ninja florists

most of what is known about the ninja florists is taken from stories that have been passed down from generation to generation of gardeners but what is known for certain is that in the middle of the 20th century, independent ninja florists found themselves doing battle with inter-flora and needed to perfect their fighting skills.

as the independent ninja florists gained popularity, so did the stories of their superhuman abilities. this reputation was often encouraged by the florists themselves. it was to their advantage to have others believe they had such powers. powers like having the strength to tie huge bunches of tulips together using only one hand and drinking tea with the other; the ability to turn into a lump of floral foam and sit sulking on the counter doing buggar-all all day; to fly – well that’s probably a gross exaggeration, to catch green fly live between their teeth and to become invisible to customers at will.

they had various tools at their disposal too, like the tanto - a nifty little knife for paring woody stems etc. shuko (spiked wrist bands) were jolly useful for climbing into other people’s gardens and collecting cuttings. they were also useful for doing damage to a rival florist or indeed their floral entry if in danger of losing face at the local village annual flower show.

their knowledge of poisons was of course legendary but then they had been gathering up those nasty little mushrooms for years.

although it is said that the samurai florist’s life was to "live by the daisy, die by the daisy", with no fear of wilt at all and his watering can was his whole life, his soul. he followed the warriors code of honour. the ninja florists followed no such code. their only code was to do whatever it takes to get the bunch of flowers made up and the cash register ringing to the sound of money.