SME Spotlight: Floral Horizon blossoms interest in Ikebana
How mother of three, Chua Lee Hong, turned her hobby in floral arrangements into a business.
In 2003, Mdm Chua Lee Hong began to cultivate her love of floral arrangements when she joined a workshop on Western Floral Arrangement at the Nanyang Primary Parent Support Group. The next year, she branched out to Ikebana, the art of Japanese floral arrangement. That year, all the members of the group were invited to put up their floral displays in NParks Singapore Garden Festival. Over the years, she was inspired by the manifold arrangements of floral designers who came from all over the globe. She attended the Singapore Garden Festival again and again and each year her interest continued to blossom.
One of Mdm Chua’s Ikebana teachers, the late Mrs Kim (then aged 89) was a great source of inspiration to Mdm Chua. Mrs Kim, having seen Mdm Chua’s creativity and passion for the art, encouraged her to think about teaching. Mdm Chua was interested, but family came first. Since 2000, she had been helping her husband’s shop get to its feet, and between learning floral arrangements and raising her three children, she had her hands full.
Only in 2008, when Mdm Chua joined the Nanyang Girls High Parent Support Group did she start to venture into teaching. Her first students were friends from the parent support group who were just as passionate about floral arrangements. Spurred on by the success of her students, Mdm Chua finally began Floral Horizon in 2010.
Since then, she has participated in several charity fundraisers with the Ikebana International Singapore Chapter135 for the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the Children’s Cancer Foundation. She has also been invited to do floral arrangement demonstrations at exhibitions in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. But one of her proudest moments is when her student won an award at Singapore Garden Festival 2016, using Western Floral Arrangement to create a piece from recycled chopsticks.
As someone not trained in either business or entrepreneurship, Mdm Chua struggled with the nitty-gritty details of owning a business. From filing income tax to inventory management, she was forced to learn everything from scratch. And as Singapore moved into the 21st century and the internet expanded, she struggled to keep up with social media, creating photo documentation and the constraints of her own shop. However, digitalisation has allowed her works to reach a wider audience especially when floral exhibitions had to be cancelled during lockdown and heightened alert.
Through digital marketing strategies and site redesigns of CareerContact’s digital sprints students, Floral Horizon can now reach younger audiences through Facebook and Instagram. Using digital tools like Calendly, Floral Horizon books and conducts floral arrangement lessons through online webinars. However, nothing beats the tactile method of standing next to a student and guiding them through floral arrangement through 360 degrees. Perhaps in the coming years, through VR or AR tech, teaching and displaying floral arrangements online will be a breeze.
Floral Horizon, Blk 4, Queen’s Rd, #02–109, Singapore 260004; www.floralhorizon.me
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