Sophia Moreno-Bunge is the owner of Isa Isa, a floral design studio known for using branches, pods, and fruits alongside local, foraged flowers. Moreno-Bunge works seasonally. Most recently, she has been piling fruits into topiaries using pomegranates, honeynut squash, and persimmons. Starting with a styrofoam cone, she stakes various fruits or strings them to bendable wires as she constructs her designs.
Snake gourds, unripened persimmons, citrus on the branch, tomato vines, and olive branches fit into many settings. Photo by Sophia Moreno Bunge.
Cucamelons on the vine, snake gourds, apples on the branch and palms form another arrangement that explores a green palette. Photo by Sophia Moreno Bunge.
Persimmon branches with fruit still attached make for taller arrangements. Unripened citrus, which tends to remain attached to branches, is ideal for a California-style wreath to ornament your door. At the Santa Monica Farmers Market, Bunge frequents Weiser Family Farms and Murray Family Farms, where she found tiny black dates from a palm tree to incorporate into an arrangement.
This arrangement features chestnuts on the branch, guaje beans, roses, dates and palm inflorescences. Photo by Sophia Moreno Bunge.