Meet Your New, Go-To Florist in the Canton Area

Learn more about our journey

Even when very young, you would find a little bouquet of flowers in my hands at the end of walks in the woods or fields. So it came naturally to make arrangements for my grandmother's kitchen from her gardens, and designs with my mother's flowers for the home before flowers became central for me.

My interest has centered more on herbal apothecary and edible landscaping until about 2019 when flowers became my main focus. Both of these disciplines benefited from my passion for sacred geometry and holistic medicine. Consulting, designing, and authoring several books on edible landscaping, and a contract to grow exotic herbs very specifically for a homeopathic drug company, were my main focus. These color my work now with deep appreciation for a holistic connection between people and flowers -beauty as medicine that profoundly affects our wellbeing. It also firmly rooted me in flowers as part of an ecosystem, from gardens, rather than shipped from abroad and bought through wholesale outlets.

I began selling our flowers to florists beginning in 2016. Without a driver's license, my older neighbor -not related, but basically family -drove me to the florists. She was passionate about seeing the flowers from her own garden respected, valued, and enjoyed by the bests florists, and their clients. It was my neighbor who very clearly built the expectation that I would someday take care of her gardens and become a designer skilled enough to enshrine her memory in my own work using her flowers. She often would introduce me to her colleagues -famous breeders of hosta and daylily -"This is Luke, who will someday be a great florist."

Bringing Our Love for Flowers to All

In 2019, I began assisting one of my florist clients off and on with her weddings, and holidays -my entry into "the industry." In the same year, I had my first weddings and events of my own -arch design, boutonnieres, and corsages, etc.

In 2020, I launched Gate Way Flora as a dba of Mortal Tree Design -significant because I wanted Gate Way to continue the mission of care for the earth and people through gardens.

I am always drawn to higher circles in my professions. In permaculture, I quickly got into circles of international designers. It followed, in 2021, that one of the greatest floral designers in the world, Gregor Lersch, caught my attention. When the opportunity to study with him in Virginia at Holly Chapple's Hope Flower Farm appeared, I invested heavily and signed on. It was a spectacular experience. I received an invitation to join Holly Chapple's private design group "Chapel Designers" and gained access to their private forum where other member's would hire their trusted colleagues for larger weddings and events. Within a year I was hired to design on a large team for a wedding with just a floral budget of over a half million. This quickly gave me experience in how events of massive scale are handled, and the meticulous organization that makes them flourish.

Several similar events have followed, with travel to other states for work. I've continued networking with internationally recognized designers I admire deeply, even hosting the renown 2019 Interflora World Cup winner Bart Hassam for a design workshop this January 2025 here in Canton. Even in the ice of January, for such a prestigious workshop, the materials were all sourced from our gardens, except for tulips, grown by a local colleague with wood heat, and Orchids, sourced from a local, very large and surprisingly eco-conscious growing operation. I was delighted Mr. Hassam was so willing to take on the challenge of using these materials, some totally new to him, and to craft such spectacular designs.

It was particularly bittersweet following the death of my neighbor. She passed away quietly in her sleep Christmas Eve/Christmas morning just a month before. Although she did not see it, the best designer in the world crafted designs using her flowers. So I continue my mission of gardens and flowers, crafting designs that embody emotion of your precious moment, and memory of the hands that planted the flowers in a garden many years ago.