 TORONTO – The Milne House Garden Club of Toronto
recently hosted a two-day presentation and seminar with Swedish floral
design champion Per Benjamin. The stage presentation kicked off the
event with a fabulous and entertaining demonstration.
Per describes his own style as modern decorative and it is truly a precise description of what he does and is passionate about.
He started showing a monochromatic design with carnations. He explained how much he loves carnations and how well they work for his design style. Well, I found an immediate floral friend! Because I too feel carnations offer unlimited possibilities but they need to be discovered. The flower has an incredible range of colours and textures, long lasting qualities, and as well as lends itself well to manipulation and transformation.
 He proceeded to arrange carnations in a bowl maintaining the same stem length. The heads of the carnations were then connected with individual wires inserted into the flower heads. As a result a solid structure was achieved and additional materials were inserted to complement the colours and the texture.
The design that followed was all in the blues and purples and the design was constructed onto a pre-made armature of coloured drinking straws. Each straw contained a wire inside and so each wire was twisted onto the next wire. The elongated armature was used for a cascading bouquet into which he simply inserted short floral materials.
It was fascinating to see how Per used very simple materials such as drinking straws to achieve a very contemporary look.
The inspiration for the following design came from a wedding celebration that was held in an ice hotel in a small village in northern Lapland in Sweden. In Per’s own words: “Creating flower designs for the wedding in the Ice church was a true challenge. The durability of the flowers proved to be no problem, as they froze and stayed the way they were. Design wise I chose the icicle and the warming hand muff as my inspiration. Translating the glistening patterns and different whites of the snow has been a true joy. Flowers, snow, and ice come together as one in the cold but nevertheless very romantic setting of this winter wonderland.” The floral hand muff was created with two pieces of cardboard in a heart shape, which then were lined with white velvet and had small bundles of baby’s breath tightly wired onto the surface. A few blossoms of the Phalenopsis orchid completed the design. Again a fascinating design, using simple materials in a very effective way. He truly demonstrated great skill and sensitivity in selecting colours and materials for his designs.
Per Benjamin was born in Stockholm, Sweden, became Swedish champion in 1997, Scandinavian champion in 2000 and 2003 and won the World Cup competition in 2002. He has published several books among them his latest called Wedding Emotions, which he published with two of his colleagues he often travels with, giving seminars and presentations around the world.
The workshop that followed the next day was equally fascinating and with Per’s great sense of humour and relaxed style it was a fun and inspiring day.
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