Oscar Mora, a fabulous florist, was on the Martha Stewart Show to demonstrate how to make beautiful tropical flower arrangements.  A few great tips that Oscar Mora gave were to add flower food to your vase of flowers along with a few drops of bleach, to help keep bacteria and fungus from growing in your vase full of water.

Some of the tropical flowers Oscar Mora used include:

- Sago Palm Leaves: sago palm leaves grow very large and are originally from India.

- Marantha Leaves: marantha leaves are purple on the back and have white and green stripes on the other side.

- Pink, Red & Yellow Ginger: these flowers looked very interesting, like a waxy pineapple structure… and apparently they smell like pineapple too!

- Lady’s Slipper Orchids: Most orchids are from Thailand, where they are amazing and cheap.  Lady Slipper Orchids are from the South Pacific and are one of the favorite orchids for collectors.

- She Kong: The She Kong flower was a very long stalk with a long furry or fuzzy looking flower that draped off of it, very interesting looking!

- Bird’s Next Fern

- Monstera Leaves

- Cymbidium Orchids

- Cordyline

- Croton

- Dendrobium Orchids

- Calathea

- Vanda Orchids

My favorite “Martha Moment” … or really it was a “Oscar Mora” moment… was the idea to cut a large leaf, like a Bird’s Next Fern leaf, and line the inside of a glass vase with the leaf.  It makes it look like all of your flowers are growing out of a leaf… really nice touch!  If you are having a tropical wedding or want tropical centerpieces for a wedding or other event, this is SUCH a fabulous idea.  Oscar Mora also slipped a contrasting leaf or two in-between the glass vase and the Bird’s Next Fern leaf that lined the base for added interest.