Quick answer: a floral skateboard deck is a deck printed with flowers or botanical art and hung on the wall like a painting. My floral range runs from Dutch flower paintings (Ruysch, de Heem) to Japanese blossom and minimalist botanical patterns. Decks are bare, the mount is sold separately, and you need one mount per deck.
Flowers and skateboards sound like an odd pair until you hang one on a wall. The deck is long, narrow and vertical, which is exactly the shape flowers like to grow in, and the maple gives the print a warm, solid base that paper never has. A floral skateboard deck is one of the easiest ways to bring a plant-like softness into a room without a vase, a canvas or a frame.
I hand-print every DeckArts deck myself in Berlin, on 7-ply Canadian maple pressed in Butzbach, Germany. This guide covers what is out there: Dutch flower paintings, Japanese blossom, minimalist botanical patterns, how to pick one for your room, and how to hang it.
What is a floral skateboard deck?
A floral skateboard deck is a deck printed with flowers or botanical motifs and made to be displayed as wall art, not ridden. In practice the designs fall into four families:
- Classical flower paintings. Dutch Golden Age still lifes: dense, dark-background bouquets in the style of Rachel Ruysch and Jan Davidsz. de Heem.
- Japanese blossom. Cherry blossom and other seasonal flowers in the ukiyo-e tradition.
- Botanical and pattern designs. Repeating flowers and leaves, scientific-illustration style plants, calm and graphic.
- Contemporary florals. Pop-art portraits, floral lettering and playful twists on the genre.
You can browse all of them in the botanical and floral skateboard wall art collection.
Classical flower paintings on a deck
Dutch flower painting is the genre that most people picture when they think "old master flowers", and it works unusually well on a deck.
Rachel Ruysch: Still-Life with Flowers
Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) was a Dutch still-life painter who specialised in flowers and became internationally famous in her own lifetime. Her dated works show that she painted from the age of 15 until she was 83. Her bouquets are known for twisting stems, drooping blossoms and diagonals, which gives them movement instead of the stiff symmetry of earlier flower pieces. In 2021 the Rijksmuseum added her work to its Gallery of Honour, one of the first three women included. A deck suits this kind of composition because the eye travels up the height of the bouquet the way it would in the painting. See the Ruysch deck.
Jan Davidsz. de Heem: Baroque floral triptych
Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606–1684) worked in Utrecht and Antwerp and is a major name in both Dutch and Flemish Baroque still life, best known for sumptuous, ornate compositions. Spread over three decks, his flowers become a wall-sized piece, about 70 × 85 cm when hung side by side. It is the one I recommend if you want a floral piece that fills a wall above a sofa or sideboard. See the De Heem triptych.
A small fact about these bouquets
Dutch flower paintings are, in a sense, impossible. According to the history of the genre, blooms from very different seasons were routinely included in the same composition, painted from separate studies, and bouquets in vases were not actually common in houses at the time. So when you hang one of these, you are looking at a painted fantasy of a perfect bouquet, one that never existed in a real vase. Dutch Golden Age painting covers the background.
Floral Bloom: a bold, single-deck flower design
If you want the look of Dutch flower painting at the smallest scale, Floral Bloom is a botanical design in that tradition: densely layered with saturated colour across the whole height of the deck. One deck is enough on a narrow wall, in a hallway, or as the first piece of a growing group. See Floral Bloom.
Japanese blossom: the Sakura Bloom diptych
Cherry blossom has been central to Japanese art for centuries. The custom of hanami, "flower viewing", is still part of spring in Japan, and the blossoms last only a week or two, which is why they became a symbol of how short beauty can be. The Sakura Bloom diptych brings that idea into a two-deck composition of about 45 × 85 cm. It is calmer than the Dutch pieces and works well in bedrooms and quiet corners. See the Sakura Bloom diptych.
Minimalist botanical: when you want less
Not everyone wants a painted bouquet. The Minimalist Floral Pattern deck is flowers and leaves in a repeating composition reduced to simple shapes. It is the easiest floral deck to place in a modern room, because it reads as a pattern first and a flower second. See the minimalist floral deck.
How to choose a floral skateboard deck
Ask three questions before you pick:
- How much wall do you have? A narrow wall takes a single deck. A wide wall above a sofa takes a triptych. A diptych sits in between. My decks are about 85 × 20 cm, so a vertical set of three with small gaps is roughly 70 cm wide.
- What is the mood of the room? Dark, rich Dutch bouquets suit warm wood, deep colours and traditional furniture. Blossom and minimalist patterns suit light, calm rooms.
