There are some jobs that come with a certain charm; jobs that when you tell people what you do they go, “oh, cool”, and you can tell they mean it. In my experience, floristry was one of those jobs.
I worked as an assistant florist for just over a year while I was at university, and as much as I loved the creativity, and being surrounded by beautiful flowers all day, it wasn’t without its challenges. As I was just an assistant I didn’t have to source flowers myself, but my boss did and every week she was up at the crack of dawn to make it to the markets at 4am – definitely not an easy job if you like to sleep in as I do.
Once she arrived with the flowers, one of my jobs was to lift the dozens of vases from the high wooden bench, empty and clean them all and then refill them ready for new blooms.
This could take up to an hour-and-a-half, with water sloshing all over me and the floor, and my arms aching from hefting the gigantic vases up and down.
It was back-breaking work and, occasionally, I would have to clean a vase which had held lotus pod flowers. These are gorgeous and striking flowers but for some reason, their stems in water gave off the most diabolical stench, like fishy death. If I spilled this water on myself it was a real day ruiner.
Once all the vases were clean and ready, it was time to prep the flowers, ready to go into water.
The hardest flowers to prep are roses. They are gorgeous and popular flowers, which means we had them in droves and every stem needed to be stripped of thorns.
By using a metal implement that looked a little like a staple gun, I would grasp the rose and drag the metal prongs down to strip it of thorns.
I don’t think I ever managed to do this without ramming a thorn directly into either the soft pad of my thumb, or down into my fingernail. There was always a casualty, and there was always blood.
I think because my hands were always in water, the skin was more delicate because it used to tear like crepe paper while I worked at this job.
However, even though I would leave my shift drenched in sweat, covered in blood and often itchy from plant sap I truly did love being a florist.
It allowed me to exercise my creativity, work alongside one of the best in the business, and learn more about the flowers and plants I loved so much. In saying that, I much prefer just arranging my bouquets at home – it’s a lot less painful.