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Learn with Shane Connolly

The Art of Environmental Floristry

Learn how to design beautiful floral displays with Shane Connolly, pioneer in environmental floristry and Royal Warrant holder.

Course overview

In this lesson you will get unique footage to help you understand how Shane’s artistic process works for design in floristry. This is a deeply personal aspect of design, one which enables you to use your environment to inspire and influence the choices you make. You’ll be taken on location during the video lecture with Shane, on an intimate journey to places of inspiration like art galleries, and natural settings for flowers. Shane shares his own passion and thinking processes for how you will begin your own design process. Learning outcome: By the end of this lesson, you will have learnt how to tap into your own design inspiration, using your own environment.

Meet Shane Connolly

Shane Connolly was born and raised in Northern Ireland. He read Psychology at university but a lifelong passion for plants and gardening eventually led to a complete career change and he set up his business in 1989 after training with some of London’s leading flower designers. Subsequently, he has built an enviable reputation as a floral designer with a small, dedicated and talented team from offices and a studio in North Kensington. Shane Connolly & Company has been creating timeless, artisan, floral decorations for over twenty years. And we still get excited about the next event! We pride ourselves in going the extra mile; constantly striving to delight our clients, to interpret their thoughts and visions and to exceed their every expectation. We have a very discerning and demanding client list and are proud of our loyal relationships and reputation for discretion. We never publish details of the events we design but are happy to provide examples of our work. And we believe that our testimonials speak volumes. We are strongly committed to the environment, and our credentials in this area have been commended at the highest level.

Course description

Royal florist, Shane Connolly teaches you the art of environmental floral design in his online floristry course.

Passionate about British flowers and foliage, Shane Connolly holds royal warrants of appointment to both HM The Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales and designed the wedding flowers for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.

The bridal bouquet was inspired by the Language of Flowers with lily of the valley (return of happiness), sweet William (gallantry), hyacinth (constancy of love), myrtle (a symbol of marriage and love) and ivy (fidelity, marriage).

The flowers and foliage used to decorate Westminster Abbey included euphorbias, rhododendron, wisteria, azaleas and lilacs which were cut from the royal estates at Windsor and Sandringham. And importantly, everything was replanted, recycled or composted after the wedding.

Shane will teach you how to consider environmental sensitivity and artistic insight when creating naturalistic and beautiful flower arrangements. Shane pioneers sustainable techniques, and during this course he's taken a ‘no floral foam' stance to lead the next wave of environmental floristry industry.

Professional florists and enthusiasts can learn from Shane how to practice floristry with the very latest natural and environmentally friendly techniques, which are woven throughout demonstrations, practice and thinking in these lessons.

Your assignments will challenge you to develop your own style with these influences. No floral design will be too big or too small. This course covers very simple floral designs to challenging and sophisticated displays for events.

You'll find that Shane's style of teaching is both down to earth and pragmatic, whilst being approachable and non judgemental.

If you'd like insight from one of the world's greatest florists on how to develop your own style using seasonal, home-grown and environmentally friendly flowers for beauty – this is the course for you.

You'll learn:
  • how to create floral designs and flower arrangements for any occasion
  • choosing local flowers and plants
  • creating sustainable designs
  • where to find inspiration for your floral designs
Time to complete this floristry course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 18 hours 45 mins to complete including:

  • Video lessons: 3 hours 45 mins
  • Course notes: 2 hours 30 mins
  • Assignment: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson
You'll need:

You will be choosing flowers, sustainable containers, creating flower arrangements and floral designs. So you'll need some flowers and foliage to use (remember to take inspiration locally!), sustainable containers which could be jars or kitchen or garden containers, scissors and any accessories you want to add to your floral designs (for example ribbon).

The course is suitable for all levels - flower enthusiasts, fans of Shane Connolly's work, to professional florists or those in the floristry business who want to learn environmental and sustainable floral techniques from Shane.

The course includes:
  • 5 on-demand video lesson - presented by Shane Connolly
  • lifetime access to the video, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical (optional) floral design projects
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom chat online to students from around the world
Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Shane on your floral designs and questions.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.