Tissarose Floral’s premiere solo exhibit — “The Need for Ceremony” — earned a 2024 PHS Bronze Award, which are presented to Philadelphia Flower Show exhibitors in all three categories based on different criteria celebrating creativity and exceptional execution.
ABOVE PHOTO:The tablescape which provided the main focal point of Tissarose Floral’s exhibit.
(Photo/Amy V. Simmons)
By Amy V. Simmons
Last year, a new group of exhibitors took the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show by storm. Black Girls Florists, an organization comprised of Black woman floral designers who gathered and supported each other during the early days of the pandemic in 2020 when businesses like theirs were hard hit, held pride of place in the Show’s layout.
As the first Black team to participate in the Show’s 195-year history, the group’s exhibit — entitled “United Through Our Pour” — earned both the 2023 PHS Gardening for the Greater Good Award and the PHS Silver Medal. For a group’s first Flower Show appearance, this was a great accomplishment.
Tissarose Floral founder Tanesha Sample
(Photo courtesy Tanesha Sample)
This year, Tissarose Floral — a local floral service company founded by Tanesha Sample, a 38-year-old native of West Philadelphia — was invited to create its own individual exhibit, much to Sample’s surprise.
While she is grateful for her experience as part of the BGF team last year, in many ways, this new opportunity at the 2024 Show is a natural outgrowth of Sample’s personal faith journey — something she leaned upon heavily, from the planning stages to setting up her exhibit.
“The Need for Ceremony” is centered around an elegant, formal dining table bedecked with classic cream-colored purple, magenta, and yellow flowers including tulips, roses, and Shasta daisies. The exhibit also has candelabras with lavender colored tapers, place settings and glassware as part of the main focal point.
Similar blooms also spill out onto a country style sideboard that utilizes candelabras and sconces. Other elements in the exhibit also draw the viewer’s attention to a central theme — no matter where we are, at table, we are together… we are home.
Communal tables bring about genuine human connection, Sample said.
“We grieve at the table,” she said. “We celebrate at the table. We love at the table.”
The exhibit also highlights the importance of communal eating, rituals and celebrations within the African American community, particularly during slavery, and later during the Great Migration period, where families left the segregated South for points North and West and brought these customs with them.
Sample also wanted her exhibit to encourage people to rediscover these rituals in the 21st century and to embrace them.
“I want to just encourage people to get back to the table,” she said. “Get back to your family — get back to the table. I pray that the thousands of people who see this [exhibit] may be filled with joy and love.”
Faith and restoration have been constant themes of Sample’s unexpected floral adventure.
Sample was plunged into grief following the loss of her mother in 2019. This pain was exasperated by the season of loss and isolation the following year at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — a time of intense grief, upheaval, and introspection for many.
Her grief journey was also a complicated one, as her late mother suffered from schizophrenia.
Sample knew she had a choice — to give into deep despair or reach down deep into her faith in God.
While prayerfully considering the future and exploring options with her therapist, she made that choice. Sample’s healing process would be centered around flowers and her mother’s memory.
“My mother’s name was Santissia, so I took the ending of her name and put it together with rose,” she said. “There’s a lot of things that my mother could not do. She suffered from schizophrenia her whole life, so I wanted to keep her legacy and give her honor.”
As a trained cosmetologist, Sample was already a gifted creative who worked with colors, textures and with her hands, so making the move to floral artist seemed natural, even if it wasn’t planned.
“I would do flowers after my therapy sessions,” she said. “To be honest, it takes courage because you know, therapy is not easy. … I always loved to keep them around the house, but then I really started getting into deep learning about flowers — learning how to take care of them, the names of them, different things like that.”
The experience transformed her.
“Sometimes we can be in deep, dark places, but it turns into something beautiful,” Sample said.
During lockdown, when the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early stages, Sample, like most people, had time to reflect on what really mattered in life and her career path. It gave her the time and space to consider the alternatives — in particular, leaving cosmetology and creating a floral design business.
It was a time to strategize, Sample said.
“I had time to read books,” she said. “I had time to learn, and I had time to create.”
A generous arrangement of flowers in another part of the exhibit.
(Photo/Amy V. Simmons)
Sample describes herself as a “traveling florist” who brings the botanical experience to others. One community she caters is local college students during exam seasons. The workshops help the students with stress management and provide a pleasant distraction.
“They love to make their own arrangements to pick their own flowers,” Sample said. “They also learn tips and tricks on how to keep them [the flower arrangements the students create], but I’m not there to overload them, but just to bring joy to them. A lot of people are uplifted by flowers — just by seeing the different colors and smelling the flowers and having them in your space. It brings so much peace and joy to you.”
While Tissarose Floral also provides traditional flower arrangements, Sample specializes in “hands on” services not unlike her college workshops which allow people to fellowship together and explore their own inner florist. One way she does this is by hosting floral bars at events — a twist on the “paint party” concept.
“I bring buckets of flowers to your event, and all the tools that you need,” she said. “I tell you how to take care of your flowers. … so, you’re learning, but then you also get to be hands on. You get to create something that you can enjoy and take back home with you. Then you can also use the skills that you learned at the parties to make your own centerpieces, to make your own Mother’s Day bouquet, so I encourage that as well. You’re getting an education at the parties. … I encourage people to put a theme with it.”
In many ways, Tissarose Floral has been Sample’s personal ministry — an extension of the faith that informs every aspect of her life, through good times and bad.
It’s about God and his provision, she said. She is grateful for it all.
“God gave us everything we needed, down to the sunshine, if you want to be honest,” Sample said. “God created the flowers. He gave us everything. It comes full circle for me. So — me being on the showroom floor — It’s not even about me being here. It’s more about the journey that God has had me on. Losing your mother and things in life happen. It [ the journey] really took me to a beautiful place, because I could have just been somewhere else.”
