There’s a version of me that almost didn’t enter. A small-town girl from Beeton, Ontario, with parents who had never set foot in Europe — who was I to think I could compete with designers from across the country? But something about that Flowers Canada callout got under my skin. All designers across Canada. A winning hand-tied bouquet concept. I read it over and over, and quietly, stubbornly, decided: why not me?
Back in 1998, entering meant photographing your work and sending in printed copies. No digital submissions, no Instagram reels. Just you, your flowers, your camera, and your belief that what you made was worth showing the world.
“I set my sights on something beautiful — tulips, bells of Ireland, campanula, veronica, gerbera, novelty tulips, statice, bear grass, and curly willow.”
The winning bouquet — ingredients
Tulips & novelty tulips
Bells of Ireland
Campanula
Veronica
Gerbera daisy
Statice
Bear grass
Curly willow
I spent time with those flowers the way you spend time with something you want to get exactly right. Every stem placed with intention. The hand-tied technique is deceptively simple in concept and endlessly rewarding in practice — you hold the bouquet in one hand, adding stems at an angle, rotating as you go, letting the spiral build itself. Done well, it has a kind of organized wildness. That was what I was after.
When I found out I’d won, I didn’t quite believe it. And then I did, and the excitement was so big I didn’t know what to do with it. I was going to the Netherlands. I was going to learn from the best floral designers in the world. For a girl from a small village whose parents had never crossed the Atlantic, this felt less like a prize and more like a portal.
"Getting students learning and designing with joy and ease — that's at the heart of everything I do."
Which brings me to what I'm so excited to share with you right now. I've put together a free, step-by-step hand-tied bouquet tutorial — the very technique that started all of this for me — and it just dropped on YouTube. I walk you through everything, from selecting your stems to that satisfying final tie. Whether you've never held a bunch of flowers in your life or you've been designing for years and want to refine your spiral, this one's for you.
The Hand-Tied Bouquet Tutorial is live on YouTube — and it’s completely free.
Watch it, subscribe, and come back here to tell me what you think. I want to hear it all.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Spiral Secret Finally Revealed
Now here’s what I really want to know from you: What’s your biggest struggle when putting a bouquet together? Is it keeping the spiral even? Getting the stems to behave? Knowing which flowers to pair? Share your photos in the comments — yes, even the ones that didn’t quite come together. And tell me what tutorials you want to see next. This community is how I know where to go.
From Beeton to Amsterdam and back again — every lesson I’ve learned, I learned so I could pass it on. Now it’s your turn.
Cheering you on to be fearless with flowers. xo Dar
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