Reference
Glossary
The words tutorials and wholesalers use without explaining.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Airy | Thin, light stems (grasses, seed heads, buds) placed highest and longest to give movement. |
| Alum | Potassium alum, a grocery-aisle powder; dipping a fresh hydrangea cut in it stops the stem sealing. |
| Antique (hydrangea) | The late-season color stage, green to cream to rose or burgundy, when the florets turn papery. Tougher and longer-lasting than fresh heads; dries well. |
| Bind wire / paddle wire | Thin wire on a paddle or spool, used to bind bouquets and build garlands. |
| Binding point | The spot where a hand-tied bouquet's stems are gathered and bound; it does not move during the build. |
| Botrytis | Gray mold on petals, worst on roses in damp cold; do not mist roses. |
| Bouquet-to-vase | A hand-tied bundle cut short and dropped into a vase; a fast way to make consistent small arrangements. |
| Bunch | The wholesale unit, usually 10 stems; roses often 25; foliage by weight or "grower's bunch." |
| Collar | A ring of foliage or large leaves around the outside of a bouquet or the rim of a vessel to frame and hide. |
| Compote | A footed bowl; the signature vessel of garden-style centerpieces. |
| Conditioning | Everything done to a cut stem before design so it is hydrated and will last: strip, cut, dip, feed, cool, rest. |
| Crowning Glory | A FloraLife spray that seals petals against water loss; used on personal flowers with no water source. |
| Design cone / funeral cone | A plastic cone that attaches to a structure and holds stems in water or a soaked block; the water source in a foam-free arch. |
| Disbud | A chrysanthemum grown to one large head per stem. |
| Dry pack / dry shipped | Flowers shipped out of water in a box; they need a full processing and 12+ hours before use. |
| Ethylene | The ripening gas from fruit, exhaust and decay; causes petal and bud drop in sensitive flowers. |
| Filler | Small clustered flowers that fill gaps between focal and secondary stems. |
| Focal | The largest, most visually important flowers; placed low and central. |
| Foliage / greens | Leafy stems that build the base and hide mechanics; in foam-free work also structure. |
| Geotropism | Stems (snapdragon, stock, gladiolus) bending upward against gravity when stored on a slant; store upright. |
| Greening pins | U-shaped wire pins used to fasten moss over mechanics. |
| Guard petals | The outer two or three bruised petals on a shipped rose; removed during processing. |
| Hand-tied | A bouquet built in the hand and bound, as opposed to in a holder or foam. |
| Holding solution | Low-sugar flower food for bucket storage; keeps water clean and stems drinking without pushing blooms open. |
| Hydration box / chamber | A lidded container with damp paper towels for storing boutonnieres and corsages in the fridge. |
| Insert | A lined inner vessel with its own mechanic that lifts out of a decorative urn so the flowers can be built and moved separately. |
| Kenzan / pin frog | A heavy disc of sharp pins fixed to the bottom of a vessel; stems are pushed onto the pins. |
| Line flower | A tall straight stem (snapdragon, delphinium, branch) that sets height and direction. |
| Liner | A watertight inner container used inside a vessel that is not watertight. |
| Meadow / living meadow | A style where stems stand vertically at varied heights in a low base, as if growing. |
| Mechanics | Whatever holds the stems in place: wire, frog, tape, tubes, liners, weights. |
| Negative space | Deliberate air in a design; the difference between garden style and a packed dome. |
| Processing | The first stage of conditioning on arrival: unpack, strip, cut, dip, into solution. |
| Quick dip | An acidic hydrating solution the fresh cut is dipped into for seconds to speed uptake. |
| Recipe | The per-piece stem list by role or by flower; the unit of planning and ordering. |
| Reflexing | Folding a rose's outer petals back by hand for a fuller, opened look. |
| Run sheet | The day-of schedule: time, task, who, where. |
| Secondary | Mid-sized flowers that bridge focal to filler and carry color through a design. |
| Spiral | The hand-tied technique of laying each stem at an angle across the last and rotating, so stems form a spiral below the hand. |
| Stem wrap / floral tape | Stretchy paper or Parafilm tape that sticks to itself when stretched; covers wire in wearables. Not the same as waterproof tape. |
| Strike | Teardown after the event. |
| Strip | Remove leaves and thorns from a stem, especially below the waterline. |
| T-1, T-2, T-3 | Days before the event: T-1 is the day before, T-3 is three days before. |
| Tape grid | A lattice of waterproof tape across a vessel mouth to hold stems in place. |
| Transpiration | Water loss through leaves and petals; why you strip foliage and avoid wind and sun. |
| Vase life | How long a conditioned stem looks good in water at room temperature. |
| Water tube / vial / pick | A small capped tube of water for a single stem placed without a water source. |
| Waterproof tape | Sticky plastic tape (clear 1/4 in or green 1/2 in) for securing mechanics to vessels and binding bouquets; not stem wrap. |
| Wire gauge | Wire thickness; lower number is thicker. 22 for structure, 24 for boutonnieres, 26–28 for fine work. |