Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style

This review is from Jane Barber, as she doesn’t have an account. Every so often a book comes along that has a profound impact on my life. Years ago I read “The Colour of Heaven” a novel by James Runcie, in it a painter is searching for the perfect ultramarine blue. The book made me fall in love with Venice, it’s artists and artisans. In 1995 I was given “The New Floral Artist” by Paula Pryke. That book made me want to be a florist. Fast forward 25 years later and “Cultivated” makes me want to be a better florist. One with a conscience, one with a deep connection to the natural landscape and what it gifts us. Reading Christin’s text is like talking to a kindred spirit. She’s an inspiring, generous, knowledgeable and amusing writer. But she’s not just a writer, she’s a storyteller. Like all good storytellers she draws us in so we want to know more. I like how she refers to historical style and design and also tells her own flower story. I like that she is not a ‘flower snob’ , allowing statice, begonia leaves and even thing’s ‘on the turn’ to be noticed alongside their prettier vase mates! The photographs in this book are spectacular and need to be looked at again and again to be fully appreciated. I feel like this is probably the wrong adjective to use, in view of the world’s current events, but this book is simply breathtaking! Jane Barber. Florist.

As a flower photographer I can only describe Christin’s ‘Cultivated’ as a delicious tome. A fabulous journey through colour, form and beauty. I have been following Christin’s images on Instagram for a while and have fallen in love with her compositions. Cultivated is inspirational and will now become a permanent companion. Thank you

I love the way Christin writes, her style is engaging, captivating and actually useful. The pictures are beautifully shot and the illustrations are lovely too. So many floristry books are pretty, this one is more than that, it has real substance and style. I shall be recommending it to absolutely everyone.

i am to devour all the knowledge in this book to enhance my photography shooting flowers the old painting dutch way! thanks for creating this wonderful book christin geall:))) alice

Cultivated is a joyful vision of floral design that is deeply personal and intensely relational to people, plants and places. Drawing on wide-ranging experience, knowledge and research, Christin Geall has forged her own way in this powerful demonstration that flowers do not simply appear in the market or vase or garden, and that floral aesthetics are never a neutral space. The promised ‘elements of floral design’ does (as one might expect) include technical instructions and a great deal of inspiration, but also environmental sensitivity, art and garden history, botany and horticulture, colour theory, reflections on the design process and personal memories. Taken together this unusually diverse spread is a versatile and well-balanced feast for the eyes and the mind, at once densely rich and surprisingly light. This is true of the direct and engagingly honest prose, with its lyrical tendrils and flashes of wit, as much as of the beautifully photographed portrait-like arrangements with their extraordinary grasp of different of styles, colours, and materials. It was delightful, informative, useful and thought-provoking at the first read, as I’m sure it will be on the tenth.

Loved every page of this book, delves deep into not only how to do the flowers, but why we do the flowers, each picture is deserving of being framed and hung in a wall, so many useful techniques, I would say this is a must have from total beginners to experienced florists, can’t recommend it enough, well done Christin, it’s a triumph 👏👏