22.04.2026

Letting Flowers Lead

Journal Talks with Field Studies Flora

Alex Crowder, founder of New York florist studio Field Studies Flora, is on a mission to introduce a fresh approach to the floristry profession. Crowder’s regenerative approach teaches florists and their clients to see the forest for the trees, viewing all imperfections not as blemishes but as patinas. She adds unexpected and unseen plant materials, expanding the understanding of flora. This way of seeing, she believes, can affect how we coexist in our environments and how we dress our homescapes with plantlife.

As Björk and Berries' green floral Eau de Parfum, Shady Garden, takes New York, Alex and her team have foraged and created floral pieces that echo the scent notes to celebrate the launch.

Shady Garden carries floral and smoky olfactory notes, a balance between shade and warmth, and sensuality. How did this guide the way you composed and selected seasonal flora for Björk and Berries?

The beginning of Spring, particularly April, is also a balance between shade and warmth. The last cool blusters of winter are mixed in with moments of surprising heat. This sporadic weather serves as the opening sonata to Spring. Life bursts forth. Bare branches are suddenly adorned with juicy blossoms or acid green leaves. The earliest flowers are often white or yellow, and last for a matter of days before making way for flowers which can withstand warmer temperatures.

Native Columbine is an early bloomer which continues to grace the landscape throughout the season, and unlike its neighbours, it's quite colourful. Its red-and-yellow outfitting is meant to attract a very particular pollinator: the ruby-throated hummingbird. I knew I wanted to feature a red flower to match the brand colour, and what better choice than the season's most interesting crimson bloom.

Rounding out the arrangement with pink dogwood, young oak branches, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, dead nettle, hosta, and swamp cabbage leaves, all sourced locally in NY.

Education is central to your ethos, teaching others to see beauty in what might otherwise be overlooked: the weed, the spent bloom, the branch. How does this vision shape daily life in the studio, from sourcing to arrangement?

We start with what's available, staying in close communication with our foraging team and our farmers. Often, people imagine a florist's work as mood boards and plans set in pen, but when you're working with nature, things change with the wind, literally. We have to stay nimble, both with ourselves and with our clients, letting go of fixed ideas of lilies for this and roses for that.

Whatever ingredients are naturally and ethically available in the moment are the ones we choose to work with, placing the charisma of flowers and plants at the forefront. Each ingredient is considered from life to death, in its full arc of presence. Bud, bloom, then what comes after. The stage just past peak often has more structure and less pressure to perform, which makes it useful. Very little is discarded immediately. It's worth paying attention to each second a plant is in your company.

Your practice invites a more conscious way of seeing and tending to the landscapes around us. For those looking to embrace the Field Studies Flora sensibility in their own lives, what practices or small acts of noticing would you suggest as a beginning?

Find ways to engage with nature in everything you do. Read poetry from Mary Oliver, explore the land art of Andy Goldsworthy, turn off your phone and read Braiding Sweetgrass in the park. Beyond paying attention, really seeing the landscape around you, there are a million small acts of learning you can pursue each day.

You could do this for the rest of your life and still not know every detail about every species of grass. Just grass. Isn't that incredible?

Explore the scent of Shady Garden.