Man of flowers says local industry needs nurturing

The owner of Oscar Floral Workshop, Oswald Chan, wants the government to help promote creativity in floristry through education

WORKING AS A florist involves waking up early. My wife and I are both at the wholesale flower market by 6am every day to place orders for our store.

Things are hectic from the minute we open shop at 8.30am. We not only deal with walk-in customers, but also have to ensure that all the orders that were placed the day before are going out properly. We co-ordinate the delivery details with the courier, change the water for the flowers and, in the afternoon, start preparing for new orders.

We check every single flower (and stem) before it goes out. This is to control quality and ensure that we are giving the customer the very best.

The industry has become a lot more competitive because the market is saturated with flower shops and there is a lot of choice. The key to doing business these days lies in your design skills and customer service.

Depending on what the customers want, we normally work with them to come up with a design. This can sometimes be difficult, because most people do not have a clue about what they want. So we have to ascertain their vision before we can actually start work.

The people of Hong Kong know very little about flowers. They always think that whatever is expensive is the best, but this is a wrong perception. Costly and cheap flowers have their own uniqueness and beauty - we should be able to appreciate both.