Picture stepping into a superyacht foyer and seeing a beautiful arrangement of flowers with vibrant, variegated blooms. You might be tempted to reach out and feel the softness of the petals. Like the rest of the guests who pass through the doors, you’re also likely to assume that earlier in the day, the crew either picked up fresh flowers at a local market or had the arrangement specially delivered.

What if you learned that the flowers had been picked months—possibly six to 12 months—prior?

Welcome to the world of preserved flowers. Specifically, welcome to the way that London-based Ethereal Blooms keeps about 70 superyachts as large as 289 feet, plus high-end boutiques and residential clients, fully decked out with stunning bouquets that appear fresh far longer than their untreated cousins. Yacht clients say they’re saving at least half on their budget for floral arrangements, without compromising the luxe look owners and guests expect.

Ethereal Blooms is the brainchild of Kathryn Popplestone and Erni Visser. While Visser pursued a career as a veterinarian for a few years, floristry was a strong passion. Popplestone has a background in biochemistry and floristry. They joined forces in 2019 to create Ethereal Blooms, to offer a more sustainable option with higher quality than other preservation specialists.

“Forty-five percent of fresh flowers die before getting to the end user,” says Joanna Hirst, Ethereal Blooms’ head of sales and business development. She’s also a former superyacht stewardess who joined the team in 2021, introducing the company to yachting clients.

Floral-industry estimates back up the statistic, indicating that 45 percent to 60 percent of blooms die before arriving at a recipient’s door—including when the recipient is a florist shop. Even if the flowers arrive without issue, “they’re flown in from all over the world and need refrigeration,” Visser says, resulting in carbon emissions that multiply many times over with every shipment.

And, most bouquets last just a week to 10 days before the blooms wilt and wither. Superyacht crews order flowers to keep in several rooms. It’s not only a lot of emissions, but also a lot of waste.

“Crew know all too well how disappointing it is to throw away stunning florals week on week, and how difficult they are to source and maintain mid-season,” Hirst says.

For decades, pressing or drying flowers was the only way to keep them, but neither is up to the luxury standards of superyachts, or designer boutiques like De Beers and Bulgari, two of Ethereal Blooms’ commercial clients. The most common preservation techniques involve dipping the stems and blooms in resin, and sometimes encasing the blooms in a resin display block. However, the blocks render them untouchable, which defeats the purpose for many flower lovers. When the flowers are enrobed in resin but not encased, that’s not always successful, either. Hirst says the delicate petals and foliage can feel more like artificial flowers, and “the petals can become translucent in parts, giving them a less-fresh look.”

By contrast, the Ethereal Blooms bio-preservation process uses natural oils to replace the water within each freshly cut flower. The process starts at farms Ethereal Blooms works with, to eliminate withering and to be carbon conscious. It takes three to six weeks for the blooms and foliage to absorb the solutions, depending on the flower’s size and type.

“The oils are within the flowers and leaves themselves, in every cell,” Hirst says, “not simply coating the surface as in some preservation processes. This keeps the petals supple and reflects the light in a similar way to the water that is present in fresh flowers.”

What about arranging and upkeep, which fall to the yacht’s crew? First, Ethereal Blooms designs arrangements for each client, shipping them—with biodegradable and recyclable packaging—in vases or inside inserts that the crew can slip into the owners’ favorite pieces. Second, preserved flowers don’t need water, so stews and pursers don’t struggle lifting (or spilling) heavy displays.

In fact, no care is needed. There are no petals or pollen to clean up every few days. The flowers can sit week after week inside or, for alfresco displays, stow alongside table settings and other décor.

While most crew order at the beginning of each season, Ethereal Blooms has found that some yachts keep the arrangements all year. Hirst says crews tell her they’re saving 50 percent to 75 percent of their yearly floral budgets. In a survey of 46 chief stews and pursers, Hirst learned that two-season yachts spend as much as $147,000 annually.

Ultimately, Ethereal Blooms is changing the way the yachting community thinks about floral displays, one bouquet at a time.

For more information: etherealblooms.com 

This article was originally published in the Spring 2024 issue.