For more information about Tissarose Floral, visit: https://www.tissarose.net/.
Tissarose Floral’s premiere solo exhibit — “The Need for Ceremony” — earned a 2024 PHS Bronze Award, which are presented to Philadelphia Flower Show exhibitors in all three categories based on different criteria celebrating creativity and exceptional execution.
By Amy V. Simmons
Last year, a new group of exhibitors took the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show by storm. Black Girls Florists, an organization comprised of Black woman floral designers who gathered and supported each other during the early days of the pandemic in 2020 when businesses like theirs were hard hit, held pride of place in the Show’s layout.
As the first Black team to participate in the Show’s 195-year history, the group’s exhibit — entitled “United Through Our Pour” — earned both the 2023 PHS Gardening for the Greater Good Award and the PHS Silver Medal. For a group’s first Flower Show appearance, this was a great accomplishment.
This year, Tissarose Floral — a local floral service company founded by Tanesha Sample, a 38-year-old native of West Philadelphia — was invited to create its own individual exhibit, much to Sample’s surprise.
While she is grateful for her experience as part of the BGF team last year, in many ways, this new opportunity at the 2024 Show is a natural outgrowth of Sample’s personal faith journey — something she leaned upon heavily, from the planning stages to setting up her exhibit.
“The Need for Ceremony” is centered around an elegant, formal dining table bedecked with classic cream-colored purple, magenta, and yellow flowers including tulips, roses, and Shasta daisies. The exhibit also has candelabras with lavender colored tapers, place settings and glassware as part of the main focal point.
Similar blooms also spill out onto a country style sideboard that utilizes candelabras and sconces. Other elements in the exhibit also draw the viewer’s attention to a central theme — no matter where we are, at table, we are together… we are home.
Communal tables bring about genuine human connection, Sample said.
“We grieve at the table,” she said. “We celebrate at the table. We love at the table.”
The exhibit also highlights the importance of communal eating, rituals and celebrations within the African American community, particularly during slavery, and later during the Great Migration period, where families left the segregated South for points North and West and brought these customs with them.
Sample also wanted her exhibit to encourage people to rediscover these rituals in the 21st century and to embrace them.
“I want to just encourage people to get back to the table,” she said. “Get back to your family — get back to the table. I pray that the thousands of people who see this [exhibit] may be filled with joy and love.”
Faith and restoration have been constant themes of Sample’s unexpected floral adventure.
Sample was plunged into grief following the loss of her mother in 2019. This pain was exasperated by the season of loss and isolation the following year at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — a time of intense grief, upheaval, and introspection for many.
Her grief journey was also a complicated one, as her late mother suffered from schizophrenia.
Sample knew she had a choice — to give into deep despair or reach down deep into her faith in God.
While prayerfully considering the future and exploring options with her therapist, she made that choice. Sample’s healing process would be centered around flowers and her mother’s memory.
“My mother’s name was Santissia, so I took the ending of her name and put it together with rose,” she said. “There’s a lot of things that my mother could not do. She suffered from schizophrenia her whole life, so I wanted to keep her legacy and give her honor.”
As a trained cosmetologist, Sample was already a gifted creative who worked with colors, textures and with her hands, so making the move to floral artist seemed natural, even if it wasn’t planned.
“I would do flowers after my therapy sessions,” she said. “To be honest, it takes courage because you know, therapy is not easy. … I always loved to keep them around the house, but then I really started getting into deep learning about flowers — learning how to take care of them, the names of them, different things like that.”
The experience transformed her.
“Sometimes we can be in deep, dark places, but it turns into something beautiful,” Sample said.
During lockdown, when the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early stages, Sample, like most people, had time to reflect on what really mattered in life and her career path. It gave her the time and space to consider the alternatives — in particular, leaving cosmetology and creating a floral design business.
It was a time to strategize, Sample said.
“I had time to read books,” she said. “I had time to learn, and I had time to create.”
Sample describes herself as a “traveling florist” who brings the botanical experience to others. One community she caters is local college students during exam seasons. The workshops help the students with stress management and provide a pleasant distraction.
“They love to make their own arrangements to pick their own flowers,” Sample said. “They also learn tips and tricks on how to keep them [the flower arrangements the students create], but I’m not there to overload them, but just to bring joy to them. A lot of people are uplifted by flowers — just by seeing the different colors and smelling the flowers and having them in your space. It brings so much peace and joy to you.”
While Tissarose Floral also provides traditional flower arrangements, Sample specializes in “hands on” services not unlike her college workshops which allow people to fellowship together and explore their own inner florist. One way she does this is by hosting floral bars at events — a twist on the “paint party” concept.
“I bring buckets of flowers to your event, and all the tools that you need,” she said. “I tell you how to take care of your flowers. … so, you’re learning, but then you also get to be hands on. You get to create something that you can enjoy and take back home with you. Then you can also use the skills that you learned at the parties to make your own centerpieces, to make your own Mother’s Day bouquet, so I encourage that as well. You’re getting an education at the parties. … I encourage people to put a theme with it.”
In many ways, Tissarose Floral has been Sample’s personal ministry — an extension of the faith that informs every aspect of her life, through good times and bad.
It’s about God and his provision, she said. She is grateful for it all.
“God gave us everything we needed, down to the sunshine, if you want to be honest,” Sample said. “God created the flowers. He gave us everything. It comes full circle for me. So — me being on the showroom floor — It’s not even about me being here. It’s more about the journey that God has had me on. Losing your mother and things in life happen. It [ the journey] really took me to a beautiful place, because I could have just been somewhere else.”
For more information about Tissarose Floral, visit: https://www.tissarose.net/.
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