Frogs: The Most Basic Enginneering
Engineering:
One thing that people often forget about is how much engineering goes into floral design. One of the main types of engineering used is what westerners call a frog. A frog is any mechanism that helps prevents flowers from moving around too much. Here are some of the types, their benefits and downfalls.This list is by no means exhaustive. These are some of the more common types of mechanisms used to hold flowers in place.
Floral foam: This mechanic is commonly used by florists. The main benefit of floral foam is that it provides clean water to flowers. End users don’t have to worry too much about how to keep the water clean. (Clean water is one of the keys to having your flowers live longer). Another strong benefit is that traveling with materials in floral foam is really easy. Materials will stay in place.
There are many downsides to this particular choice. One issue is that once you put a flower into floral foam, it leaves a hole in that place. This means it is more difficult to place a different flower in that same spot, almost impossible. The more “mistakes” you make means more holes where you can’t fill things in and get full arrangements. So you really need to get the placement right the first time. Another is related to the toxicity and non biodiogreadibility of the materials. The main manufacturer of floral foam is Oasis, they are working on making more environmentally friendly products. Currently a majority still have “forever chemicals” that are toxic and also will never break down.
Sometimes, there are really not any other good options. I try to get the most use possible out of floral foam, when I need to use it. I can usually flip it upside down and use the “bottom” to get a second arrangement.
Waterproof tape: Waterproof tape comes in different widths. There is less waste than with floral foam. It keeps materials in a general area, not necessarily in the exact place like floral foam, but pretty darn good.
The main issue with tape is that it is not particularly strong, so some heavier materials will make working with it a lot harder.
Chicken wire: This is a really good substitute for floral foam. Items tend to stay where you put them and it is much stronger than tape. Traveling with arrangements using chicken wire is not too difficult.
The downside of chicken wire is that you don’t want to use it in a clear vase, because it is ugly. Though that is also true with floral foam. You can of course obscure the chicken wire by wrapping your clear vase in some other material.
No mechanic: You can use the stems of your botanical materials to create a way to hold things in place. Benefits of this method are that it creates no waste and you don’t need special materials to use it.
However creating your arrangement using this method can be slightly more challenging, especially with the first few stems. You need to have enough material to hold things in place, before you start moving things around.
Kenzan or metal pin frog: This mechanic will keep things in the exact place you put them. It allows you to tilt materials like large branches at extreme angles and they will stay there. It is reuseable.
Downsides are: it is expensive so you don’t want to give them away with your flowers and traveling with materials in Kenzan’s is really problematic especially if you are taking advantage of it’s true potential.