This Rogue Florist Is Basically The Banksy Of Flower Arranging

The artist, Lewis Miller, is a floral designer for weddings and parties, but started putting his "Flower Flashes" — many of them in trash can "vases" — around the city a few months ago.

“Gifting flowers to New Yorkers is a simple idea that I have been thinking about for years,” Lewis told Vogue. “I am in the business of fantasy and flowers, and it’s my job to transform key moments in my clients’ lives into joyful, everlasting memories. I wanted to recreate a similar feeling for the everyday city-dwellers and tourists of New York City.”

"Our call time for these flashes is 5:45 a.m., and we try to finish them before sunrise," he said. "We always recycle flowers from events when possible.”

Though they don't announce where the next pop-up will be, they do mark each one with "LMD x NYC" in chalk spray paint.

"It’s our way of saying #LMDWasHere," Miller said.

"We got to see how our idea translated in real time with hundreds of selfies and photographs documenting the flowers throughout the course of the day," he said.

"It was really cool to see how people changed and altered the installation, sometimes by rearranging the flowers, other times by simply taking them!”

“These flashes are so gratifying and rewarding on many levels," he told Vogue. "There is something sort of ‘Banksy-esque’ about what we do, which is fun and exciting!”

"If we can bring nature — something wild and sumptuous — to New Yorkers and make them smile, the way people smile when they witness a random act of kindness, then that is a great thing," he said.

"That is my goal. It’s a really simple vision but powerful, I think, to try to create an emotional response through flowers.”