Aspirin...you must be having a bad hair day!...all those negative waves!!!
Agreed, some businesses go under and some businesses thrive, whilst yet others simply stand still. Such is the circle of life/society/capitalism or whatever you like to call it. So why didn't Columbus mothball the Santa Maria and go fishing?

Yes, it is tough on the high street. It's not for the fainthearted or the over-cautious. But there is definitely a living to be made. Yes the supermarkets are selling more flowers than ever, but they don't provide the service that a lot of people are looking for. Yes you can forget about selling a load of cheap bunches as impulse buys but do you really want to do that? I still sell a lot of cut flower (as seen) because there are so many varieties you just can't buy in a supermarket. Can you walk into Tesco and buy a dozen 80cm Grand Prix on any day of the year? Can you buy a bunch of bouvardia, a bunch of Pompeii lilies, a bunch of baby blue, a bunch of bear grass, etc, etc. If you want to take the wife home a nice bunch that hasn't got 'supermarket' or 'garage' printed all over it and you want to spend upwards of twenty quid, where do you go. Most of my flower goes out as hant tieds around the £25 mark but i also do 10-15 and fifty quid plus quite often. It doesn't take much to make something look special and you can always tailor it to look exactly how the customer wants it. The supermarkets cannot do that (for now at least). But it doesn't stop there. I do the weddings, the funerals, the functions etc and i sell just about anything that is linked to floristry. It all pays the rent and enables me to carry enough stock to be able to do anything i want at any time. It is hard graft, it's mind boggling at times and you have to be on your toes. Some days i just want to stop the world and get off.

I don't try and pretend to be something i'm not. I haven't been to floristry school. I haven't got any certificates. Everything i know and do, i've taught myself. I cannot think of anything i wouldn't have a go at. I can't recall saying to a customer "i can't do that". To me everything is a challenge. If i need to lose money or time on something just to prove i can do it, then i will.
It's a pride thing. I don't get complaints about my work because i won't send it out if i'm not happy with it. I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm red/green colour blind. But that hasn't stopped me. I cope with it. If i need to ask, I do.

So..Newbee..what you're telling me is that you want to do this because you want to work with flowers. That is a good starting point. If you were doing it for the money, i would have to say forget it. Not because you wouldn't make any money. Quite the opposite. If you do something out of a love for it and do it well, the money will come in without you having to think about it too much.
That's not to say you can ignore profit and loss. You need to be on the ball. If you have some good people behind you that you can turn to for advice, all the better.

I know people who have had twenty years experience. I also know people that have had one years experience...twenty times. Make of that what you will.

My advice is to follow your heart, follow your dreams. You only live once.