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Meet Bloom College Founder, Yvette Timmins: A Journey from Wilting to Flourishing
Bloom’s Founder, Yvette, has lived a life full of ups and downs. She may be the owner of a successful online floristry school now, but struggles with mental health plagued her early years. Yvette has always been quite open about her journey with mental health, but we wanted to sit down with her and find out exactly how this shaped the business she has today. We’ll be getting into her experience of starting Bloom College, the challenges she faced, and the wisdom she’s gained along the way.
Trigger Warning: We discuss anxiety and depression in this interview. If you are sensitive to these topics please check in with yourself as you read through and feel free to check out another of our blog posts if it is too much. Your comfort and sense of safety are important to us.
Have you always loved flowers?
Yeah, I have. Ever since I was a kid, I just absolutely loved flowers. I had hydrangeas outside my bedroom when I was growing up. I’d often get in trouble for picking flowers in the garden! My first real memory of playing around with them, other than just picking them in the garden, was when I was about ten or eleven. My uncle was getting married in our garden and everything was set up and ready to go. But I was walking around and realised that there were no flowers. I nagged my mom to take me to the florist to get some flowers and I put together two arrangements––goodness knows what they looked like! I thought they were great. I remember they were freesias. So yeah, always loved it. I guess you could say that was my first wedding haha.
You’ve mentioned before that you had some health issues along the way, but that flower arranging helped you through that. Can you tell us more about that?
To give you a bit of background, during those teenage years and into early adulthood, I definitely suffered a lot of depression and anxiety. Then in my mid-20s, I really hit a peak and fell into a big dark hole. I didn’t know how to get myself out of that and I was hospitalised for quite a while. I was in my lowest of lows, and one of the things that absolutely helped me was my love of flowers and flower arranging. I had a period of time when I was at home, just too fearful to leave the house and one of the things that helped me was that my dear friends and mentors who had taught me how to arrange flowers, invited me to come and just play with them again. So, that did get me out of the house. The therapeutic benefits that I gained from doing that gave me so much hope. Then I was on the road to feeling better.
So, how did you go from here to starting Bloom College?
So, after getting well again I went back to my trade as a florist because I had done my apprenticeship as a florist previous to getting sick. Following that, I started my floristry business and ran that for about five years before selling it to start a family. I was then fortunate enough to be invited to teach [floristry] at one of the TAFE colleges and I just absolutely fell in love with teaching. I was like, wow, I love flower arranging, but now I also love sharing it with people. So Bloom College was kind of an expansion of this, I guess. Then I saw that, actually, it can be done in an even bigger way to reach more people. So that’s really my aim with Bloom College Online; to reach as many people as I can by sharing the benefits of flowers and flower arranging.
Can you tell us a bit more about the inspiration behind Bloom College?
Well, the inspiration came from weighing the benefits that flower arranging has given to me. I’ve been feeding my soul with flowers; it’s like my medicine. Because I know that it’s been so good for me, I want to share it with other people in the hope that it can be helpful for them as well. I also want to show that it’s not necessary to do it alone. When you’re in a community of like-minded people, you can all share advice, ideas, tips and information. That’s why we started the Bloomers Club online group.
What would you like students to take away from Bloom courses?
Feeling good is probably one of the biggest things because that’s what flowers and flower arranging do, they make you feel good. I want them to gain experience, and to have that sense of achievement when they show their friends and family. I find that students are not just surprised and amazed by themselves, but they also surprise their families with what they can do. It’s really lovely.
What would you say to someone who is nervous about starting floristry because they don’t consider themselves very creative?
Nobody’s born a florist. Everybody’s had to learn by practising it over and over again, building those neural pathways. Florists with years of experience make complicated arrangements look easy because they’ve had years of practice. The only way to become a real master of something is by doing it over and over again.
Becoming vulnerable and open is when creativity is able to come out. Opening up and allowing your inner child to come out, because they’re the ones that hold the inner creativity. Not that the adult self can’t, it’s just that the inner child knows how to do it beautifully without judgement. We put all these inhibitions on top, so it’s time to rip them off. To do this, you need to feel comfortable and you need to be in a comfortable, inclusive environment with like-minded people.
So, we know that a lot of people find that gardening is almost like meditation for them. Do you think that floristry is similar to gardening in this way?
Yes, most definitely. For me, it is meditative and meditation. I think most people see meditation as just being still and being in the nothingness. For me, that’s when all the creativity flows. That’s where my creative thoughts come through, once I’ve been able to block out all the noise. So, right now my garden is one of my favourite places to be. And it is a time when you can just check out if you like, and the rest of the world can just go on as it is. You’re in your own safe zone of just pure timeout.
After more from Yvette? She delves further into her story in her latest book, Feed Your Soul With Flowers. In it, she talks about how flower arranging changed her life and how you can use flowers to change your own internal life.
Feed Your Soul with Flowers
To jump into the wonderful world of Bloom College’s online classes, click here.
Yvette Timmins – Author of Feed Your Soul with Flowers