La Musa de las Flores

Mexican floral and garden designer Gabriela Salazar ‘La Musa de las Flores’ began designing with flowers that mesmerized her while studying interior architecture in London. In her final dissertation, she became interested in the way humans coexist and relate with the space they inhabit, and how plants have the power to transform these spaces and make them feel like home. Gabriela sought the varieties that captivated her in London, yet she could not find them when she moved back to Mexico City. That is when she moved to Valle Bravo to be surrounded by the landscape and to grow her inspirational garden.

There is a type of intimacy that comes from gardening, which creates a special bond with the environment. This connection can also be influenced by the location. For Gabriela, living in Valle Bravo is a way of life that has changed everything in her routine.“My garden is the most important part of everything I do. More than anything I can do with flowers, is grow them. This has a lot to do with the fact that it is a way of life, I don’t live in the city and then go to my garden. I live here, plants grow with me, they have their life cycle with me and this gives me the opportunity to have a much more intimate relationship with them”, explains Gabriela.

Landscaping has a beautiful way to guide us and teach us if we only learned how to listen and create a dialogue in an organic way. “I like how our relationship with nature can be extremely kind and shared and that it is always looking to give. So I think that is the power of gardens” she says. 

Gabriela translates that relationship into the way she effortlessly designs her arrangements. She works and experiments with colors and textures while she takes a respectful approach towards her floral designs. This allows her to have a deep connection with the different varieties such as geraniums, gardenias, lilies and roses, and see the beauty in each of them. “The connection you have with plants and the understanding of the cycles of life is what changes your perspective of design”. 

Letting herself be guided by the circle of life, Gabriela has transformed her career and passed on her knowledge by founding ‘Heartfelt Floristry’, where she currently helps other people care for flowers. “This is not a school where I am teaching steps to follow, but it is precisely this intimate relationship with nature, this intimate relationship with flowers that is born from genuinely loving them, which means that in the end the language of each person is different and that each one of the people who comes here to study can find their own voice and can express themselves through plants, which is something very personal” she explains.

Coexisting with nature and nourishing it while at the same time transforming it into art. Creating a dialogue in which both parts are allowed to speak and both listen. This is precisely the work carried out by Gabriela ‘La Musa de las Flores’, where a new floral language is made and understood by both the garden and the person that nurtures it.