Flowers for a Trinidad wedding

Rheanna Chen details her expedition to find flowers and decorate a wedding venue. She tells her story to Pat Ganase.

A forest of locally-grown tropical blooms was the brief from the bride’s mother: foliage and flowers everywhere at the venue, as well as bouquets for the bridal party.

For the ceremony, we would build and decorate a bamboo arch as the focal point for the exchange of vows.

Flowers don’t last well if they aren’t cut and treated with respect. The challenge was to select, transport and create the floral ambience within the hours before the wedding on Sunday. My expedition started on Friday.

Grosvenor Horticultural is a family farm south of Sangre Grande that specialises in flower production. I arranged to pick up their blooms in Diego Martin: sexy pinks (
Heliconia chartacea), red comb or shampoo ginger (Zingiber zerumbet), Jungle King (
Alpinia purpurata). Alpinia purpurata "Kimi Ginger" is the pink ginger with pine-cone-shaped flowers rather than the elongated standard ginger.

At Waterville Estate in Santa Cruz, we collected Hawaiian torch ginger and delicate white gingers. Waterville is a flower plantation, fruit estate and wedding venue. These torches grow in the area that becomes a river flowing even during the dry season.

The carpenter Roshan was assigned to build the arch. For this, we harvested from a stand of Chinese bamboo growing on a neighbour’s verge. She wanted more light for her lemon tree, so it was a beneficial harvesting. This bamboo grows tall and straight, and we were looking for sturdy seven-foot poles, which were strapped to the surfboard rack of my car.

Then we headed to Santa Cruz to get more flowers. San Antonio Farm is one of the oldest flower nurseries, still in business after more than 60 years. Here we got the rarest heritage species. They used to export these flowers.

It is so easy to damage the bracts of the flowers. They have the largest variety of gingers and heliconias; the names are dizzying: Fat Lat, Pedro Ortiz, Prince of Darkness, Caribaea Red, Temptress, Frosty, Sexy Scarlet, Meeana, Ten Day, Grenadier, Emerald Forest, Richmond Red, Tapeneichilus, Etlingera, Alpinia "Hawaiian Double."

First thing Saturday morning, I went to the Horticultural Society on Chancellor Road, St Ann's, to get purple and white dendrobiums and silver vine, Argyreia bella, in the morning glory family. The worst idea – getting something so delicate at the start: I had water bottles balancing in the cup holder. Transport is a serious challenge when moving blooms. They gave me a gift of a tuberose spray, which made the journey at least smell sweet. It’s traditional to have tuberose in the bride’s bouquet.

Still Saturday morning, we headed to Central. Ajoupa Gardens, on the east side of Freeport, occupies over four acres of gently sloping land in the central range. The gardens have been reforested over the past 30 years. Their trees and palms yield foliage to accent and provide texture for dramatic flowers. Harvesting at Ajoupa is always fun, but we got caught in the morning heat, requiring cold lime juice and roti.

A short drive took us to Wa Samaki Ecosystems, still in the Central Range, just a little further north. Wa Samaki is a 33-acre estate, established in 1988, that has been inspiring and educating the public on permaculture or regenerative farming. It is also a large flower estate.

Suzette is the chicken lady, also flower lady, who shared that the African snails have been at their flowers. I did get some pink gingers to add more pastels to the palette. We looked for Lucille Gibson, but they only had a single bloom which went in the bridal bouquet. The story goes that local orchid expert, Alexander “Sandy” Gibson noticed a new variety in his garden. He registered this pale greenish yellow cultivar,

H.psittacorum x H.spathocircinata, as "Lucille Gibson," for his wife.

Then we headed to La Vega before they closed at 4 pm. Got there at 3.35 pm, under half an hour to spare. Their anthuriums are plentiful and we got two dozen large ones and three dozen tiny ones. We took the golf cart to the shade house with all the cultivars. I hand-selected each of them, focusing on pastels and unusual shapes.

When selecting, I like to look at the colour of the spadix, the middle part, and the spathe, surrounding part. I particularly love La Vega and have been told it is the largest germplasm not only for anthuriums but other tropical plants in the Caribbean region. Credit to Bert Manhin, and his deep passion for collecting unusual species during his travels.

Anthuriums are lightweight and ideal for more delicate things like wristlets, boutonnières and most important, the bridal bouquet. I once made one where the bride complained, “My arms got tired.” I’ll never forget that.

Anthuriums have thin stems and the bride’s hands can fit around. They pair nicely with ferns, which we have an abundance of. I like asparagus and silver lace fern.

By then, my car was full to the brim of cut flowers, foliage, insects and buckets, and I took advantage of La Vega’s 20 per cent sale.

I would spend the evening and night arranging.

The flower girls would scatter ixoras from Ajoupa Garden, in three colours, peach, pink and red. I learned from Bunty that if you use a stone to smash the stem, it holds water.

It was a late night and an early morning to make the arrangements and then the bamboo arch, finishing an hour before the first guests were expected.

My favourite item was a purple ornamental banana from the venue’s garden, which is a cultivar originally from La Vega. It seemed fitting to close the loop of plants travelling from one garden to the next. The banana was added to the base of the arch, in buckets that were filled with sand and soil, covered in jute.

I have been so inspired by the Cultivated by Christin travel grant which allowed me to visit and learn about flowers in the Hawaiian islands in 2022. Christin Gaell researched regenerative floriculture.

We came full circle from plant breeding and propagation to the home gardener and collector. Do humans domesticate plants? Or do plants seduce us with their beauty?

Last note: keep an eye open when you are foraging, as you never know where you will find something different and worthwhile. We found a weeping willow in a concrete parking lot. I asked permission and got a few stems which hung along banisters and in arrangements. Magic, yes!