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Some people view tropical flowers like insects or tiny animals. With brightly coloured and oddly shaped plants, people are reluctant to work with them in contemporary environments of glass and steel. To learn various techniques in order to make tropical flowers fit into modern settings, Tropical Flowers is a good starter.

TROPICAL FLOWERS By Eileen W. Johnson Photographer: Adrian Mueller Floral designs: Felipe Sastre Pages: 136 ISBN 978-1-4236-2420-2 Available at Asia Books

Author Eileen Johnson has worked hand in hand with floral designer Felipe Sastre who allows her to put his vision of tropical flowers into a book. Sastre has been teaching at Flower School New York and has been a florist for more than 20 years. He has done flowers for former US president Bill Clinton and for large venues such as the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City and the Plaza Hotel.

Divided into eight chapters, Tropical Flowers offers the beauty of different kinds of tropical flora as well as their continuing ability to be adapted to the modern environment that we live in - whether used in a Manhattan penthouse, a bouquet for a bride or as fireplace decor. Readers will also learn how to use elephant ears as place mats or how to make a minimalist look with ginger or Anthurium. By the time you reach the end of the book, you will be blessed with the vibrant colours of the tropics and the varying greens.

Step-by-step instructions coupled with accompanying pictures help readers take the mystery out of how to work with tropical flowers, and as a result they can easily learn to create some of the floral arrangements and make their own works of art with these beautiful blooms.

The fireplace mantel has a base of boxwood and then is ornamented by tropical plants including sea grapes, James Story orchids and fish tail palm.

Elephant ears and fish tail palms against a rubber tree create drama in a corner of the dining room.

The simplest arrangement of 30 stems of Dendrobium orchids in a mason jar are quite striking. These yellow ones have been hybridised. They require very little skill to arrange and are inexpensive and long lasting.

The front of our bride is decorated with a lei made of orchids. Leis can be purchased at a wholesale florist or made by stringing Dendrobium orchids together with thin wires.

The bride’s hair is adorned with Phalaenopsis orchids.

A small tropical plant inside a house, such as this kumquat, would enliven the bleakest of winters.

These orchids are grown commercially in a heated greenhouse on eastern Long Island. Row upon row grow underneath artificial lighting that mimics their tropical habitats.