July 8, 2016May 6, 2022

5 Must Have Florist Tools

Being a florist is fun. Personally, I’d say the best way is to have a clear mind and a laid back approach towards it. Yes, there are a few hard and fast rules to be followed in the day to day operations, mostly when it comes to using the right tools for the job.

As a beginner, the last thing you want is to get sloppy with your tools and end up ruining your fingers, or having to do repetitive work and watch as carpal tunnel slowly creeps in. With time, you’d realise that the most important tool is your hand. Be it for cutting, designing, harvesting, the use of your hands comes first so you’d want to keep them as safe as you can. Therefore, habits like using floral snips to cut chicken wire or oversized, heavy clippers for harvesting are a No No.

Here are 5 Must Have tools for your day to day activities

FLORAL SNIPS:

They are lightweight, stay super sharp, and are usually perfectly shaped to rest in the palm of your hands. The thin, pointed blades are ideal for harvesting delicate flowers like sweet peas and ranunculus, but also handle thicker stemmed varieties such as dahlias and zinnias with ease.

Floral Snips

RIBBON SCISSORS:

Ribbons, like any fabric, require specialized scissors to be able to get the nice smooth lines for your fishtail or angled cuts. Using anything other than fabric scissors (which you can find in most craft or fabric stores) to cut your ribbon will likely mean mangling and fraying it and frustrating you. Every bridal bouquet we create is a serious labor of love. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to finish a bridal bouquet and grabbing a pair of snips to try to trim the ribbon, only for it to fray because you don’t have the right scissors.

Ribbon Scissors

WIRE CUTTER:

Chicken wire is essential for most floral designs, usually to give it a more natural look. Standard floral wire can also be used for boutonnieres and a few other floral design elements. Cutting all that wire can be quite a job—a job for a good pair of wire cutters.

Using flower snips to cut wire is a surefire way to at best dull your blade or at worst, bust it. Save your hands and your tools from a lot of stress by investing in a good pair (or two) of good wire cutters. I use large, industrial-strength wire cutters for chicken wire and smaller wire cutters for boutonniere work.

Wire Cutter

PRUNERS:

Smaller-sized, but heavy-duty pruning shears are usually the best bet. The ultra-sharp blades and sturdy handgrips make them ideal for pruning woody stems like roses, shrubs and trees – they can cut through thick branches like butter! Even though they are strong enough for heavy-duty garden work, they are also compact and lightweight, making them perfect for women seeking an alternative to the heavy, giant-sized pruners built for burly landscaping dudes.

Pruners

STEM CUTTERS:

Stem Cutter: AKA, “the guillotine,” this stem cutter is an essential tool for florists and flower farmers alike. It makes it easier to cut stems in bulk and in one smooth movement. It can be used to trim & “even out” the stems of grocery bunches before packing them. It’s also great for giving bunches of flowers a quick trim prior to design work–which also helps to prolong vase life. For designers, its the first thing they use when processing flowers in preparation for storage or design. This little tool has save time and wrist-ache and no studio is complete without this essential tool.