Battle of the Blooms
You can be surrounded by beauty and still question your place within it.
Last year, Poppy and I entered Battle of the Blooms, an annual floral competition hosted by Mayseh Wholesale during their Customer Appreciation week. I didn’t expect to be met with so much of myself.
As a premier wholesaler, Mayesh is known to cater to exceptional talent. The competition was defined by obstacles, like being blind folded and under a time crunch. Somewhere in the middle of it, doubt surfaced—quiet, but persistent. A question of whether I belonged there at all.
The strong emotions caught me off guard. How quickly admiration could turn into comparison. How easily I could lose my footing in a space meant for fun and playful expression. While Poppy remained light on her feet and unfazed, I was completely shaken. We talked about it a bit and moved on to the next job. I let all those feelings that came up settle without trying to fix it.
Then I came back to one simple decision — to stand behind our work and vote for our submission. Because if I can’t choose that, no outcome, no recognition, no external validation will ever be enough.
Battle of the Blooms 2025
Fast forward a year, Battle of the Blooms came around again. I put my name in the hat without overthinking it and was selected. The conditions hadn’t changed — the same pressure, the same level of talent, the same expectations — but I had.
I entered with a different orientation. I was less concerned with how my work would be received and more grounded in the fact that it was mine to create. The doubt didn’t disappear, but it softened. It lost its authority. There’s a difference between being in the room and allowing yourself to take up space within it.
What I’ve come to understand over the last two years of this SILLY competition (I cannot stress this enough) is that discomfort has its place. Not as a signal to retreat, but as an invitation to expand. Growth, in my experience, is rarely loud. It’s quieter than that. More deliberate. Like something taking root beneath the surface, long before it’s visible. A process running in the background. We are all tasked with the work is to stay with it; to not pull away too soon. In doing so, we allow it to shape us into something more assured, more resolved.
So now, when I find myself in situations that feel scary, I pay attention. Not to measure myself against what’s around me,
but to stay connected to the place I’m in, to the people around me, and to myself.
Because that’s where the work begins and where it holds. It also happens to be the whole point of June Street afterall.
Battle of the Blooms 2026
My competitors & me celebrating finishing the race to the finish! Left, Michelle Lane, Something’s Blooming & Middle, Inessa Nichols, Inessa Nichols Design
