The Best Canadian Florists With the Most Inspiring Designs

With over 16 years of experience, Rebecca DeOliveira is the creative director and owner of Toronto’s Blush and Bloom. The self-described “flower pimp” is renowned among her peers for her aesthetic, and creative arrangements from her studio often appear as the backdrop to major industry events. Her passion for teaching led her to launch Bloom School – a space where other flower enthusiasts and industry leaders can hone their craft through workshops. This particular arrangement, with its muted palette mingled with deep wine tones and brown accents, shows off autumn’s elegant side.

Tessa Meisner

is the head floral designer at Blush and Bloom. Though you’ll usually find her eye-catching designs with the rest of her team, she also works independently to create unique arrangements. Her displays often showcase the transition between seasons, featuring natural elements like berries, fruits and seeds. As for this autumn display? “The textures and rich, delicate details of the season make fall creatively inspiring,” she says. The bouquet features organic, locally-grown elements, including roses, echinacea, cherries and hibiscus.

Jordana Masi

is the owner of Toronto’s White Oak Flower Co. With over a decade’s worth of experience in the industry, the florist loves to tell stories through her designs. Of her featured arrangement, she says: “There was a bucket of peachy-pink ranunculus that I didn’t end up using for an event, and I really wanted to play with them. I first spotted the burning bush, which was almost the identical tone to the ranunculus. From there, I clipped some wild grasses and added in the darker foliage. I love the way the fuzzy grasses and heuchera leaves tone down the pink, softening its edges and making it feel less precious.”

Step inside Alison Westlake’s charming Toronto floral studio Coriander Girl (which recently relocated to the city’s Little Portugal neighbourhood) and you’ll be drawn to her distinct country-style aesthetic. “When designing an arrangement, I always imagine my own garden and how flowers grow together in nature… nothing is ever exactly the same height,” she says. “In the fall, our go-to focal flower is the dahlia, but the garden is bursting with so many other gorgeous blooms and foliage, which makes it one of our favourite seasons for designing.”

Molly and Alexandrina Shannon

are self-proclaimed “succulent-obsessed” sisters, and the creative minds behind Canadian Succulents, servicing the Greater Toronto Area. This is one of their favourite fall arrangements, featuring an assortment of the low-maintenance plants. “Succulents are so unique. We love working with them because they last much longer than cut flowers and can be enjoyed for years afterwards,” says Molly. “We re-potted the ones in this arrangement after they outgrew the pumpkin planter, and they’re still growing strong!”

Melanie Harrington

is the owner of Dahlia May Flower Farm. Founded in 2014, the farm is located in Southwestern Ontario, just outside Trenton. In fact, the flowers seen in this arrangement were all grown on site! “Every autumn, we grow specialty pumpkins and gourds to create beautiful Thanksgiving centerpieces,” she says. “We carve out the pumpkins and place glass jars inside, which we then fill with flowers from the farm.” This centerpiece is spilling with purple kale leaves, apples, wheat, amaranthus, zinnias, statice and yew foliage.

Tanisha Out

is the owner and head designer of Vancouver’s Society Floral. Although trained in a variety of floral design techniques, she’s especially passionate about creating asymmetrical, garden-style arrangements with a natural flair. “For these florals, we wanted to use all dark foliage to give them a moodier feel,” she says. “We used quicksand roses as the focal flower, mixed with smaller textural elements such as berries, delicate climbing garden roses and baby’s breath. Overall, the combination makes a dramatic, modern statement.”

This creative is part owner of The Flower Factory, a boutique floral shop that services Greater Vancouver. This elegant, vintage-inspired arrangement was “themed around Hemingway and the writers of the era, expats in Europe and the artist salons,” she says. “It features succulents, Café au Lait dahlias, ranunculus, chocolate cosmos and eucalyptus greens, all of which have colours on-point with the nouveau fall look of creams and blush paired with marsala and burgundy.”

Alice de Crom

is a floral designer and the creator of Floralista Flower Studio. She grew up among flowers, which is how her passion and creativity began (both of her parents were professional horticulturalists). Her designs capture a whimsical style, playing loosely with structure and movement. “We brought the beauty of autumn inside with this arrangement of ranunculus, David Austin garden roses, lysimachia and anemones,” she says. “By adding foraged branches and vines from our garden, we added soft movement and wildness to this muted fall melody.”

Meet Kyla Ferguson, the creative director behind Winnipeg’s Academy Florist. The studio has been around for 36 years and is the city’s go-to shop for creative, show-stopping arrangements. “This floral piece was created with a looser, more ‘easy going’ shape in mind, and the colours complement an unexpected early fall palette,” she says. “We started the creative process by choosing a unique autumn colour scheme for our tablescape – our focus being on the flowers, which were supplemented by the other design elements.”

Heather Page

is a floral designer whose creativity and style is showcased in her work at Academy Florist. Her arrangements are romantic in nature and have a refined aesthetic, as captured in this featured piece. “This arrangement sits in a vintage brass vessel and is composed of a mixture of local autumn foliage,” she says. “It was inspired by the hues of the season when the leaves have changed colour, but not yet dropped to the ground.”

Alicia Steeves

is the owner and creative mind behind Littlest Flower Farm, a floral farm-meets-studio on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. She uses farm-fresh blooms for each of her displays, and even sells plant-dyed silk ribbons. “This arrangement was created in my signature loose garden style,” she says. It features everything from field-grown lisianthus and begonia to pearly everlasting and dusty miller. “I’m forever inspired by the seasons of the garden, what’s fresh from the field, the roadside, and from my community of local-cut flower growers.”