Floral foam is an innovation which has grown to be at the core of modern floristry. Interestingly most refer to the Foam brick as “Oasis ®”, the company who brought this product into our lives. Indeed when it comes to floral foam “Oasis ®” is very similar to “Hoover” which largely replaced the words “vacuum cleaner”.
Whilst you use it daily, do you understand the science to get the best out of your foam? Well let’s try and fill in a few gaps:-
- It’s Green or brown in colour. Green is used for wet work (generally with fresh flowers) and brown is dry work(generally silks and dried flowers)
- It holds 40 times its weight in water. In other words a full brick of foam will hold about 2 litres of water.
- When Oasis ® designed their foam they managed to reproduce the biological make-up of plant stem cell structure. The cells enable a capillary action which draws water in the base of the foam and draws it to the top – just like the stem of a flower does.
- Due to the foams unique structure it retains water in the cells, so once the water is in it doesn’t leak back out.
- When you are assembling your floral arrangement and insert a flower stem say 1” into a 4” brick of foam you are effectively increasing the flower stems length by a further 3” – due to the replication of the cell structure. The foam allows the stem to draw water from it.
- As long as there is water in the container it will be drawn through the foam and up into the stem. The longer you get your customers to put water in the container, the longer your flowers will last. Remind your customers it’s just like watering their house plants!
Today, floral foam exists in a number of forms to help with arrangements, weddings and floral tributes, so there is always a short cut to prepare your bridal bouquets, your teddy bear tribute or even your 3D football on a pitch.
So remember encourage your customers to give your creations a drink of water to get the highest level of enjoyment from your work.
