Ross Jenkins AKA Bloom Boy doesn’t do subtle. Most of his clients know better than to ask for the subdued or polite. Jenkins is the florist to go to if you want ’80s-prom-style kitsch or an industrial-cum-psychedelic twist – or if you’re after flowers erupting from your washing machine or another such spot you wouldn’t normally see a floral installation.
While Jenkins has been known to spray-paint the odd Monstera leaf, his flowers have always unfurled on real-life plants growing in real-life soils. It’s just that their colours and shapes test our perceptions of the natural. He likes waxy anthuriums, stiff gerberas and electric coloured carnations. He makes amaranth cascade like satin ribbon and stands leafless iris stems at sharp and precise angles.
He especially noticed it when, after his events work dried up during Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns, he started selling weekly “pep-up posies”. “They gave a lot of people hope and made them happy.” Jenkins says his arrangements often prompt “a kind of nostalgia”. “I like that ’80s-prom feeling with carnations and baby’s breath and a vintage romance mood. I use a lot of those classic flowers that some people see as daggy. People have said to me, ‘Oh, I would never have touched gerberas or gladioli, you made me think differently’.”If using flowers and branches from you own garden, don’t harvest in the heat of the day and, immediately after cutting, sit the stems in water to stop any wilting.