Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- For a party thrown by French billionaire Francois Pinault last year, Belgian flower designer Daniel Ost created six-foot-tall cypress trees as centerpieces for some 100 tables.

During the celebration of the opening of Palazzo Grassi, Pinault's contemporary art space in Venice, the trees ascended from the tables and hovered a few feet above the heads of the guests. Ost, 52, still won't reveal how he got the trees to float in mid-air.

``There was a special technique of hanging them but I don't like to expose these secrets,'' he said in a recent interview at his home in Sint-Niklaas, a town near Antwerp. ``When you understand it technically, part of the magic is gone.''

The trees were made from real leaves and so many baby's breath flowers that ``I don't want to remember because it was terrifying,'' he said. ``The total world market of baby's breaths was disturbed.''

Ost spends a lot of time creating fairytale settings for the ultra-rich using natural materials: leaves, flowers, berries, fruit, branches and petals. His clients have included Belgian royals, diamond-trading Indian families and Arab sheiks.

In 1999, Ost was the head florist for the wedding of Belgian Crown Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde. The Saint Michel cathedral in Brussels, where the ceremony took place, was spruced up with 17 tons of white, gray and green flowers and leaves.

Huge Challenge

On other occasions, he produced enough flower garlands to conceal nearly two miles of rusty archways or cover entire ponds or horse racing tracks with millions of rose petals. Each event required hundreds of assistants working around the clock.

``When you arrive in Mumbai or Abu Dhabi, it's a different story than being in your backyard in Belgium,'' Ost said. ``It's sometimes a huge challenge.''

For Pinault's floating trees, 150 people worked in cold rooms in Belgium. The centerpieces were later transported to Venice in refrigerated trucks and then by boat.

Ost began his career more than 25 years ago. His style embraces both Baroque exuberance and Zen minimalism. His philosophy is shaped as much by 17th century Flemish and Dutch paintings as by the Japanese tea ceremony.

Asians ``work mainly with the soul and the spirit of a flower while we, as Western designers, merely work with the body of the flower,'' he said.

Reading Flowers

The masters of Japanese traditional flower art use flowers to communicate, he added. ``They can really read a flower arrangement and get to know the meaning of it,'' he said.

The Japanese way taught him new approaches to flower arranging. ``Sometimes you can say much more with one flower than with 10,000 flowers,'' he said.

He added that he never does the same thing twice; partly because he feels it's artistically boring and also because many of his customers know one another -- and therefore are familiar with his work, he said.

``Many times they marry in the same circle, so if I make twice the same wedding they would say, `doesn't he have any ideas anymore?''' he said.

Bloomberg TV's Muse program aired an interview with Ost in its latest ``Focus on Design'' segment. To view it, go to http://www.bloomberg.com/news/muse.

To contact the reporter of this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 28, 2007 00:09 EST