s just easier to place the foam on the water and walk away. There is always something to do in the studio!

There are various accessories made for floral foam. Our favorite is floral foam cages. This cage, which contains exposed floral foam, can be zip-tied to any structure for your floral design. These are great for arches!

The best floral foam is by Oasis, we use this one (link to Amazon). This link is to the bulk box, but you can buy it in smaller quantities on Amazon as well. 

Paddle Wire

Paddle wire is a thin green wire that is wrapped around a paddle. It’s made from metal and is flexible and strong. We use it primarily during installations for holding flowers or branches in place. From time to time you get a difficult stem that doesn’t naturally sit where you want it when you are working on an arch or other structure. Simply maybe a loop from the structure to the stem, and tighten it up until it’s in the right spot. It also comes in handy in the studio for random uses.

Think of paddle wire as a strong way to tie things together that blends in great with mechanics. Zip ties also are fantastic for this, but they can be a little obtrusive. Paddle wire is very thin and darkish green. It is hard to see and easy to cover up.

Here is some paddle wire from Amazon. It is all pretty much the same stuff and a little lasts a long time. It is one of those things that I don’t need very often, but there is nothing like it when I do.

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