Bridget Vizoso
Jamali Garden: Tell us a little about your background. Bridget Vizoso: I spent my childhood in South Florida where an exotic, natural environment fed my imagination. As a young adult I studied at Parsons School of Design and made NYC my permanent home base. Originally I had my sights set on fine arts working with collage and mixed media. JG: How did you get into floral and event design? BV: I have always had an affinity with growing plants and flowers from a very early age. My love affair with flowers and gardens began when I trained at Kelways Gardens in Somerset England, a peony and iris farm with a history dating back to the 1800's. I returned to NYC and began working as a florist, which in and of itself is a mixed media art. My work as an event and floral designer has since taken me as far away as India for a lavish 3 day wedding on the Goan coast. New York City has served as a backdrop for the many weddings, galas, corporate events and weekly accounts I have produced over the years. Repeatedly Jamali Garden has been a trusted source for new vessels and props helping me realize both my vision and the needs of my clients. JG: How would you define your style? BV: I strive to achieve stylistically the elegance which nature brings of its own accord. 
JG: These look very familiar and we’re going to guess this is at Café Clover. We love the scale of these arrangements. How often do you change them? BV: Yes, indeed, this was a weekly account I installed at Café Clover. They now have plants where these arrangements were but your antique brass & black planter was an excellent base for the towering branches and leaves I would buy every week for them. These are 8-foot tall banana leaves but I would often use coconut palm leaves or seasonal blossoming branches for a dramatic effect.
A tall arrangement of tropical banana leaves.
JG: Did you have free reign on the design and what flowers or foliage you get to use? What did you use in this brass bowl? BV: Yes, I had free reign as long as they lasted the week and stayed on-budget of course. This arrangement had plum and crabapple branches with PeeGee Hydrangeas in an antiqued brass planter.
Branches with hydrangeas.
JG: What flowers are in this brass bowl? BV: These are viburnum branches. They are a great springtime weekly choice with a nice gestural quality to them.
A sculptural arrangement of viburnum.
A Valentine's Day dinner table.
JG: This red tablescape is unique and stunning. What was this event? BV: Thank you. This was a private dinner at a client's home. These young parents wanted to host a "Couples Night" for their closest married friends.
The red and white tablescape.
A place setting with a trio of hearts.
JG: How did the idea for the elements come together? BV: I took my cues from the client's wonderfully dynamic collection of modern and pop art. The large painting in the background had a frenetic energy about it and brought a lot of color to the space so I wanted to keep the palette monochromatic to not compete with it's environment. I found these white ceramic candlesticks and red tapered candles and heart shaped vessels that I glued together from Jamali and filled them with red and hot pink carnations. In order to integrate the painting into the tablescape, I used table mirrors as chargers and they also served to reflect the candlelight. The red silk runner was hand stenciled with fuchsia kisses. I also bought 12 pairs of vintage figurine couples which were dipped in white glossy paint then splattered with red and hot pink paint. These served as gifts for the couples to take with them. The client was over the moon with the table and the kids kept coming around to see it come together. In the end, fun was had by the entire family!
A fundraiser at the Plaza.
Autumn leaves and lots of sunflowers.
JG: Sunflowers have never looked so good! They seem transformed into a more formal bloom the way you’ve used them here. Where was this event? What was the event? BV: This event was held at The Plaza Hotel's Ballroom to raise funds by the Joe Namath Foundation for a new wing at the Jupiter Medical Center devoted to brain research. I was enlisted and directed by Carleton Varney to create the floral decorations for this Fall gala.
Detail of moss and berry branches just below the sunflowers.
JG: How did you hold all those sunflowers together? BV: Again, Jamali was helping behind the scenes with the floral foam, chicken wire, and boxes upon boxes of preserved moss used to create these gigantic baskets which visually replaced the existent balconies of the ballroom. The over all effect was a throwback to another era when women wore plate sized chrysanthemums as corsages to cotillion balls.
Keeping it under cover.
JG: We love these contained pieces in cloches. Can you give us a quick instruction on how to make this ourselves? BV: I love these too! And Jamali has many different bell jars to choose from too. Here I used saracina, anemones, passion vine and pokeberry. I carved a small mound of soaked oasis foam and sunk the stems into it. Then, I covered the oasis foam with moss pinned into the foam. The glass was then carefully lowered over the stems and Voila!: a Victorian botanist's specimen cloche was born.
The perfect red and green holiday table.
JG: It’s never too early to think about Christmas. We love this red and green table. Where was this? BV: The scent of narcissus always brings the holidays to mind, so I planted them in Jamali's big silver julep cups. The silver pedestal bowls were filled with Amaryllis heads and Magnolia leaves and the table finished with birch candles and mercury glass votive holders that cast a golden glow across the room. JG: What’s your favorite flower? BV: I have many but I'd have to say the poppy for it's tissue like delicacy, the gardenia for it's velvet petals and intoxicating fragrance, the parrot tulip for its expressiveness and passion flowers for their sheer exoticism. But don't get me started, like children, all are loved and none are favorites. JG: What are two or three of your favorite Jamali Garden items and tell us why you like them? BV: Again! A hard question to answer with only 2 or 3 choices because my favorite thing about Jamali is the variety and changing inventory which is always on trend, but I'd say, aside from the huge selection of vessels and decorative items, strictly on a practical level, I love the deep tea lights in clear holders because they save my specialty votive holders from having to be washed. I find myself coming back again and again to the bags of preserved moss because sometimes I simply need a small amount that will not fade to top off an orchid plant. I also love the tiny watering cans with the long spouts that help me top centerpieces off once they are placed on the tables. Again, don't get me started. Most of all, the customer service is warm and accommodating. What can I say, Jamali Garden rocks! Oh yeah, I love your rocks too!