I had heard about Pico from several vendors who thought of him not only as a wonderful flower designer but also as a wonderful person. Easy to work with and calm, he doesn’t mind adding more bouquets or centerpieces at the last minute. It is no wonder that customers and peers love to work with him. Pico’s first contact with flowers was in 1987 when he worked in a friend’s flower shop. After just three months, he became a designer, but a year later he left to pursue other careers. It was not until 1994 that he started working with flowers again. This time he was hooked. He enrolled in the horticulture program at the College of San Mateo and received his certificate three years later. To get even more experience, he worked for several famous floral designers in our area. Now he is a successful flower designer himself whose business grew over 300 percent last year. Just recently, he won first prize in a floral design competition at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, and he placed second in a wedding bouquet competition for the Mount Eden Cup. His work earned great reviews at the annual Filoli Spring Show. Yet his greatest success was the invitation to the yearly fund-raising event "Bouquets To Art" at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Other florists have told me how long the event’s waiting list is and how hard it is to be invited.

When I finally met Pico for the interview, he was working on the centerpieces for a same-day reception for a foreign dignitary. The large frosted glass cylinders of a hurricane lamp were surrounded by impeccable flowers: white Casablanca lilies, pale yellow stock, and Ecuadorian roses, purplish veronica, and purple hydrangeas. They were designed to fit the purple table runners. The same flowers were used to match the host’s large silver containers displayed on the buffet and to enhance the 6" green candles on the head table. "You have to love this job with all your heart," he told me. "Otherwise you would not go to the flower market at four o’clock in the morning. There is also so much gratification that makes it all worthwhile. Last weekend a teary-eyed bride, overcome with emotions when she saw the flowers at the reception, looked at me and said, 'Thank you, Pico!’ What can be better?"