TRANSFORMATIVE BEAUTY: BEN FUTA & MONTREAL-BASED DESIGNER, MARC SARDI
- Jennifer Jewell
- Jun 5
- 7 min read
To welcome the fullness of June, this week on Cultivating Place, Guest host Ben Futa is back and in conversation with Marc Sardi, a Montreal-Based scientist-turned-floral artist who has reinvented his relationship with the natural world, and himself, along with changing careers.
It’s a beautiful conversation exploring how rediscovering our most authentic relationship with plants also allows us to know ourselves, and our world, better. It’s lush, it’s life-affirming, and it’s grounding - in all the best ways.
Marc is a floral designer based in Montreal, Canada, who focuses on using seasonal and local materials to share his passion for beauty and nature. A trained wildlife biologist and horticulturist who has worked for over 20 years in the environmental field, he started his career doing wildlife surveys,
specializing in songbird censuses that required him to learn and remember hundreds of bird songs and calls. He then developed a passion for teaching and
sharing knowledge through his experience as a scientific educator at the
His academic and professional paths helped him to develop a strong passion for wildlife conservation in cities, urban gardening, and education, leading Marc to become an expert in urban biodiversity. He ultimately worked for a number of non-profit organizations involved in urban greening, public awareness, and wildlife conservation.
Especially passionate about positively changing citizen opinion and
behavior with regards to Nature in cities, Marc became a passionate public speaker about pollinators, native plants, threatened bird species, and gardening for wildlife.
In 2017, Marc decided it was time to pursue another of his dreams: filling his life with flowers. He launched a small floral design enterprise and has since developed an expertise in sustainable floristry.
His floral compositions are inspired by Nature and by the interactions between
the species that inhabit and animate Nature. His inspiration also comes from paintings of the European Golden Age, which he likes to simulate by taking dramatic photographs of his arrangements. His ingredients are seasonal products sourced from local farms, from his garden, and from foraging responsibly in the wild.
All plant residues generated by his craft are composted, and great care is awarded in choosing reusable, biodegradable and sustainable vessels and mechanics. All designs by Marc are free of floral foam.
From Ben: My conversation with Marc has me thinking a lot about childhood – how our formative years are some of the most authentic and honest depictions of who we actually are as a person. Marc and I both grew up outside, tinkering in the soil and surrounded by nature, spaces that invited us to explore, imagine, and build a relationship with the natural world.
For both of us, we ended up starting our careers in organizations and institutions we thought shared our values and spoke to who we are, but ultimately, weren’t a good fit. From toxic culture to burnout and competition, these places seem to embody the exact opposite of what a life connected to and working with plants should embody.
Changing careers, especially in the direction of creative entrepreneurship, is one of the most exhilarating and frightening adventures one can undertake. It requires you to take a good, hard look at yourself and answer tough questions like how you want to exist and show up in this world each and every day, what you want to create and share, and how you’ll find meaning, cultivate peace and balance – and make a living – at the same time. I’m still figuring it out.
A friend recently shared this quote from Yumi Sakugawa, which a little on the nose in this moment.
“Art is sometimes creating for yourself the medicine you seek,
which in turn becomes the medicine you offer to the world in
creating it, then sharing it.”
No matter where this finds you today, what stage of life and growth you may be in, and no matter the season: I hope you’ll find the bravery and courage to grow a life that best suits you, especially one that’s filled with flowers.
I’m so pleased to welcome Marc to Cultivating Place.
Follow Marc Online:
And on Instagram:
All Photos courtesy of Marc Sardi, all rights reserved. FIRST bio Image of Marc by Christophe Roberge, all rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, when we prepare for National Pollinator week June 16 - 22, 2025 in conversation with Joyce Kennedy and Emily KenCairn of Colorado's People & Pollinators Action Network. In Colorado, the entirety of June is Pollinator Month and PPAN is ready... That's right here, next week. Listen in!
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey, it's Ben—
I’m realizing my own story is similar to Marc’s early career. I spent the first decade of my professional life enmeshed in public gardens: living museums and repositories of our natural and cultural commonwealth.
In the beginning, I was fully on-board and committed to the profession, doing whatever needed to be done, wearing just about every hat, and trying on every role. Over time, I moved further and further away from the part of the work that brought the most joy and fulfillment: cultivating something beautiful to
share with someone else.
I was spending more time in meetings, writing emails, and staring at screens than digging in the soil and sharing plants with people, and in 2020, it was time to make a change. After a decade doing this work, the institutions I had at one time come to love and revere now felt stodgy, unfriendly, and stuck. They
didn’t feel like home anymore, even though I still loved the idea of growing and sharing beauty with others.
I can relate to Marc’s story in that the things we loved most – spending time in, with, and around nature – especially through gardening – didn’t feel joyful or safe anymore. It takes a great deal of bravery, courage, vulnerability, and privilege to acknowledge and pivot a career.
I love how Marc approaches his creative and design process, taking inspiration and guidance from the natural world. In my own floral design – very much still in the amateur stage, I think it’s safe to say – I’m realizing I *also* sort of push back against the notion of those “dome-like” arrangements that Marc
mentioned.
I much prefer arrangements that are open and more wild, and the idea of making design decisions by imaging how other creatures exist and live within the environments we’re trying to emulate is a fascinating approach to me.
In my own gardening and floral practice, I’ve found that working with cut flowers has become a means for me to evaluate how the garden is performing overall. It’s helping me to find and fill in the gaps, and my ultimate goal is to utilize every square inch – not foot, INCH, of space, in my tiny urban
garden. I’m thinking about growing vertically, not just horizontally – not necessarily on trellises or arbors, but more so in layers – the spring ephemerals that give way to the bulbs that give way to perennials that give way to shrubs, and so on.
There’s always room for one more plant…
This pursuit of maximum density and biodiversity is both a goal and a challenge, and there’s plenty of work yet to do. Designing with cut flowers (and leaves, and twigs, and seed pods for that matter), has become a fun and meditative way for me to imagine new possibilities, test new combinations, and generally celebrate the abundance spilling forth from the garden this time of year.
It's become a new way for me to explore and discover my own garden, to become closer to the plants I’m sharing this space with, and to experience them in a new way. And, they always, always, have something to share – and I’m always hungry to learn.
Marc and I continue exploring creativity, inspiration, and the idea of work as play as we finish out this week's conversation, and I hope as you listen, you might consider how you can do the same in your own life.
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