Florabundance Hits the road

Florabundance will be the major provider for this year’s Tournament of Roses Parade for Charisma Floats. Their product will be featured in several locations for this year’s parade. Not only will they be the major source for the float flowers that will slowly make their way down Orange Grove and Colorado Blvd., they will also be the source for the Rose Emblem that will be suspended on the facade of the Norton Simon Museum for the entire world to see. But no one starts the parade without first seeing the Pasadena Motor Police Motorcycles adorned with fresh flowers again from Florabundance.
Being a major source for this amount of product is not an easy task. Charisma and Florabundance have had a long term relationship that makes it work like clockwork. Debbie Kline is the Account Manager for Florabundance that interfaces with the owners and Floral Director from Charisma. This process starts back in the fall as the floats go from a paper rendering to a full scale drawing. From here the process of welding pencil steel to a large chassis for the floats to begin to take shape. The pencil steel acts as a skeleton for the screen and burlap to be sewn on by hand a section at a time. This is a very laborious and time consuming process. Next is the process of skinning or cocooning which is a process of spraying a shell on the floats so they will become a hard surface to be worked on. Also during this time areas for floral foam are set in place and secured that will later hold a floral cage or mache container for the larger floral designs. Now we have a large 3 dimensional canvas on which a floral masterpiece will be created. But before flowers and foliages can be applied, it must be painted. That’s right, painted. This is done so when volunteers come to work on applying the dried materials, they can tell what color of seeds, and other dried materials go in what location. This is also a good time to make sure the colors ‘work’ and there is a flow or unity in the colors that were chosen. Treating a float like a giant canvas is the easiest way to make it work.
Now during ‘Deco Week’ as it is affectionately known, comes the application of dry materials such as rice, onion seed, crushed walnuts, pop corn, and flax to name a few of the hundreds of choices of dried materials available. Also, Statice that has been hand trimmed from the stems so no green stem will contaminate the color, straw flowers that also have been hand cut off the stem, Lunaria, Nori (seaweed) and raw cotton are also choices of materials available to choose from. Tedious application of seeds and dry materials are integrated with fresh petals of flowers such as carnations which have been applied one petal at a time, to cover every visible square inch of these giant floral sculptures.
To create areas of interest, large floral arrangements are designed by talented floral artists from around the world to provide the wow factor that captures the attention of the judges and viewers alike. Flowers are selected by many criteria. Color, durability, theme, visual impact and texture are a few of the considerations. These are often designed in fresh floral foam just as you would do in a retail operation. Mechanics are of utmost consideration since the parade route is over 5 miles long! They have to look as beautiful for the viewers at the end of the parade as they do at the beginning. No flowers bouncing out along the parade route! For the other areas of the floats that have floral treatments but not designed in floral foam, Aquapicks or water tubes are used to secure the flowers in place and still provide a water source. It is not uncommon to have 10,000 plus Aquapicks holding Gerbera Daisies, Roses, Orchids, and other fresh materials to complete the floral sculptures.
What a sight to behold! Add in the fragrance, the up close textures, music, and animation and you have a sight like no other to been seen. Thanks to all the staff at Florabundance and Charisma Designs for making this New Year’s Day one to remember for quite some time! Watch for the 911 Tribute float from the Los Angeles County Firemen that will feature the fire hydrant that was uncovered at Ground Zero and The City of West Covina to be decorated with flowers from Florabundance.