90 free Flower Arranging trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This flower arrangement trivia quiz is about the craft of putting flowers together, not the botany of the blooms themselves: ikebana and its schools, Western floral design and its seven principles, bouquets, wreaths, garlands, leis, corsages and boutonnières, the Victorian language of flowers, the great flower shows and auctions, and the florists who dressed royal weddings and coronations. The easy questions are ones most people know: what a bride does with her bouquet, which side a boutonnière goes on, and which national holiday brings a lei. From there it gets deeper: Ikenobō and the Rokkaku-dō, the kenzan pin frog, moribana and nageire, Sōfū Teshigahara's Sōgetsu credo, Constance Spry's hedgerow windows and coronation flowers, Shane Connolly's myrtle in Kate Middleton's bouquet, the Mercury Man of FTD and Interflora, the Aalsmeer auction hall, Chelsea and Philadelphia flower shows, the Advent wreath's cart-wheel origins, oshibana pressed-flower art and the Edinburgh floral clock. If you want the flowers themselves, our Flower Trivia quiz covers roses, tulips and the rest. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the schools, people, events and customs named before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 90 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many principles of design are floral arrangements said to incorporate?
Seven
They sit alongside five elements of design.
Q 02In floral design, what is the term for the first thing that attracts the viewer's eye?
Focal point
Rhythm, balance and scale are among the other principles.
Q 03Which ancient people were among the first to place lotus flowers and buds in vases, some 4,000 years ago?
Egyptians
Lotus and papyrus were sacred to the goddess Isis.
Q 04Ikebana's three main line placements correspond to heaven, earth and what?
Humans
The painter Sōami is credited with the idea.
Q 05The oldest known book on flower arranging is from which country and year?
Japan, 1445
Ikebana has influenced Western arranging since the late 19th century.
Q 06What is the alternative name for ikebana, meaning 'way of flowers'?
Kadō
Chadō is the tea ceremony and kōdō incense appreciation.
Q 07Ikebana is one of Japan's three classical arts of refinement, with tea ceremony and what?
Incense appreciation
Kōdō is the incense art.
Q 08In a traditional Japanese home, ikebana arrangements were placed in which alcove?
Tokonoma
Scroll pictures were also displayed there.
Q 09Which shōgun, patron of tea ceremony and ikebana, abdicated to devote himself to the arts?
Ashikaga Yoshimasa
He was the eighth Ashikaga shōgun.
Q 10Which is the oldest and largest school of ikebana?
Ikenobō
It is based at the Rokkaku-dō temple in Kyoto.
Q 11The oldest school of ikebana is based at which Kyoto temple?
Rokkaku-dō
The name Rokkaku refers to the temple's hexagonal shape.
Q 12The name of ikebana's oldest school combines the word for a pond with the word for what?
A small hut for priests
Prince Shōtoku bathed in the pond while seeking a temple site.
Q 13What does the ikebana term rikka mean?
Standing flowers
It grew from Buddhist offerings placed upright in vases.
Q 14In rikka arrangements, what do pine branches symbolise?
Q 21The Ohara school was the first to award ikebana teaching certificates to whom?
Women
Founder's son Koun also moved from individual lessons to group classes.
Q 22What is the practical purpose of floral foam?
Fixing stems for storage and delivery
It is non-biodegradable and toxic to humans and animals.
Q 23Which guild ran the Paris flower trade from 1677 to 1791?
Maîtresses bouquetières
They sold their flowers as street vendors.
Flower auctions use which pricing system?
Endurance and eternity
Yellow chrysanthemums symbolise life.
Q 15Nageire, an informal ikebana style, takes its name from a word meaning what?
Thrown in
Legend says a bored samurai threw plants into a tall vase.
Q 16Which ikebana founder introduced the moribana style around 1890?
Ohara Unshin
It reflected Western influence after the Meiji Restoration.
Q 17What kind of container does a proper moribana design use?
A flat, shallow one
The suiban lets materials spread sideways.
Q 18The kenzan, or pin frog, literally means what in Japanese?
Sword mountain
It is a heavy plate, usually lead, with brass needles.
Q 19Which ikebana school was founded by Sōfū Teshigahara in 1927?
Sōgetsu
His credo: it can be done by anyone, anywhere, anytime with any material.
Q 20Sōfū Teshigahara's daughter was succeeded as Sōgetsu head by her brother Hiroshi, better known as what?
A film director
Hiroshi Teshigahara directed Woman in the Dunes.
Dutch clock
Prices start high and fall until a buyer stops the clock.
Q 25The world's largest flower auction is in which Dutch town?
Aalsmeer
Its building is the largest in Europe by floor area.
Q 26The world's biggest flower auction hall ranks where among all buildings by floor area?
Ninth
It covers about 999,000 square metres.
Q 27London's Columbia Road Flower Market opens on which day only?
Sunday
Angela Burdett-Coutts founded Columbia Market in 1869.
Q 28FTD was founded in 1910 as Florists' Telegraph Delivery in which city?
Rochester, New York
Thirteen florists met at the Seneca Hotel.
Q 29FTD's Mercury Man logo, adopted in 1914, is based on a sculpture by whom?
Giambologna
Mercury symbolises speed of delivery.
Q 30In what year did the UK arm of FTD change its name to Interflora?
1953
Its slogan 'Say it with Flowers' followed.