An appreciation gift for a favorite teacher or as decoration to ornament a dull coffee table, Hays County members can now buy seasonal floral compositions for a one time fee of $95 by Oct. 24.
“I believe people should invest because— well, flowers are pretty,” junior Isla Zuniga said. “I like flowers and feel like they’re a good representation of the natural beauty in the world, and they’re just a nice thing to have.”
The compositions are arranged by the Floral Design program managed by class instructors and subscription directors, Tiffany Stratton and Amanda Gregory. Currently, all 150 subscriptions are available for ordering.
“We [Gregory and I] love our job and the students really love it because it gives them more of an opportunity to prove and practice their skills,” Stratton said.
The seasonal subscription was pitched in the school’s second year being open as a way to promote and prove community involvement. Having said that, it fundamentally operates as an opportunity for students to perfect their botanical craft, hone customer service skills, and train themselves with hands-on experience on par with what it means to be a professional florist.
“I feel like Floral Design helps with creativity and offers that opportunity to be creative,” junior Claire Urban said. “It’s an arts and crafts kind of class but more fun than traditional art, in my opinion.”
Each order guarantees one delivery of flowers for each season of the year, and patrons should expect them around holiday times. The arrangements are purposely assembled to correspond with their designated seasonal aesthetic, e.g. spring shipments are softer and livelier in presentation, while autumn ones are moodier in tones.
“I think the subscription and class is a really easy way to be able to creatively express yourself,” junior Olivia Lawrence said. “While also being fun.”
Alongside the program offers holiday-central floral displays such as Thanksgiving cornucopias and Christmas wreaths, as opposed to solely traditional bouquets. Arrangements are wrapped in parchment or paper-based encasements, for vases or glassware is not included.
“I think [investing in the subscription] is a fun way to get involved in what Floral Design does,” Urban said. “And they’re really fun arrangements just to have in your house.”
Orders are done online through revtrack; patrons can find the access link on the flyer in the Weekly Newsletter and on their socials.
“The subscriptions are cheaper than any other subscription you’ll find in stores like H-E-B,” Lawrence said.
Notably, the subscription is not only focused on patron benefit, but also student support. All the money made goes directly into Floral Design funds which covers essential supplies and materials necessary for the production of the class. So payments are not only focused on the embellishment of somebody’s foyer, but also the substructure of student investment in earthborn artistry.
“Floral Design is such an important art form to me because it’s a form of natural beauty,” Zuniga said. “With contributing factors like deforestation and the increase of urbanization, I feel like this generation is losing the sense of natural beauty. So this art form is kind of showing us it’s still here and it’s beautiful and we should still cherish it.”
