This Mothers’ Day, if you winced at flower prices as an annual customer, a little voice in your head may have said “Oof! I should be selling flowers instead of buying them…”. Well, the Stockbridge Floral Design program will teach you to do just that, and do it sustainably too.
Because Stockbridge students love hands-on learning, Sarah Berquist’s revival of the 3-class combo and practicum a few years ago has quickly attracted program pollinators in the form of students nearly fluttering their wings with excitement.
Like all Stockbridge majors, the Floral Design program emphasizes sustainability in all cycles of the business—production, harvest, and sales. “We focus on sustainable arrangements using local, in-season, and foraged materials,” explains senior Susan Nadeau.
“We always forage ethically by correctly identifying species, taking only what we need, avoiding overharvesting from a single plant, and respecting property rights.”
This Spring, students got real-world experience making a sustainably grown arrangement for display at the Springfield Museums’ Festival of Flowers. They had the opportunity to join and network with over 50 professional florists from across the region.
Their shared creative goal was to interpret pieces, from throughout the galleries of the fine arts, history, and science museums, with stunning floral arrangements intended to bring paintings, sculptures, vehicles and even dinosaurs to life through color and texture.
The Stockbridge floral arrangement, entitled “Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly,” was displayed on a podium in the Celebration of Children’s Literature exhibit, among a collection featuring pieces of children’s books interpreted into floral art.
As pictured, the piece includes blooms from tulips, ranunculus, delphinium, hyacinths, snapdragons, garden roses, and a mix of foliage and spring branches.
The placard reads “Channeling the whimsy of Fancy Nancy… our design brings a flutter of spring to life through vibrant, garden-inspired blooms. With a touch of fancy and a sense of fun, this piece captures the imagination, charm, and colorful spirit of Nancy’s world.”
Springfield Museums Program Director Larissa Murray is excited to have the museums include students alongside professionals.
“In addition to florists, they’ll be featuring students from the Horticulture program at Chicopee Comprehensive High School,” alongside the Stockbridge School of Agriculture.
“We get lots of applications from Chicopee Comp,” comments Stockbridge Director of Student Recruitment Nessim Watson. “Our two and four year degrees are a natural next step for career-minded seniors graduating from programs like Chicopee’s that are invested in promoting outdoor green careers.”
The Stockbridge Floral Design program was launched in 2023, when Sustainable Food & Farming program director Sarah Berquist revived a course alumni may remember fondly: STOCKSCH 210 Retail Floral Design.
The program uses local and organically grown flowers, raised sustainably at the university’s outdoor Agricultural Learning Center. Using practices and approaches centered around sustainability, Sarah and her students provide floral arrangements and installations for events on campus, and they sell them at our Campus Farmers Market on Friday afternoons.
Additional courses in the Floral Design program include STOCKSCH 311 Advanced Cut Flower Production and Design, and STOCKSCH 496: Stockbridge Floral Design Student Leadership.
Across these courses, alongside significant opportunities for hands-on work, students receive interdisciplinary training in floral sourcing, design basics, proposal writing, floral production, marketing/sales, and community/relationship building. The courses’ activities and objectives are designed to embody all elements of the experiential learning cycle.
“Being a part of the Stockbridge Floral Design community has been one of the best parts of my college experience,” says Stella, a Hampshire College student studying studio arts. “The experience I gained… completely transformed my time at college in the best way possible.”
Stella joined the program “to grow my knowledge in design principles, as well as the growing process that I didn’t get to see or be a part of while working in a conventional floral shop.”
The fact that the UMass Amherst campus is also an arboretum with 8000 identified species makes Stockbridge an ideal location for learning plant and flower identification.
“One of my favorite things about the arboretum is that I have public access to a wide variety of species to forage, experiment with, and learn from!” says Nadeau.
In addition to the many greenhouses and student-run gardens on campus, the community-building aspects of our program are often a significant draw for students.
Stella reports that the program “has provided me with such a good experience, has given me many friendships that I am so grateful for, and I feel I have become a part of the best community of like-minded people.”
The Stockbridge Floral Design program is available to students of the Stockbridge School studying Sustainable Horticulture, Sustainable Food & Farming, and other majors.