In a quiet, unassuming strip of shops in Thornbury, one frontage is often bursting with colour. Honesty Flora’s ever changing window display is a reflection of the Tegan Ruta’s creative mind, with astonishing floral arrangements gracing weddings and events across Victoria.

Operating for almost six years, Honesty arrangements are varied and expressive in their use of tonal colours and a sculptural quality, larger bouquets reaching into almost every direction with elongated, carefully positioned stems.

“I was always fascinated with flowers, and for a lot of my university projects I would use them as a theme’, Tegan says. “I was lucky enough to get a casual position for a big events company helping out for the busy season and I was hooked.”

Tegan’s floral love can be traced back to childhood, “I spent a lot of time with my grandma and mum in the garden, to keep me entertained my Nanna would let me pick flowers to decorate the house. She had an amazing garden and was always growing different plants to give them a try.”

Inside the cosy Honesty Flora shopfront, Tegan and her team are abuzz creating arrangements for a wedding. Dozens of finished arrangements are neatly organised, ready to go, the rest of the space overflowing with bunches ready for their transformation. Thursday is a market day, meaning an astonishingly early rise for Tegan; “I’m up by 2am to be at the markets by 3:15am… I severely underestimated how little sleep I would get when I started in this industry!”

Recent Honesty Flora work has also incorporated produce to amazing results; “I’ve taken inspiration from fruits and vegetables and then chosen flowers to compliment them”, she says. “The colours in a bunch of purple carrots or a great pile of heirloom tomatoes are hard to match in flowers”.

 “My dad is a quintessential first generation Italian, always filling his home with food and seasonal produce… there’s no eggplants in winter and likewise no beetroots in Summer.” The importance of seasonal florals, and by extension fruits and vegetables, translates into Honesty arrangements feeling grounded in their time of year, and a philosophy adopted early in life by Tegan.

The scale and exuberance of Honesty Flora is felt in full force in the Adorned in Texture range, massive branches splaying and colours both soft and rich working into each space with ease, perfectly pairing with the Twist Stone vases by Paola & Joy.

“This season my favourite flower is the chocolate cosmos, they actually smell like chocolate so I’ve planted a pot of them at my front door” says Tegan. “My work has evolved a lot since starting… I’m now in a position where I can be a bit more decisive on the work I take on, a lot of people now come to me for me and that’s a pretty wonderful feeling.”