In the last few months of ikebana deliveries, I have been trying to think of a way to sculpt flowers into arrangements without using a metal pinned frog (kenzan). It is difficult to do an arrangement, and then arrange with the client to come a week or so later to pick up my equipment, and obviously this method will not scale very well once I get busier. Also, the kenzan is quite sharp and the heavy duty ones can really injure the fleshy bits on your hands, so it’s not ideal to have clients dismantling arrangements. How can I create the exact angles and placements of stems that are necessary, but not use anything that I would need to pick up later?

I thought I had the answer in floral foam, the green spongy mystery bricks that many florists use in arrangements. But doing a little research on floral foam brings up pretty horrifying facts: floral foam is a non-biodegradable plastic full of carcinogenic toxins. http://gorgeousandgreen.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/floral-foam-not-so-green/

The article points out that there are lots of ways to arrange flowers in a vase without foam; you can use twisted thin branches or wire, or even moss. (One commenter suggest aspen wood shavings, which I hadn’t thought of before!) But with ikebana, the arrangement has to be so exact that I don’t think these methods will work.

I need to devise a floral foam that is non-toxic! Or is one already being made? More searching brought me to a florist in LA, http://dandelionranch.com/, who’s owner, Clover Chadwick, has been creating an eco-friendly foam alternative. I couldn’t find information about it being available for purchase, but I contacted them just in case…

I came across another florist that is using watermelons instead of floral foam! http://floralsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/floral-foam-is-not-biodegradable.html It is something I would definitely try if I was doing a day installation, but for deliveries, the watermelon would surely begin to rot pretty quickly. Also, using watermelon would be pricey and I would feel sad not eating it.