The Governorate of Vatican City State announced March 18 that the thousands of floral arrangements for the Easter morning Mass and the pope's solemn blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city and to the world), will be repurposed after the celebrations.

Thousands of bushes, flowering trees, tulips and other flowering bulbs, which are a gift of growers in the Netherlands, will be replanted in the Vatican gardens. The plants also will be distributed to various pontifical colleges and institutions "so that they may bloom in the coming years," the governorate said.

Charles van der Voot, who has designed the Vatican Easter floral arrangements for the past 15 years, will arrange the flowers for the last time in 2016, the Vatican said. He will be succeeded by another Dutch florist, Paul Deckers, who has assisted van der Voot.

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