Su Whale is a florist and freelance writer with over twenty-five years' experience in the floristry industry. Su created a fantastic Christmas door wreath for the Floristry Trade Club; watch and learn as she explains how to make your very own. With insight into current trends, design technique and handy tips for construction. Watch how Su creates a beautiful Christmas door wreath reflecting the major trends for Christmas 2025, using moss, spruce, conifer and a selection of ru

It’s not just trees that glow at this time of year, some garden shrubs are capable of doing the same, and for me, Cotinus, or Smoke Tree....

Looking for a fast, eye-catching bouquet idea to boost your Halloween sales? In this short video, Su Whale shares a simple yet impactful design that’s perfect for pick-up & go customers. Using a bold orange and purple palette - featuring protea, leucospermum, asters and grasses - Su builds a compact bunch that looks great. The bouquet is wrapped in spooky coloured kraft paper, then finished with Halloween ribbon and a pumpkin pick. This simple design is ideal for retailing at

Using pumpkins, squashes and gourds in creative floristry designs is a seasonal treat. Su Whale shares her tips for success.

Set the scene for Halloween with Su Whale's pick of the creepiest houseplants for your horror-loving customers.

It’s not just children who love Halloween, everyone now seems to celebrate and shops are capitalising on this trend, selling everything from costumes to candles to homeware. Pumpkins are of course essential at Halloween, with 24million reportedly being sold in the UK alone. This is where florists can get in on the action too and there is no lack of inspiration; Instagram, for example is flooded with 1001 things to do with pumpkins, from the tiniest of gourds to giant sized sp

Celebrate the Jubilee with royal purple floral creations. Su Whale suggests some regal flower combinations.

Jatropha is an unusual, coral-like flower that is just the thing for adding a touch of the interesting and exotic to autumn and Halloween designs. Orange stemmed with bright green berries and red tips, it originates from the Americas and has had, over the years, many uses other than floral, including tanning, dying and basket weaving. A member of the Euphorbia family, Jatropha is a tropical succulent, and there are around 170 species in the group. They are not the most commo

Halloween is a great retail sales opportunity so get creative with your shop window displays and merchandising to draw in the customers.

Dahlias are back with a bang - long the preserve of fanatical gardeners, they're now the cut flower that everyone wants.

Su Whale celebrates the sunflower, that most emblematic of summer flowers

Here’s our selection of both green and flowering houseplants which are at their best in autumn.

Su Whale encourages you to get creative with your seasonal shop displays to make the most of those impulse purchasing opportunities.

Question – when is an Aster not an Aster? When it’s a Symphyotrichum! Formerly a very large group in the Asteraceae family, the flower which we know as Aster has been reclassified into another genus, Symphyotrichum (pronounced sim-fy-oh-TRY-kum) Not a name that rolls off the tongue, so this pretty, versatile flower is still generally referred to by its common names of September flower or Michaelmas daisy. Using Asters in Floral Design Aster is such a useful flower in flo

Su Whale provides her step by step guide on creating a hand-woven wreath base that's sustainable and ideal for woodland burials.