- Single, pair or set? A single deck is an accent. A set is a centrepiece. If you are unsure, start with one deck and add more later. I explain how sets work in my guide to skateboard wall art sets.
Where floral decks work best
- Above a sofa or sideboard: a floral triptych, kept a little narrower than the furniture below it.
- Bedroom: blossom or minimalist botanical, hung vertically beside the bed or horizontally above the headboard.
- Hallway or entrance: a single tall deck. The vertical shape suits narrow walls.
- Dining room or kitchen: a Dutch still life, which brings a classic painting subject into a room where people sit and talk.
- Next to real plants: a floral deck beside a houseplant looks intentional, not decorative overkill.
A practical point on light: keep any print out of long, direct sun, and avoid hanging it where window glare lands on the surface. Soft side light shows the colour best.
How to hang a floral deck: the mount is separate
My decks are bare wall art. There is nothing on the back and they do not come ready to hang, so the wall mount is sold separately. You need one mount per deck: one for a single deck, two for a diptych, three for a triptych.
For horizontal hanging I use the DeckArts horizontal wall mount. Each mount is an acrylic block (usually black, sometimes clear) with two stainless-steel threaded rods that pass through the deck's truck holes, so the deck sits just off the wall with a clean, floating look. It fits the standard 41 mm truck-hole spacing, which includes every DeckArts 85 × 20 cm deck. Each mount comes with one wall screw and one wall anchor and works on solid walls and drywall.
If you do not want to drill, the DeckArts floor stand holds decks vertically on the floor with no wall fixing, which suits renters and temporary displays. For a display you can change, the 360° rotating wall mount holds the deck by its edges with a clamp, so nothing is drilled into the deck, and it turns to hang the deck vertically, horizontally or at an angle. Horizontal or vertical? I compare both in How to Hang a Skateboard Horizontally or Vertically.
Floral deck or floral print? What is different
If you are comparing options, the main difference is the object itself. A poster or canvas is a flat image. A deck is a piece of maple, 85 cm tall and shaped like a skateboard, so it has an edge, a curve at each end and the grain of 7-ply wood under the colour. The print is a UV print on the wood, and it needs no glass. That matters with flowers in particular: a dark Dutch bouquet on maple looks less like a reproduction and more like an object with a presence of its own.
The other difference is the shape. Posters come in ratios made for frames. A deck is tall and narrow, so one deck takes less wall than almost any other piece of art with the same height. That is why floral decks suit hallways, bedside walls and the gaps beside windows where a normal canvas will not fit.
Colours and styling: how to make a floral deck look intentional
Flowers are the easiest subject to match, because you can borrow colours from the print. Pick one colour from the deck, such as the red of a rose or the yellow of a petal, and repeat it once or twice in the room: a cushion, a vase, a book spine. Do not repeat all of them. The deck is already busy enough.
With the dark Dutch pieces, keep the wall around them calm. Plain white, warm grey or a deep green all work, and the bouquet does the talking. With the minimalist botanical deck you have more freedom, and it sits happily in a mixed gallery wall next to photos or other decks. If you plan a group, my guide to creating a skateboard art gallery wall walks through spacing and layout.
One more tip: hang the centre of the deck around eye level, and keep the gaps between decks in a triptych equal. Equal gaps make three separate decks read as one picture.
Floral decks as gifts
A floral deck is a good gift for someone who likes plants, flowers or art more than skateboarding. It is also a safe choice for a housewarming, since it does not take much space. Because the mount is sold separately and the deck arrives bare, check how the person plans to display it, and add the right number of mounts: one per deck. If you are unsure, a single deck plus one horizontal mount is a complete present.
Caring for a floral deck
A printed deck is wall art, so treat it like art. Dust it with a dry, soft cloth and avoid harsh cleaners on the print. As a general rule for any print, keep it away from radiators, steam and long direct sun. If you would rather keep a deck behind glass, read my guide to the skateboard frame.
Frequently asked questions
What is a floral skateboard deck?
A skateboard deck printed with flowers or botanical designs, made for display on a wall as art.
Can I hang a floral skateboard deck on the wall?
Yes. The decks come bare, so you need a mount, sold separately. Use one mount per deck.
Which floral deck suits a small room?
A single deck, such as Floral Bloom or the minimalist floral pattern. The vertical shape needs very little width.
Are floral decks a good gift?
They suit people who like plants, art or interiors. Choose one deck for a modest gift or a diptych or triptych for a larger one, and remember the mount is sold separately.
Where are DeckArts decks made?
I hand-print every deck myself in Berlin, on 7-ply Canadian maple pressed in Butzbach, Germany. Everything ships from Berlin.
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