Urban Blooms

As noted in Broadsheet, Spring has well and truly sprung as 18 large-scale floral installations will overrun iconic locations across Melbourne as part of the City of Melbourne’s new Urban Blooms initiative. A highlight – and the largest installation – is Fitzroy florist Flowers Vasette’s takeover of Flinders Street Station’s facade. The expertly curated botanical arch is six metres high and 18 metres from end to end (and it took the team multiple overnighters to pull together).

More than 1200 native stems make up the installation – including bottle brush, eucalyptus, banksia, callistemon, sheoak, red box gums and kangaroo paw – and they were all sourced from Victorian growers. You’ll also find beautiful floral installations at Pellegrini’s, Regent Theatre, Degraves Street, Hosier Lane, Arts Centre Melbourne, and more.

Sponsored by the City of Melbourne to encourage people back into the city after a long lockdown The 18 floral installations created a bright path through the city, encouraging people to walk past and pose for a photo. Local florists created a spectacular display at each location. Florists included Flowers Vasette, Flower Temple, Botanics Melbourne, Queen St Florist, Cecilia Fox, The Road Stall, Casa Verde, Georgie Boy Flowers and Katie Marx.

The Flinders Street installation falls under the Urban Blooms project that is part of the $100 million Melbourne City Recovery Fund delivered by the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State. For Ms Miriklis-Pavlou, the founder and creative director of Flowers Vasette, the Flinders Street Arch is the largest of the Urban Bloom projects and it is also the largest installation that the Fitzroy-based company has undertaken in its 30-year history.

“We have named it the Arch of Resilience in tribute to the flower growers who faced the drought, the fires and also COVID-19,” Ms Miriklis-Pavlou told Neos Kosmos. “It is also a celebration of our 30 years in the business.”

She said the flower industry had suffered greatly because of COVID-19. When the lockdown took place (in April), the demand for flowers came to a halt.

“The growers had nowhere to sell their product. We tried to push their product through our website. The public does not understand what it takes to get the flowers to the table. Growers work very hard and get up early to get the flowers to the market and with COVID-19 the growers had nowhere to sell their product.”

During lockdown, Flowers Vasette itself had to shift to selling vegetable hampers to ride the COVID-19 storm.

“It went well at the time. We sold fresh vegetable and food hampers because people needed food on the table not flowers. Many would not go to the supermarkets. We sold up to 100 hampers a day,” said Ms Miriklis-Pavlou.

Even as the city endured two bouts of lockdown, the florists were already looking at ways to celebrate the re-opening of the city. The problem was not knowing when the lockdown would come to an end.

“We had just two weeks before Urban Bloom went ahead,” said Ms Miriklis-Pavlou. Once the design was in place, her team working, was given just three nights to complete the arch over Flinders Street Station.

“Because it is Flinders Street station (the busiest in Melbourne) we had to work between midnight and 5am to set it up. It took a team of 15 people and I am grateful for the help of (construction firm) Showtech in setting up the installation.”