This morning, music and colour filled Pjazza San Ġorġ. Performances by Recycled Percussions were heard throughout the Square and its surrounding areas, while the colourful infiorata dominated centre stage – giving the Square a lively jovial atmosphere on this sunny Saturday morning.

I met Daniel Mercieca, the creator of the infiorata’s design, in front of the Grandmaster’s Palace for a quick chat to hear his thoughts on the finished product. “It turned out better than I expected. We were limited with colours. Initially, there were lots of changes to colours – like orange and yellow that we had to do without because of the season.”

A designer’s work on such a public project is vital. Mercieca had to coordinate with ELC as it was growing and providing the flowers for the installation. He also had to construct a design. The challenging bit here was in the execution of the design, given the medium being used – flowers. Creating a design out of potted plants is anything but easy.  “It’s not a common job you come across. Besides coming up with the primary design, you have to see what works.”

For the design, Mercieca was inspired by the spirals found in the Megalithic temples. “The idea was to use something that wasn’t cliché. I wanted to use something Maltese but which hasn’t been overused, so a lot of thought went into it.” Other inspirations for the piece were crop circles, as well as the environment itself. To really zoon in on the environmental factor, recycled mulch was used in the design.

In the end, all his hard work has paid off and he’s quite happy with how the general public reacted to the infiorata. “I’ve read comments in the papers and I was surprised by all the positive feedback,” he says with a smile.