The best thing about having your own flower garden is having fresh bouquets on all your tables and window sills. Imagine the beautiful bouquet of colorful, lavish flowers like Gerberas, Carnations, Gerberas, Gladiolus, Lilliums, Chrysanthemum on the coffee table in your living room. There is nothing more appealing than the soft fragrance of fresh cut flowers lingering in the air. But you don’t want wilting, icky bouquets. You want your fresh flowers to last as long as possible.
Fresh flowers can brighten up someone’s day, convey a meaningful message, decorate a special occasion, divert us from sorrow. There are some tips how to decorate fresh cut flowers from your garden and place them into interior living space.
1) In a clean vase, take your greens first, snip the ends off to the size you want and then start criss crossing the stems into the vase so that you have stems all around inside the vase. There are two reasons for this. One is because you now have a base for the flower arrangement and two; a criss cross of stems makes it easier for flower placement.
2) If you are making a small, low arrangement, slide in the flowers in a criss cross so that the stems are all around the inside of the vase. You should now have a vase with a ring of flowers on the outside and nothing but stems showing in the middle. (The more stems you have in the vase, the easier it will be to have flowers stay put!) The rows of flowers are going to be higher each time you get them in until you have a nice rounded arrangement.
3) If you are making a tall arrangement, then use a tall slim vase. Your flowers will hold up better and the arrangement will look well proportioned. Great flowers to use are gladiolas, blue delphinium, lilies, snapdragons etc. Sometimes you can get tall tulips and that looks fantastic too.
4) A design mistake you have often seen is placing the flowers in a vase perfectly even. The reason this does not work is because it looks unnatural. Have a look at any garden and you will see some of the blooms are sticking out, some are tucked in; some are almost hidden but still contribute to the overall look. Mimic nature and you won’t go wrong! Don’t be afraid to tuck some of those flowers in a bit.
5) A good rule of thumb is to use odd numbers of flowers. What we mean by that is to use 3 roses together or 5. Even numbers are not as effective. If you use 5 roses for example, Place 3 together (touching but at slightly different lengths) near the bottom center of the vase and then two more higher up.
6) The next best advice we can give you if you are really new at floral design, is to collect pictures of floral arrangements you like and with the tips I’ve stated above, practice while looking at the pictures. Before long, you’ll be looking like a pro! Send us a picture of your fresh cut flower arrangement – we’d love to see it!
If you’re looking for some more information here’s some tips from florists.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2011 and has been updated.