If you are thinking of decorating your home and don’t know yet how to start, perhaps you can begin with flowers. Abundant, colorful and evocative, flowers are nature’s majestic creations, summing up the word beauty in a petal. They exist, it seems, merely to delight, titillate the eye and remind us that we should once in a while stop on our daily grind and, pun intended, smell the flowers.

Put a stash of big-headed carnations in a vase and look how the space immediately blooms. Asters and baby’s breath create a magical feel, the pinprick blossoms revealing their white asterisks to a streak of green. What new thing can I add about roses, whose petals (red and velvety) immediately put a romantic touch to any room, especially if they are scattered on the floor, leading towards a bathtub or a bed?

Jerry Sibal, who launched his book “An Event to Remember: Designing Spectacular Special Occasions (Stewart, Tabori & Chang)” last night at the Makati Shangri-La, knows the inherent power of flowers to beautify, enlarge and turn exquisite any space. As a creative head of the New York-based firm, Design Fusion (which he founded with business partner Edwin Josue) Jerry has provided the stage from an intimate gathering of 10 to a swinging party of 2,000, with his dramatic use of flowers, matched with architectural details, lighting and audiovisual systems and interior décor.

Jerry who lives in an apartment in the corner of Park Ave and 37th Ave. (a few blocks away from Grand Central) says that even a domestic space can greatly benefit from the decorative properties of flowers, as long as you know where to get the raw materials. “One good thing about New York is that you can find anything in the city,” he says. “If you can’t find it New York, you can’t find it anywhere.”

His trip to the largest floral market in Manila, Dangwa, revealed to him the many flowers anyone can use from a simple to an elaborate arrangement. He noted that even the most prized flowers are there so one would not be hard-pressed in choosing a bouquet that will suit his taste. Add to that is that they are cheap (P100 can already buy you a heap of multi-colored Malaysian mums) which can encourage a would-be florist to go ahead and experiment.

In creating a floral arrangement, the key, Jerry says, is to keep it simple. If the flower is elegant by itself—callalily, tulip—a mere blossom can stand alone on its long stem, which can be situated in a long, fluted vase that will give justice to the elegance of the flower’s silhouette. If flowers are meant to be clustered, say roses or Malaysian mums, a bigger, rounder vase has to be used, to allow the flowers to breathe and fan out.

One can also combine different varieties of flowers so long as their petals are of the same size, their colors complement each other, and their blossoms blend with the same tones (say subdued or intense). Using flowers of two colors—white and red—will look more modern and eye-catching. An assembly of diverse flowers, on the other hand, is more romantic and dreamy. 

Those who already have the hang of combining flowers can try their hand in using other design elements to create an arrangement. Using a mirror that will repeat the flowers and thereby make them look larger is an example. Pebbles, decorative balls, stems, ribbons can enhance the beauty of the flowers as well.

Those who want to go to the next level can perhaps make their floral arrangements converse with the space in which they are situated—something that Jerry does on a regular basis. “I want to show people the relationship of the flowers to its interior,” he says. “If you want the space to be beautiful, it needs to have materials that can wow your guests. The environment, the walls, the ceilings, the floor—the total look—should be able to convey a theme.”

Jerry says that every celebration can be an excuse to decorate your home with flowers. In the US where Thanksgiving is more important than Christmas, Jerry creates a simple tabletop arrangement for the occasion, to suit its solemnity and importance in the American life. Here in the country, Christmas and New Year, upcoming events, can be seen as opportunities to let the flowers in. 

It pays to learn from a seasoned florist if one wants to be adept in fashioning flowers into beautiful arrangements. You may want to get a copy of Jerry’s book or perhaps head off to Greenbelt 3 Park on Wednesday where Jerry will demonstrate his genius with flowers. His finished designs will be showcased from Sept. 17 to 18, also at the same venue.